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Book

Of poetry & protest : from Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin

Call Number

  • 811 O31 (CEN)

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Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2016]

Physical Description

219 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm

Summary

This work illuminates today's Black experience through the voices of transformative and powerful African American poets. Included in this volume are the poems of 43 African American wordsmiths, including Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Rita Dove, Natasha Tretheway, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Tracy K. Smith. Each is accompanied by a photograph of the poet along with a first-person biography. The anthology also contains personal essays on race such as "The Talk" by Jeannine Amber and works by Harry Belafonte, Amiri Baraka, and The Reverend Dr. William Barber II, architect of the Moral Mondays movement, as well as images and iconic political posters of the Black Lives Matter movement, Malcolm X, and the Black Panther Party. Taken together, Of Poetry and Protest gives voice to the current conversation about race in America while also providing historical and cultural context.

Contents

  • Opening pages, essays. Children's crusade / Preface / Introduction / Talk / Harry Belafonte / Protest poetry / Poets/Poems. Narrative: Ali, a poem in twelve rounds / Wise 5 / Emmett Till / New day / Note on my son's face / Enactment / Conspiracy / Emmett Till's glass-top casket / Superhero / Identity repairman / Left / Daytonm, OH, '50s & '60s / Voice of America / New rules of the road / Some luminous distress (for Betty Shabazz) / Fannie (for Fannie Lou Hamer) / Rose colored city / Infernal / Saltimbanque / Tallahatchiue lullabye, baby / History lessons / statement on the killing of patrick dorismond / Great wait / on continuing to struggle / 10 race koans as presented to Charles Johnson on the morning of July 13, 2008 / We are not responsible / Cells and window : after work by neogeo painter Peter Halley / I hear the shuffle of the people's feet / Poetic reflections enroute to, and during, the funeral and burial of Henry Dumas, poet, May 29, 1968 / Sweet pea / Not brought up / Elegy (for MOVE and Philadelphia) / x marks the spot / At 59 / NO WOUND OF EXIT / Duende / Such a boat of
  • Elizabeth Alexander
  • Amiri Baraka
  • Wanda Coleman
  • Kwame Dawes
  • Toi Derricotte
  • Rita Dove
  • Camille T. Dungy
  • Cornelius Eady
  • Kelly Norman Ellis
  • Thomas Sayers Ellis
  • Nikky Finney
  • C. S. Giscombe
  • Duriel E. Harris
  • Reginald Harris
  • Terrance Hayes
  • Angela Jackson
  • Major Jackson
  • Tyehimba Jess
  • Patricia Spears Jones
  • Douglas Kearney
  • Yusef Komunyakaa
  • Quraysh Ali Lansana
  • Haki Madhubuti
  • devorah major
  • E. Ethelbert Miller
  • Harryette Mullen
  • Marilyn Nelson
  • Sterling Plumpp
  • Eugene B. Redmond
  • Ishmael Reed
  • Ed Roberson
  • Sonia Sanchez
  • Evie Shockley
  • Tim Seibles
  • Patricia Smith
  • Tracy K. Smith
  • Lamont B. Steptoe
  • Natasha Trethewey
  • Quincy Troupe
  • Frank X Walker
  • Afaa M. Weaver
  • Ronaldo V. Wilson
  • Al Young.

Subjects