Download or read book It s Hard to Be a Black Man in America and Other African American Poems written by Elroy Alister Esdaille and published by Dorrance Publishing. This book was released on 2021-10-29 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's Hard to Be a Black Man in America and Other African American Poems By: Elroy Alister Esdaille This book examines the African-American experience from multiple perspectives and cannot be nailed down to any singular thematic presentation. By peering through the pages of time to current day, the book attempts to disclose the African-American experience in The United States, and it can be applied to other countries as well that once had former colonial designs and slave labor. Modern day America, for many Black people, can be said to be a sum total of its messy history of slavery and segregation, and the recalcitrant roots that still persist today. Life for many black men and women in America is extremely challenging for we have to negotiate systemic, and institutionalize racism on a daily basis, while simultaneously wrestling with issues of colorism and microaggressions that continue to pervade society. It’s difficult to understand the perspective of a black man or black woman in America without getting at least a glimpse into his or her insight about race relations and its impact on him or her. Many African Americans feel that the system is designed against them, but their racial concerns often fall on deaf ears. This book gives in-depth examinations about race in America and it asks questions about accountability through the stylist forms of the poems. As a Caribbean immigrant who migrated to The United States, Elroy Alister Esdaille’s experiences as a black man with race relations has at times been painful as he has experienced firsthand the ugliness of racism and how the system so often makes it extremely hard for many black men to strive and live with dignity and pride. He has watched how the stereotype of criminality has informed decisions made against black men like him, and how one must develop a will stronger than iron in order to survive. As he envisions his readers, it is his desire to speak to all truth seekers and world changers. Race is a messy topic that many people avoid, but it is his aim to confront the issues head-on and lay the foundation for honest and controversial conversations that could inspire meaningful change in society. He would not say he is attempting to enlighten anyone, but rather for people to find their true selves and push hard for the future that they want and deserve.
Download or read book The Vintage Book of African American Poetry written by Michael S. Harper and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, editors Michael S. Harper and Anthony Walton present the definitive collection of black verse in the United States--200 years of vision, struggle, power, beauty, and triumph from 52 outstanding poets. From the neoclassical stylings of slave-born Phillis Wheatley to the wistful lyricism of Paul Lawrence Dunbar . . . the rigorous wisdom of Gwendolyn Brooks...the chiseled modernism of Robert Hayden...the extraordinary prosody of Sterling A. Brown...the breathtaking, expansive narratives of Rita Dove...the plaintive rhapsodies of an imprisoned Elderidge Knight . . . The postmodern artistry of Yusef Komunyaka. Here, too, is a landmark exploration of lesser-known artists whose efforts birthed the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts movements--and changed forever our national literature and the course of America itself. Meticulously researched, thoughtfully structured, The Vintage Book of African-American Poetry is a collection of inestimable value to students, educators, and all those interested in the ever-evolving tradition that is American poetry.
Download or read book The 100 Best African American Poems written by Nikki Giovanni and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2010 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the voices of a culture from legendary New York Timesbestselling author Nikki Giovanni HEAR: Langston Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Countee Cullen Paul Laurence Dunbar Robert Hayden Etheridge Knight READ: Rita Dove Sonia Sanchez Richard Wright Tupac Shukar Lucille Clifton Mari Evans Kevin Young Including one audio CD featuring many of the poems read by the poets themselves, 100 Best African-American Poems is at once strikingly original and a perfect fit for the original poetry anthologies from Sourcebooks, including Poetry Speaks, The Spoken Word Revolution, Poetry Speaks to Children, and the Nikki Giovanni-edited Hip Hop Speaks to Children. Award-winning poet and writer Nikki Giovanni takes on the difficult task of selecting the 100 best African-American works from classic and contemporary poets. This startlingly vibrant collection spans from historic to modern, from structured to free-form, and reflects the rich roots and visionary future of African-American verse in American culture. The resulting selections prove to be an exciting mix of most-loved chestnuts and daring new writing. Most of all, the voice of a culture comes through in this collection, one that is as talented, diverse, and varied as its people.
Download or read book Bronx Masquerade written by Nikki Grimes and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beloved and award-winning novel now available in a new format with a great new cover! When Wesley Boone writes a poem for his high school English class, some of his classmates clamor to read their poems aloud too. Soon they're having weekly poetry sessions and, one by one, the eighteen students are opening up and taking on the risky challenge of self-revelation. There's Lupe Alvarin, desperate to have a baby so she will feel loved. Raynard Patterson, hiding a secret behind his silence. Porscha Johnson, needing an outlet for her anger after her mother OD's. Through the poetry they share and narratives in which they reveal their most intimate thoughts about themselves and one another, their words and lives show what lies beneath the skin, behind the eyes, beyond the masquerade.
