Furious Flowering offers students, scholars, readers, and writers of African-American poetry a chance to take part in an unprecedented discussion of a complex literary culture.

ONE OF PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'S TOP 10 POETRY BOOKS OF FALL 2017 NPR'S MOST ANTICIPATED POETRY BOOKS OF 2017 A striking, full-length debut collection from Virgin Islands-born poet Nicole Sealey The existential magnitude, deep intellect, and playful subversion of St. Thomas-born, Florida-raised poet Nicole Sealey’s work is restless in its empathic, succinct examination and lucid awareness of what it means to be human. The ranging scope of inquiry undertaken in Ordinary Beast—at times philosophical, emotional, and experiential—is evident in each thrilling twist of image by the poet. In brilliant, often ironic lines that move from meditation to matter of fact in a single beat, Sealey’s voice is always awake to the natural world, to the pain and punishment of existence, to the origins and demises of humanity. Exploring notions of race, sexuality, gender, myth, history, and embodiment with profound understanding, Sealey’s is a poetry that refuses to turn a blind eye or deny. It is a poetry of daunting knowledge.

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a sustained meditation on that which goes away—loved ones, the seasons, the earth as we know it—that tries to find solace in the processes of the garden and the orchard. That is, this is a book that studies the wisdom of the garden and orchard, those places where all—death, sorrow, loss—is converted into what might, with patience, nourish us.

Romance between the poet Novalis and his fiancée Sophie, newly introduced by Candia McWilliam. The year is 1794 and Fritz, passionate, idealistic and brilliant, is seeking his fathers permission to announce his engagement to his hearts desire: twelve-year-old Sophie. His astounded family and friends are amused and disturbed by his betrothal. What can he be thinking?

"Published in the USA by New Issues Poetry and Prose"--Title page verso.

Furious Flower: African-American Poetry from the Black Arts Movement to the Present Edited by Joanne V. Gabbin The Furious Flower Conference of 1994 represented the largest gathering of African American writers at one event in nearly thirty years. In that crucial span of time, African American poetry had evolved into an art less overtly political and more introspective; it had also shown dramatic growth—both in the number of its readers and its practitioners. As a second Furious Flower Conference prepares to convene, Joanne Gabbin has assembled a remarkable selection of works by the Furious Flower participants. The forty-three poets cover three generations, ranging from such established voices as Michael Harper, Nikki Giovanni, and the late Gwendolyn Brooks, in whose honor the conference was organized, to a host of rising young writers who are reimagining America in the language of a hip-hop nation. Furious Flower provides a fascinating collective portrait of African American poetry at the close of the twentieth century—as well as an indication of where it may be headed as we enter the twenty-first. The book includes biographies of the contributors and a dynamic collection of performance photographs by C. B. Claiborne featuring many of the Furious Flower participants as they appeared at the original 1994 conference. Contributors Gwendolyn Brooks * Samuel Allen * Adam David Miller * Pinkie Gordon Lane * Naomi Long Madgett * Dolores Kendrick * Garrett McDowell * Raymond R. Patterson * Alvin Aubert * Amiri Baraka * Sonia Sanchez * Lucille Clifton * Jayne Cortez * Eugene B. Redmond * Michael S. Harper * Askia M. Touré * Sterling D. Plumpp * Toi Derricotte * Everett Hoagland * Haki R. Madhubuti * Bernice Johnson Reagon * Nikki Giovanni * Jerry W. Ward Jr. * Lorenzo Thomas * Yusef Komunyakaa * Kalamu ya Salaam * Dorothy Marie Rice * Lamont B. Steptoe * Quo Vadis Gex-Breaux * E. Ethelbert Miller * Mona Lisa Saloy * Afaa Michael Weaver * Rita Dove * Opal Moore * Cornelius Eady * Carole B. Weatherford * Lenard D. Moore * Sharan Strange * Adisa Vera Beatty * Elizabeth Alexander * Jabari Asim * Joel Dias-Porter (DJ Renegade) * Thomas Sayers Ellis * John Keene * Natasha Trethewey * Major Jackson * Kevin Young * Garrett McDowell Published in association with the Center for American Places

Mother Body is an intersectional exploration of the trauma and agency held within a body defined by its potential to mother. As Mother Body unfolds, it tasks its reader to understand the expected and unexpected manifestations of motherhood, through menstruation and womb work, but also generational, societal, and literary mothering. With a variety of forms and modes, these poems unpack the experiences of a fat, black woman's body while also manifesting joy, resistance, and celebration.

"Close your eyes--make the white gaze disappear." What is it like to be black and joyful, without submitting to the white gaze? This question, and its answer, is at the core of Black Imagination, a dynamic collection collection curated by artist and poet Natasha Marin. Born from a series of exhibitions and fueled by the power of social media (#blackimagination), the collection includes work from a range of voices who offer up powerful individual visions of happiness and safety, rituals and healing. Black Imagination presents an opportunity to understand the joy of blackness without the lens of whiteness.

More than one hundred contemporary black poets laugh at and cry about, pray for and curse, flee and return to the South in this collection of poems, which features contributions by Nikki Giovanni, Kevin Young, Cornelius Eady, Sonia Sanchez, and other notables. Simultaneous.