The young Langston Hughes wrote poems for adults – and children. In 1924, a young Black man named Langston Hughes (1902-1967) arrived in New York City. Born in Joplin, Missouri, he had lived in a considerable number of places and traveled as a sailor to even more. But it was to New York he came, and it was there he would not only make his literary name but lead what came to be known as the Harlem Renaissance. The young Langston Hughes Two years after his arrival, he published his first poetry collection, The Weary Blues. Almost a century after its publication (and now off copyright), it co ..read more

A Modernist Classic by Jean Toomer Jean Toomer (1894-1967) was a writer bundled with a host of seeming contradictions. He was heralded as part of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, but he never wanted to be considered a Black writer, preferring to be called an American writer. Born Nathan Pinchback Toomer, he changed his name at least twice; his maternal grandfather called him Eugene after his father (also a Nathan) abandoned the family. When he began his writing career and for 20 years after, he used the name “Jean Toomer,” changing it again to Nathan Jean Toomer. He wrote movingly of Bla ..read more

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How We Fight for Our Lives, by Saeed Jones generous—freely sharing or giving; open-handed You know it when you hear it, the difference in tone between the way a generous and a begrudging person speaks. Open-handedness is evident in the opening of the soft palate, each word making room. Generosity is what I heard in listening to the audiobook of Saeed Jones’ How We Fight for Our Lives. Jones is a poet, and this book is his memoir. It won the Kirkus Prize and the Stonewall Book Award. I was afraid to read it, knowing some parts would be hard as he describes growing up gay and Black in a Texas ..read more

Bravery & Brevity, the new poetry collection by Edward Holmes, almost defies description. Is it poetry? Absolutely; Holmes writes in both poetic form and style. Is it reflection? Yes; you can find deep reflection in every poem. Is it a meditation or devotional? No question here; Holmes is reaching for something larger than what a poetry collection is usually about. Is it memoir? Perhaps not in the familiar sense, but the poems display the idea of being shaped by what’s happened in the past and what is happening in the present. We’ll call it a poetry collection, but reading it leads to an ..read more

Dear Writers, How many of you wrote a book and “published” it when you were a child? I did — and illustrated it too. “Sammy and Mary” was a love story between two squirrels. I wrote and drew the book on a yellow legal pad and bound it using a department store shirt box. As a child, author and poet Jacqueline Woodson wrote a book too, “Butterflies,” described in the poem “first book” in her poetry memoir titled Brown Girl Dreaming. There are seven of them, Not enough for a real book until I cut each page into small squares staple the squares together, write one poem on each page. And just li ..read more

If you’ve never heard of the Golden Shovel form of poetry, you’re not alone. It’s relatively new, created by National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes to honor Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) in her centenary year. Brooks garnered a number of significant “firsts” in her life—the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize and the first black American to be Consultant in Poetry (poet laureate) to the Library of Congress. The Golden Shovel poetic form is usually based on a line or verse from Brooks’ poetry—the last words of each line of a poem are the words taken from a line or verse of ..read more

For Aisha Sharif, life took an abrupt turn when her upper-class Memphis-born African-American father found the stability he was looking for in Islam. She was a child, with two sisters and two brothers. Their mother came from a strong Roman Catholic family in St. Louis. The family converted to Islam. Sharif went from wearing shorts and twirling a baton as a junior majorette to discovering white leggings under blue jumpers and silk-scarf hijabs. She had to learn the Muslim faith and the Muslim life. And she had to learn that faith and life in America. To Keep from Undressing is Sharif’s first ..read more

The first thing you notice about Olio by Tyehimba Jess, which won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, is that it looks like no book of poetry you have ever seen. It’s oversized, 8 by 10 inches, with a plain black-and-beige cover, and more than half an inch thick. It looks less like a poetry collection and more like a workbook. Open it, and you discover that its difference from traditional books of poetry is even more marked. It has poems, to be sure, and some drawings and photographs, which aren’t unknown in poetry collections. It also has an official cast of characters. It has interviews. S ..read more

I’ve always thought that if you want to get reluctant readers engaged with literature, start with poetry.” — Kwame Alexander Tis the season … for basketball. When my son played the sport in middle and high school, winter break meant tournaments. The Crossover by Kwame Alexander is a story, told through poems, of twin boys, Josh and Jordan, who play on their eighth-grade team, and about their father, who played professional ball. Christmas is significant in a basketball sort of way. That’s why we’re reading this book in December. The author, Kwame Alexander, has written 28 books, and this o ..read more