What I Say: Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America is the second book in a landmark two-volume anthology that explodes narrow definitions of African American poetry by examining experimental poems often excluded from previous scholarship. The first volume, Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone, covers the period from the end of World War II to the mid-1970s. In What I Say, editors Aldon Lynn Nielsen and Lauri Ramey have assembled a comprehensive and dynamic collection ...

r.h. Sin's final volume in the Whiskey, Words, and a Shovel series expands on the passion and vigor of his first two installments. His stanzas inspire strength through the raw, emotional energy and the vulnerability of his poems. Relationships, love, pain, and fortitude are powerfully rendered in his poetry, and his message of perseverance in the face of emotional turmoil cuts to the heart of modern-day life. At roughly 300 pages, this culminating volume will be his lengthiest yet.

Perfect for Mother’s Day, or for any day on which we wish to acknowledge this all-important bond, Mother is an awe-inspiring affirmation of the enduring love that exists in every corner of the globe.With her signature eloquence and heartfelt appreciation, renowned poet and national treasure Maya Angelou celebrates the first woman we ever knew: Mother. “You were always the heart of happiness to me,” she acknowledges in this loving tribute, “Bringing nougats...

The poetry of Nikki Giovanni has spurred social justice movements and inspired songs, turned hearts and informed generations about the reality of life—especially Black life—in America. One of the foremost voices in African American literature and a celebrated activist of her generation, she has been hailed as a healer and a sage, a powerful voice on issues of race, equality, violence, and discrimination.With Chasing Utopia, Giovanni demands that the prosai...

Though we have encountered our share of grief and troubles on this earth, we can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat. No small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one.”- from the prefaceI was born to grow,alongside my garden of plants,poemslikethis oneSo writes Alice Walker in this new book of poems, poems composed over the course of one year in response to joy and sorrow both personal and global: the death of loved...

From Cornelius Eady, one of America's most engaging voices, comes an exciting collection of poetry that at once delineates the arc of the poet's universe and highlights the range of his considerable talents.Cornelius Eady’s poems show him in full control of his considerable talents and displaying a rich maturity as he enters midlife. His poems are sly, unsentimental, and witty, full of truths that are intimate and profound.Hardheaded Weather ranges...

This volume brings together all of Kenneth Rexroth’s shorter poems from 1920 to the present, including a group of new poems written since the publication of Natural Numbers, drawn from seven earlier books.This volume brings together all of Kenneth Rexroth’s shorter poems from 1920 to the present, including a group of new poems written since the publication of Natural Numbers, drawn from seven earlier books. Among the American poets of the generation that came to pr...

Renowned African-American poet Sonia Sanchez explores the pain, self-doubt, and anger that emerge in women's lives: an unfaithful life partner, a brutal rape, the murder of a woman by her granddaughter, the ravages of drugs. Sanchez transforms the unspoken and sometimes violent betrayals of our lives into a liberating vision of connection in emotional redemption, compassion, and self-fulfillment.

The debut collection by the Poet Laureate of the United States* Winner of the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize *You are pure appetite. I am pureAppetite. You are a phantomIn that far-off city where daylightClimbs cathedral walls, stone by stolen stone.--from "Self-Portrait as the Letter Y"The Body's Question by Tracy K. Smith received the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Pr...

Personal Alarm is a collection of poems I wrote after I discovered that the music career I felt destined to have after my move to California, was not in the cards for me. My frustration needed another art-form in offering that release. I’ve always had a love for the written word in composing lyrics for my songs, so the transition felt natural and perfect for me. The more poets I discovered, the more my heart felt compelled to pursue this lyrical process of unburdening myself, in a hard and...

A whimsical and “devastatingly effective” (Washington Post) collection that captures the spirit of travel and pays homage to heritage.In his fourth collection, a breakthrough volume, Major Jackson appropriates the vernacular notion of “rolling deep” to capture the spirit of aesthetic travel that defines these forceful new poems and brazenly announces his steady accretion of literary and artistic influences, both formal and experimental—his “crew.” The conf...

National Book Award finalist Patricia Smith chronicles the Great Migration through Motown music and Chicago streets.In her newest collection, National Book Award finalist Patricia Smith explores the second wave of the Great Migration. From her parents’ move from the South to Chicago to being raised as an “up North” child under the spell of Motown music, she captures the rampant romanticism of waiting and hoping and the dogged disappointment and damage of living und...