Download or read book Citizen written by Claudia Rankine and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry * * Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry * Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism * Winner of the NAACP Image Award * Winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize * Winner of the PEN Open Book Award * ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Boston Globe, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, NPR. Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly, Slate, Time Out New York, Vulture, Refinery 29, and many more . . . A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking book Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.
Download or read book Lyrics of a Lowly Life written by Paul Laurence Dunbar and published by Graphic Arts Books. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896) is a collection of poems by African American author Paul Laurence Dunbar. Published while Dunbar was at a turning point in his career as one of the nation’s leading black poets, Lyrics of Lowly Life combined his hugely successful volumes Oak and Ivy (1892) and Majors and Minors (1896), establishing his reputation as an artist with a powerful vision of faith and perseverance who sought to capture and examine the diversity of the African American experience. In “The Poet and His Song,” Dunbar compares the art of poetry to tilling the soil, a slow and painstaking process requiring full commitment, body and soul, to the task at hand: “My days are never days of ease; / I till my ground and prune my trees. / When ripened gold is all the plain, / I put my sickle to the grain. / I labor hard, and toil and sweat, / While others dream within the dell; / But even while my brow is wet, / I sing my song, and all is well.” For Dunbar, the reward is the song itself, both an act of labor and a celebration of life, emphasizing the role of the poet as not just a dreamer, but a doer. Throughout this collection, Dunbar explores the role of the poet in society, grounding each poem within his identity as a black man in America. In “Frederick Douglass,” an elegy written for the occasion of the great man’s passing, Dunbar makes clear the consequences of pride and defiance in a nation built by slaves: “He dared the lightning in the lightning’s track, / And answered thunder with his thunder back.” With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Lyrics of Lowly Life is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.
Download or read book African American Poetry written by Joan R. Sherman and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rich selection of 74 poems ranging from religious and moral verse of Phillis Wheatley Peters (ca. 1753–1784) to 20th-century work of Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, and Langston Hughes. Introduction.
Download or read book It Is Not Good That Man Should Be Alone written by Pierre Mouna-Dora and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2017-01-16 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It Is Not Good That Man Should Be Alone is a compilation of three works written by the author in the sixties and seventies for its large number of writings. This was the great and determining era of the struggles for civil rights in the United States of America, as everybody knows nowstruggles which were also the lot of the author in a very particular way that inspired these fifty-seven poems and the play. This illustrates a Christian romantic poetry of the civil rights struggles. Translated from the French, the long-ago published works by the editions Saint-Germain-des-Prs, which are Harmonie Reversale and Le Pas de lAube, have been revised and augmented. The play, titled in French jirai en Alabama (Ill Go to Alabama), is facing here its first publication. All three works want to bear witness to the sentence in the preface of Give and Take Harmony, stating that racism can be defeated and is indeed defeated, and, I can add, is defeated through love in its fullness to wit, appeal, and reciprocal feelings, then marriage as conceived by the God of true Christians, thus opening the way to sexualityall that expressing the necessary bond of Adam and Eve. This can be characterized in Give and Take Harmony by the poem Blues for Peggy in Its Time for Alabama, by the biracial love between Molly, the white young lady, and Guemby, the African student at Howard University; and in Dawn Step by The Banquet, to which the children of Americablack, white, and grayare invited to the communion of flesh and blood and of bread and wine, which necessarily makes true the dream of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Besides the three prefaces of the three works and the postscript of the book the reading of which is a mustit brings to light the motivation and the aim of the authors endeavor for a harmonious multiracial society in America. The author, P. Mouna-Dora, besides writing poetry and songs which can be Christian and romantic like those found in the book, enjoys reading, music, and sports.
