Rainbow Darkness : An Anthology of African American Poetry

by Tuma, Keith

• ISBN13: 9781881163473
• ISBN10: 1881163474
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-28
• Publisher: Pathway Book Service

Summary

Poetry. African American Studies. RAINBOW DARKNESS gathers poems by a range of established and newer African American poets including Jeff Allen, Wanda Coleman, C. S. Giscombe, Terrance Hayes, Kim Hunter, Honoree Jeffers, Nathaniel Mackey, Harryette Mullen, Mendi Lewis Obadike, Reginald Shepherd, Timothy Siebles, Evie Shockley, Lorenzo Thomas, Natasha Trethewey, Anthony Walton, Crystal Williams, and Tyrone Williams, and essays by Herman Beavers, Aldon Nielsen, Kathy Lou Schultz, Evie Shockley, and Lorenzo Thomas. The collection grew from poems and talks presented at the Marjorie Cook Conference on Diversity in African American Poetry held at Miami University in September 2003. The anthology hopes to extend the conversations that took place at the conference to another, larger audience.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Keith Tuma
Evie Shockley
All of the Above: Multiple Choice and African American Poetry	1	(12)
Aldon Nielsen
``Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around''	13	(12)
Jeffery Renard Allen
Prayer to Eshbu-Elegba	25	(1)
Hunger	26	(2)
Mud Wit	28	(1)
Deep Rock	29	(2)
Wanda Coleman
Three-Headed Womon Song	31	(1)
Notes on a Departure	32	(2)
Metaphysically Niggerish	34	(1)
The African Beneath the American	35	(2)
C.S. Giscombe
The Black River	37	(1)
Home Avenue	38	(1)
Ballad Values (2)	39	(1)
Light, Bright, Etc	39	(1)
Negromania, Negrophilia, Negrophobia	40	(3)
Terrance Hayes
Mute Trout	43	(2)
Ohio River Region	45	(1)
Nothing	46	(3)
Kim Hunter
accident in a naked place	49	(2)
i worked on race at the factory	51	(2)
no like place	53	(4)
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
Philly in the Light	57	(1)
Another Easter Poem	58	(1)
Instructions for Academic Poets Who Talk to God	59	(1)
Tuscaloosa: Riversong	60	(7)
Nathaniel Mackey
Song of the Andoumboulou: 58	67	(7)
Song of the Andoumboulou: 62	74	(9)
Tracie Morris
Apology to Pangea	83	(1)
from The Myomectomy Cycle	83	(2)
Harryette Mullen
Unacknowledged Legislator	85	(1)
Headlines	85	(1)
Bumper to Bumper	86	(1)
#6 Sepulveda	86	(1)
Broken Glish	87	(1)
Drinking Mojitos in Cuba Libre	87	(1)
Mermaid of Palmares	88	(1)
El Malecon	89	(2)
Mendi Lewis Obadike
Fifteen	91	(1)
Protest Poem	92	(1)
Tradition/Abstraction	93	(2)
James Richardson
Parnassus Rising	95	(2)
J-O-Y	97	(3)
My Man Caliban!	100	(2)
A First Lady Challenges a Loa-as-Poem	102	(3)
Tim Seibles
4AM	105	(3)
Friend and Beloved	108	(3)
Douglass, a Last Letter	111	(8)
Reginald Shepherd
Refrain	119	(1)
Boy, Allegorically Deployed	120	(2)
Itinerary	122	(1)
Homeric Interim	123	(1)
Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear	124	(2)
Self-Portrait in the New World Order	126	(3)
Evie Shockley
shall become as	129	(2)
cause i'm from dixie too	131	(1)
From The Lost Letters of Frederick Douglass	132	(2)
my last modernist poem, #2 (or, mugshot)	134	(3)
Lorenzo Thomas
Downtown Boom	137	(1)
Discovering America Again	138	(3)
Souvenir of the Manassah Ball	141	(4)
Natasha Trethewey
Bellocq's Ophelia	145	(1)
Letter Home	146	(2)
From ``Storyville Diary'' (Self) Portrait	148	(1)
Vignette	148	(3)
Anthony Walton
Dissidence	151	(1)
Gwendolyn Brooks	152	(1)
The Encyclopedia of Rhythm and Blues	153	(1)
McDonald's, Scottsboro, April, 1997	154	(2)
Elegy for Joan (1955--1986)	156	(3)
Crystal Williams
Happiness	159	(1)
Ritual	160	(1)
On Forgetting Your Father's Face	161	(1)
Negro Survival 101 or Poem for Tiger Woods and Other Multiethnic Other's	162	(1)
Sugar	162	(1)
Shop Sonnet	163	(2)
Tyrone Williams
Ask-Vubba : A Decalogue
``So We Are Told To Write Down''	165	(1)
Plan B --- Walk, Listen	166	(1)
Planet X	167	(1)
Planned Community	168	(1)
Other Wards of the Hospice	169	(1)
Brief	170	(1)
Closing (as)	171	(1)
Ditto (at)	171	(1)
P.P.S. (am)	171	(1)
To To Speak	172	(1)
Herman Beavers
The Archival Impulse in African American Poetry: Playing in the Past	173	(12)
Kathy Lou Schultz
Small Press, Big Wor(l)ds: African American Poetry from Publisher to Archive	185	(12)
Lorenzo Thomas
Our Heritage of Many Voices: Plenary Address	197	(16)
Contributors	213	(12)
Acknowledgments	225