click to view more

Necessary Past: Revising History in Contemporary African American Poetry

by Debo, Annette

$126.30

add to favourite
  • In Stock soon, order now to reserve your copy.
  • FREE DELIVERY
  • 24/24 Online
  • Yes High Speed
  • Yes Protection

Description

Uncovering how poetry refigures Black history to imagine a more just present and future

"Poets are lyric historians," proclaimed Langston Hughes. Today, historical poetry offers a lyric history necessary to our current moment--poetry with the power to correct the past, realign the present, and create a more hopeful, or even hoped-for, future. The Necessary Past: Revising History in Contemporary African American Poetry focuses on six of today's most celebrated poets: Elizabeth Alexander, Natasha Trethewey, A. Van Jordan, Kevin Young, Frank X Walker, and Camille T. Dungy. Their works reimagine the interiority of Black historical figures like the so-called Venus Hottentot Sara Baartman and the would-be spelling champion MacNolia Cox, the African American Native Guard who fought in the Civil War and the unknown victims of domestic violence, Jack Johnson and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Medgar Evers and those freed and enslaved in the early nineteenth century. These poets shift the power dynamic in revising our shared history, reconfiguring who speaks and whose stories are told, and writing a past that frees readers to change the present and envision a more just future.

Last updated on

Product Details

  • Apr 15, 2024 Pub Date:
  • 0810146886 ISBN-10:
  • 9780810146884 ISBN-13:
  • English Language