Download or read book For the Love of Black Men written by Ayin M Adams and published by . This book was released on 2015-04-17 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the Love of Black Men is a triumph...filled with power - with poems reflecting the rich traditions and complexity of today's black society. For the Love of Black Men is a thought-provoking, hard-hitting book of poetry that offers renderings of past and present indignities, self-introspection, spiritual commitment, forgiveness and the necessity of solutions. It probes areas that are not openly discussed. More than just a book of poetry, For the Love of Black Men addresses issues credibly, compassionately, and directly, with a minimum of soft edges. For the Love of Black Men transports the reader on a personal and private tour into a realm where some Black men have had to wrestle and confront their own challenging questions concerning their wholeness. Many of the concerns these men have had to face may be similar to all men. However, because of the legacy of slavery, their obstacles are more. The wholeness that is being sought is always present, even in the most desolate of times. Trusting one's inner source sometimes gives clarification to dilemmas that appear inconceivable. Many times silence or solitude are means by which answers are revealed. The fast-paced survival atmosphere in which most black men live does not provide such opportunities. In communities where there is a predominance of black men, the constant din of helicopters, fire-engines, sirens and other disturbances does not grant much contemplative time. For the Love of Black Men offers hope and the possibility of alternate choices. Ayin Adams' poetry addresses the Black Man from a potpourri of issues. A gentle and compassionate rumination shared in the loving description of The Eyes of Father while the contrast of Sometimes I feel like a Fatherless Son and the brutally truthful concerns addressed in Hostage or Husband offer objective assessments. In more recent times, approximately fifty plus reported cases of unarmed black men have been murdered by policemen which is a continuation of the 1857 original statement concerning Dred Scott, "No rights which the white man was bound to respect." Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin were some of the victims who have given their lives...is an unsolicited martyrdom the ultimate reward for a Black Man, the final recognition that one never could have achieved on minimum wage or selling individual cigarettes with a second-class citizen mentality? The answers are always within, and the way in which we confront them will determine our happiness or unhappiness. For the Love of Black Men awakens us to a black man's world in today's American Society with searing poems that stretch from the street to the healing power of family and love. From the chilling immediacy of I Can't Breathe (for Eric Garner) to the horrific truth of Unarmed, Adams tells apocalyptic moments in the Black community. Adams also encompasses the love, compassion and humor that connects the black man to the black community and to the world. Fortunately for all of us, Adams verses actually become a legitimate shelf reference of America's shameful history of the slayings of unarmed black men. For the Love of Black Men exposes readers to an expansive reassessment of some of the issues that have prevailed since slavery which have produced myriads of confusion. Ayin Adams permits readers, participants, victims and those who have a genuine desire to rectify the problems, the hope that the offerings she has presented will illicit questions and perhaps provide some solutions. Poetry reaching universal experience is fundamental to understanding human life and Ayin Adams connects the individual and the larger society. This book must be in everyone's library.
Download or read book Ain t Never Not Been Black written by Javon Johnson and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2021 Midwest Book Award Finalist 2021 In The Margins Book Awards - Nonfiction Recommendation List Ain't Never Not Been Black foregrounds Black pleasure Black pain and Black love in unflinchingly Black ways. Engaging with themes of masculinity, racism, love, and joy, Johnson is at once critical and creative. His spoken word performance transfers effortlessly to the page, with poems that will encompass you. This is a book about blackness and survival, and how in America these are inseparable. In a world of individualism, who can you hold close? In a world of danger, what makes you feel safe? From a poem written in the form of a syllabus, to another about the time his grandmother literally saved his life, Johnson's creative expression is constantly enacting the feminist mantra, “the personal is political."
Download or read book Fifty Years and Other Poems written by James Weldon Johnson and published by Graphic Arts Books. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 87 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917) is a collection of poems by James Weldon Johnson. Although less popular than his book God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927), Johnson’s second poetry collection showcases his talents as a rising star of African American literature. Including some poems that would be featured in The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), an influential anthology compiled and edited by the poet himself, Fifty Years and Other Poems remains essential to Johnson’s legacy as a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance. “Fifty Years” opens the collection with an ode to emancipation, a starting point from which millions of men, women, and children were given the opportunity, however fragile it was, to pursue better lives. Rather than give thanks for freedom granted, however, Johnson implores his fellow Black Americans to remain proud, assured that liberty is their hard-earned right: “This land is ours by right of birth, / This land is ours by right of toil; / We helped to turn its virgin earth, / Our sweat is in its fruitful soil.” Hopeful and resilient, Johnson reflects on his own place in this history of struggle, paying particular heed to his status as a poet, his ability to sing despite centuries of violent oppression. In his poem “O Black and Unknown Bards,” he asks “O black and unknown bards of long ago, / How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?” Recognizing the need for a reconciliation between the long tradition of black culture and the overwhelming erasure of his own contemporary artists, Johnson highlights the efforts of those poets such as himself, who “Within [their] dark-kept soul[s], burst into song.” >With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of James Weldon Johnson’s Fifty Years and Other Poems is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.
