Why the Black Hole Sings the Blues — Reed, Ishmael, 1938- — "The poems in this collection were written between 2007 and 2020. When asked to describe the poems here, Ishmael Reed wrote: 'The poems are based on events that occurred around the house to cataclysmic space events. Some of the poems were commissioned. "Moving Richmond" was part of a public art installation created by Mildred Howard. The poem, in huge letters forged into weathering steel billboards greets passengers who enter the new Bay Area mass transit hub in Richmond. Other poems were commissioned by musicians. "Hope Is The Thing With Feathers" was performed by Gregory Porter. "Red Summer, 2015" appeared in print first and then was set to music by David Murray. The longest poem in the book, "Jazz Martyrs," was begun when I learned about the number of Black Jazz greats who didn't live past the age of forty. I have been fortunate to live beyond the age of 80. I've found out who my best friends are. The ones who got me there.'"-- Back cover.
Where the Birds Sing Bass — Oakland Public Library
Where the Birds Sing Bass — Lockett, Reginald — Poetry. "WHERE THE BIRDS SING BASS may be the best book of poetry in 1995. The voice is hip, urban, observant, and nostalgic. Reginald Lockett brings the world home, and in the process tells us about folks who don't make the news" -Ishmael Reed.
The Complete Works of Pat Parker by Pat Parker | East Bay Booksellers
The Complete Works of Pat Parker includes Parker’ s poetic masterwork, Movement in Black, as well as the poetry collection Jonestown & other madness, in addition to her published essays and other prose, along with two unpublished plays and a number of previously uncollected poems.
The Essential June Jordan, Jan Heller Levi, Christoph Keller, eds. - Copper Canyon Press
The Essential June Jordan honors the enduring legacy of a poet fiercely dedicated to building a better world. In this definitive volume, featuring an afterword by Pulitzer Prize-winner Jericho Brown, June Jordan’s generous body of poetry is distilled and curated to represent the very best of her works. Written over the span of several decades―from Some Changes in 1971 to Last Poems in 2001―Jordan’s poems are at once of their era and tragically current, with subject matter including racist police brutality, violence against women, and the opportunity for global solidarity amongst people who are marginalized or outside of the norm. In these poems of great immediacy and radical kindness, humor and embodied candor, readers will (re)discover a voice that has inspired generations of contemporary poets to write their truths. June Jordan is a powerful voice of the time-honored movement for justice, a poet for the ages.
Actual Air in the Purple Mountains: An Interview With David Berman
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
Being Black: Selections from "Soledad Brother" by Georg…
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All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan - Famous poems, famous poets. - All Poetry
Comments & analysis: I like to think (and / the sooner the better!)
Birds of Berkeley [Paperback] by Oliver James
Now in paperback! This charming, full-color field guide to 25 birds easily found in Berkeley proves that even the city’s avian residents are a little
Black Futures
Check out Black Futures - <b><b>“A literary experience unlike any I’ve had in recent memory . . . a blueprint for this moment and the next, for where Black folks have been and where they might be going.”—<i>The New York Times Book Review</i> (Editors’ Choice)</b><br><br></b><i><b>What does it mean to be Black and alive right now?</b></i><br><br>Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work—images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more—to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today. The book presents a succession of startling and beautiful pieces that generate an entrancing rhythm: Readers will go from conversations with activists and academics to memes and Instagram posts, from powerful essays to dazzling paintings and insightful infographics.<br><br> In answering the question of what it means to be Black and alive, <i>Black Futures</i> opens a prismatic vision of possibility for every reader. by Jenna Wortham and Kimberly Drew on Bookshop.org UK!
Tradition and the Individual Talent
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
The sound of the trees
Early in the morning, before dawn has even fully broken over Berlin, a concert of a very special kind begins under Susie Ibarra’s window. The blackbird begins with a short melodic solo ending on a trill, its song accompanied by the rustling of the horse chestnut leaves on the branches outside Ibarra’s window. For the artist, this is much more than just an acoustic welcome to the day – it is a dialogue with nature and a chance to immerse herself in a musical realm full of rhythms and sounds.
Take Your Place: Rhetorical Healing and Black Womanhood in Tyler Perry’s Films
The unparalleled commercial sucessess that gospel-playwright-turned-screenwriter Tyler Perry has attained through converting his stage plays into films that depict black women overcoming personal crises raises questions about the intent behind his seemingly feminist-inspired representations of black womanhood. Through an analysis of the rhetoric of healing in Perry’s first two films, this essay reveals one of the suppressive pedagogical functions of Perry’s representation of black womanhood. Rhetorics of healing are a series of persuasive messages, performances, and literacy acts that writers deploy in order to convince readers that redressing or preventing crises requires them to follow the curriculum for ideological, communicative, and behavioral transformation that the writer considers essential to wellness. In Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea’s Family Reunion, Perry’s representation of rhetorical healing constructs black Christian women as students who must learn prescribed attitudes and behaviors to achieve, or remain in, states of wellness, and these lessons reinforce conservative gender ideologies and reify patriarchal constructions of the family and home. Given black women’s historically tenuous relationships with representations of themselves and their families in mainstream film, and given the ways in which their labor in the home is simultaneously desired and exploited, the popularity of Perry’s films does not suggest that his representations of healing foster black women’s self-empowerment. Rather, his popularity points to a moment where black women’s pain is a commodity and their instructive journeys to wellness are an exploited site where writers can carry out their own agendas.
An Army of Lovers by David Buuck | East Bay Booksellers
"This experimental work is not for the faint of heart, but it is laced with meditations that will appeal to readers concerned with poetry’s role in the world.
The H.D. Book by Robert Duncan | East Bay Booksellers
This magisterial work, long awaited and long the subject of passionate speculation, is an unprecedented exploration of modern poetry and poetics by one of America’s most acclaimed and influential postwar poets.
Might I recommend this poem by Melissa Lozada-Oliva, which is a response to this sort of comment
Melissa Lozada-Oliva - Like Totally Whatever
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