More than seventy poets are represented in this
innovative new anthology of African American poetry since
the 1960s.
This is not just another poetry
anthology. It is a gathering of poems that demonstrate what
happens when writers in a marginalized community
collectively turn from dedicating their writing to
political, social, and economic struggles, and instead
devote themselves to the art of their poems and to the ideas
they embody. These poets bear witness to the interior
landscapes of their own individual selves or examine the
private or personal worlds of invented personae and,
therefore, of human beings living in our modern and
postmodern worlds.
The anthology focuses on
post-1960s poetry and includes such poets as Rita Dove, Ai,
Nathaniel Mackey, Natasha Trethewey, Kevin Young, Terrence
Hayes, Elizabeth Alexander, Major Jackson, Carl Phillips,
Harryette Mullen, and Yusef Komunyakaa—artists who, using a
wide range of styles and forms, are cultivating a poetry of
personal voice and interiority that speaks against the
backdrop of community and anscestry.