This is the honey : an anthology of contemporary Black poets
Edition
First edition.
Publication Information
New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2024
Physical Description
xix, 426 pages ; 25 cm
Summary
In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology, bestselling author and poet Kwame Alexander curates a collection of contemporary anthems at turns tender and piercing and deeply inspiring throughout. Featuring work from well-loved poets such as Rita Dove, Jericho Brown, Warsan Shire, Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Terrance Hayes, Morgan Parker, and Nikki Giovanni, This Is the Honey is a rich and abundant offering of language from the poets giving voice to generations of resilient joy, "Beach incantation," as Mahogany L. Browne puts it in her titular poem, is "Ba jubilee of a people dreaming wildly." This essential collection, in the tradition of Dudley Randall's The Black Poets and E. Ethelbert Miller's In Search of Color Everywhere, contains poems exploring joy, love, origin, race, resistance, and praise. Jacqueline A. Trimble likens "Black woman joy" to indigo, tassels, foxes, and peacock plumes. Tyree Daye, Nate Marshall, and Elizabeth Acevedo reflect on the meaning of "home" through food, from Cuban rice and beans to fried chicken gizzards. Clint Smith and Cameron Awkward-Rich enfold us in their intimate musings on love and devotion. From a "jewel in the hand" (Patricia Spears Jones) to "butter melting in small pools" (Elizabeth Alexander), This Is the Honey drips with poignant and delightful imagery, music, and raised fists. Fresh, memorable, and deeply moving, this definitive collection a must-have for any lover of language and a gift for our time. --
Contents
- The language of joy. Quilting the black-eyed pea (we're going to Mars) / The language of joy / Garden of the gods / Labor / Black boys / Navel / A parable of sorts / Boxing lessons / On voting for Barack Obama with a Nat Turner t-shirt on / After people stop asking about me / Your dream is / A new day dawns / Carolina prayer / Inescapable country / Blood memory / The nightflies / Healing / This is the honey / That's my heart right there. This is an incomprehensive list of all the reasons I know I married the right person / That's my heart right there / Refractions / I wish my love was here / tripping / Fruitful / Poem that begins w/a tweet about Gwendolyn Brooks / Love poem / May perpetual light shine / Forcing it / In my rush / Characteristics of life / As serious as a heart attack / The talk / Crows in a strong wind / How we made you / Weathering out / Want could kill me / When Macnolia greases my hair / "[love letter to self] / a poem about you and me and the new country / Patience / Figurative language / hello / Delores Jepps / The ear is an organ made for love / Love for a song / Most beautiful accident: a single parent's ode / How to get emotional distance when voodoo is not an option / distant lover #1 [my michigan bed remix--for ellen g] / Where I'm from. Butter / Our people II / The blue dress / Owed to the plastic on your grandmother's couch / On Mother's Day / A twice named family / Another homecoming / Magnitude and bond / (Twigi) / For the healing / Inheritance / Mule / Hanging laundry / The painter / Beloved, or If you are murdered tomorrow / "Harold's Chicken Shack #35" / On Rampart & Canal / Where I'm from / Inundated / The Black girl comes to dinner / oh didn't they tell us we would all have new names when we decided to convert? / Richard Pryor and me / In my extremity / Ode to Sudanese-Americans / Demonstration / R&B facts / Dear future ones / Back to the past / Stand / Reunion / Blue magic / Antebellum / Pastoral / Southern history / Nelsons (on the road 1957) / Accents (after Denise Frohman) / The mystery man in the black hat speaks / The I Be tree / We not crazy, we feeling irie / Devotions. His presence / You are not Christ / Rickey Laurentiis
- Conjecture on the stained-glass image of white Christ at Ebenezer Baptist Church / Condition: if the Garden of Eden was in Africa / Offertory / grief / sallie ledbetter: a mother's hymn / My father's geography / Sunday poem / I could eat collard greens indefinitely / The gray mare / The Easter prayer, 2020 A.C. / Tell them what you want / Devotions / Wanderlust / Race raise rage: the blackened alphabet. To racism / The blackened alphabet / "I'm rooting for everybody Black" / The blue Seuss / Dear barbershop, / Before I fire her, the therapist asks What IS it like to be a Black woman HERE / A piece of tail / Why I can dance down a Soul-Train line in public and still be a Muslim / Fuck/time / Beyoncé on the line for Gaga / Morgan Parker
- Contemplating "Mistress," Sally in 2017 / Mussels / 5 South 43rd Street, Floor 2 / Unrest in Baton Rouge / Quare / Some young kings / We are not responsible / Carl's Barbershop / On being called the N-word in Atlanta, 2016: a southern ghazal / The president has never said the word Black / [this is to say I am more terrified of capitalism than any wildlife encounter] / In the event of / Happy / Holla / When I see the stars: praise poems. A prayer for workers / Heaven: for Nikki Giovanni's 80th birthday / The origins of the artist: Natalie Cole / Elegy for Chadwick Boseman / When I see the stars in the night sky / Hip hop analogies / For ben harper (7:42pm 1-18-02) / My poems / Aubade to Langston / What women are made of / ruth (for a sister poet) / Black gold redux (for Nina Simone) / for Duke Ellington / Don't let me be lonely [Mahalia Jackson is a genius] / For John Lewis, who loved to dance / Soul Train / for allison joseph / I, master (for David Drake, enslaved potter-poet) / San Diego and Matisse / Ashe / Queen Bess / The ragged and the beautiful / brown-eyed girls / Zebra (for my son) / Quality: Gwendolyn Brooks at 73 / A love poem written for Sterling Brown / Whispers on the wave / Praise