Dear William,
I am thrilled to share with you a new literary landmark, the most ambitious anthology of Black poetry ever published, AFRICAN AMERICAN POETRY: 250 Years of Struggle & Song (Library of America; September 29, 2020; 978-1-59853-666-9; $45). Expertly curated by poet and scholar Kevin Young, this precious living heritage is revealed for the first time in all its power, beauty, and multiplicity. Included are 675 poems in all, with many never before anthologized, and newly researched biographies of every poet.
Only now, in the 21st century, can we fully grasp the breadth and range of African American poetry: a magnificent chorus of voices, some familiar, others recently rescued from neglect. Discover, in these pages, how an enslaved person like Phillis Wheatley confronted her legal status in verse and how an activist like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper voiced her own passionate resistance to slavery. Read nuanced, provocative poetic meditations on identity and self-assertion stretching from Paul Laurence Dunbar to Amiri Baraka to Lucille Clifton and beyond.
Experience the transformation of poetic modernism in the works of Langston Hughes, Fenton Johnson, and Jean Toomer. Understand the threads of poetic history—in movements such as the Harlem and Chicago Renaissances, Black Arts, Cave Canem, Dark Noise Collective—and the complex bonds of solidarity and dialogue among poets across time and place. See how these poets have celebrated their African heritage and have connected with other communities in the African Diaspora. Enjoy the varied but distinctly black music of a tradition that draws deeply from jazz, hip-hop, and the rhythms and cadences of the pulpit, the barbershop, and the street.
This anthology is the centerpiece of Lift Every Voice: Why African American Poetry Matters, a yearlong national public humanities initiative that engages participants in a multifaceted exploration of African American poetry; with signature events in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, and Los Angeles, regional programming in public libraries nationwide, as well as a companion website featuring video readings, commentary, programming support, and much more. Lift Every Voice is presented in partnership with The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture with generous support from The National Endowment for the Humanities, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Emerson Collective.
Kevin Young is the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, recently named a National Historic Landmark, and poetry editor of The New Yorker, where he also hosts the poetry podcast. He is the award-winning author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was named a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020.
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