African American poetry : 250 years of struggle & song

Resource Information

The work African American poetry : 250 years of struggle & song represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Portland Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

African American poetry : 250 years of struggle & song

Title remainder

250 years of struggle & song

Statement of responsibility

Kevin Young, editor

Contributor

• Young, Kevin, 1970-

Editor

• Young, Kevin, 1970-

Subject

• African Americans
• African Americans -- Intellectual life
• African Americans -- Intellectual life
• African Americans -- Poetry
• African Americans -- Poetry
• African Americans in literature
• African Americans in literature
• American poetry -- African American authors
• American poetry -- African American authors
• American poetry -- African American authors
• American poetry -- African American authors | History and criticism
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Noirs américains -- Poésie
• Noirs américains -- Vie intellectuelle
• Noirs américains dans la littérature
• Passive resistance
• Passive resistance -- United States -- Poetry
• Poetry
• Poetry
• Poetry
• Poetry
• Poésie
• Poésie américaine -- Auteurs noirs américains
• Poésie américaine -- Auteurs noirs américains | Histoire et critique
• Problèmes sociaux -- Poésie
• Race relations -- Poetry
• Racial justice -- Poetry
• Résistance passive -- États-Unis -- Poésie
• Social problems
• Social problems -- Poetry
• UNITED STATES
• United States

Genre

• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Poetry
• Poésie

Language

eng

Summary

Across a turbulent history, Black poets created a rich and multifaceted tradition that has been both a reckoning with American realities and an imaginative response to them. One of the great American art forms, African American poetry encompasses many kinds of verse: formal, experimental, vernacular, lyric, and protest. The anthology opens with moving testaments to the power of poetry as a means of self-assertion, as enslaved people voice their passionate resistance to slavery. This volume captures the power and beauty of this diverse tradition and its challenge to American poetry and culture. Here are all the significant movements and currents: the nineteenth-century Francophone poets known as Les Cenelles, the Chicago Renaissance that flourished around Gwendolyn Brooks, the early 1960s Umbra group, and the more recent work of writers affiliated with Cave Canem and the Dark Noise Collective. Here too are poems of singular, hard-to-classify figures: the enslaved potter David Drake, the allusive modernist Melvin B. Tolson, the Cleveland-based experimentalist Russell Atkins. The volume also features biographies of each poet and notes that illuminate cultural references and allusions to historical events-- adapted from dust jacket

Member of

• Library of America, 333

Biography type

contains biographical information

Cataloging source

TOH

Index

index present

Literary form

poetry

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

The Library of America series

Series volume

333

Target audience

adult