Download or read book Falling through the Crack written by Betty Jean Grant and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2008-05-21 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Falling Through the Crack is more than a book of poems; it is a book about African Americans living, loving, crying and dying in this place called America.It is about the struggle of a proud and strong race of people who survived the inhumane period of that ́peculiar institution ́ the world knows as the enslavement of people of African descent. It is also about the pain that we, as African Americans, have inflicted on ourselves with our community ́s proliferation of drugs, guns, homicides and immoral/criminal behaviors. It is about the epidemic level of incarceration that is wreaking havoc on family stabilization.It is about the thousands of young,dead, black boys who died at the hands of those thousands of imprisoned young,black men. It is about the ́lost young men ́ of yet another generation. This book, the life ́s work of the author, is also a factual, eyewitnessed account to the old,southern way of dealing with racism, Jim Crowism, segregation and lynchings and the effect these events had on both black and white America. Experience the pain, and the pride, emanating from poems such as ́Four Little Girls, (that records the murder of four innocent girls in that famous church bombing) to, ́This is my Country ́, a poem that shows how embedded the free and enslaved Africans were in the first fabrics of this former English Colony and newly independent country; and ́Southern Style Bar-b-cue ́, the sad and brutual documentation of a KKK lynching of a black man by fire (as witnessed by an innocent nine year old white child). The pages of this book will take you, the readers, on a fantastic literary journey that will educate, enlighten, frustrate, engage and motivate you to learn more about the many people of African descent who help to build, through both stolen and freedmen ́s labor, this great nation of ours. Take a moment to click the excerpt bar at the bottom of this page to read seven randomly selected poems from the book. There are over 110 poems of various subjects and situations. I am sure you will find at least one or two that will cause you to reflect, celebrate or ponder. Enjoy! This book can be ordered from the Xlibris Bookstore profiled to the left of this information. Thank you for your support.Emails are welcomed at [email protected]. Betty Jean Grant, Poet/Author. PostScript: A special thank you to Joseph Illuzzi of ́politicsny.net ́, out of Buffalo, New York for the technical support and words of encouragement!
Download or read book A History of African American Poetry written by Lauri Ramey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a critical history of African American poetry from the transatlantic slave trade to present day hip-hop.
Download or read book I Too Sing America written by Catherine Clinton and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1998 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of poems by African-American writers, including Lucy Terry, Gwendolyn Bennett, and Alice Walker.
Download or read book Life Pages written by Darryl R. Carr and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2018-06-20 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the human species, there has always been the mantra that we are higher-order beings. Even though the Homo erectus led to Homo sapiens, it is still true that we share some common DNA with great apes. Theyre proven to have reasoning skills, dexterity, cognitive and affective domain traits, as well as the social paradigm structure of nuclear and extended families. With that backdrop, its hard to figure out what caused the social breakdown of modern society, and particularly in the African-American persuasion. No physiological, sociological, psychological, or ideological constructs are able to prove clinically and/or empirically whats wrong. New Yorks Hells Kitchen, Miamis Overtown, Chicagos Westside, Garys Glen Park, Memphiss Orange Mound, New Orleanss Ninth Ward, and Los Angeless Compton could well be the same places where all the same social stereotypes and maladies are ever-present. The same could be said about most other US urban centers, as they relate to the fate of African-Americans. To be sure, the black male is a low-valued commodity and is arguably close to extinction. Life Pages is an anthology of poems that will take you on a sensory journey of emotions. Its aim is to inspire you to seek and gain a better understanding of history and a better self. I hope youll embrace or at least find new appreciation for our ancestors crucibles, pain, and unwavering fidelity to their personal constitution. When boiled down to a low gravy, that means you should approach life with zeal and forthrightness, with all deliberate speed. I trust that among other things, you will come away with the distinct understanding of the thought processes of the inner-city youth, and the day-to-day struggles growing up in todays society. This is a quest to figure out where the black youth belong in this swath of earth called America. Man can clone man, but hell never be able to clone my pains!
Download or read book The Negro written by William Edward Burghardt Du Bois and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Collection about Being a Young Black Man written by Jaylen Eashmond and published by . This book was released on 2014-08-24 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are many things that can be said about being a young black man. Within the text of these poems lays a center of focus that gives us a light into a place that has been very dark but always with a ray of hope in the midst. A collection about starting from the beginning, the Square 1 of the situation, then analyzing the reality of what is it that we see on television that sets our fear? Fear of what? Finally a poem that speaks on the happenings on a day when there is a drive by. This collection is a day in the life of an African American boy in Any town, USA
