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brittmariasbooks's review against another edition
3.0
African American Poetry encompasses 250 years of poetry from 1770-2020. I am glad I persevered finishing this poetry beast of 1170 pages. The book starts with an in-depth introduction explaining all the parts and highlighting some poets. I thought of giving up sometimes but the poetry collection includes many, many poets that I would find gems and continue. My gems - highlighted sometimes in my page updates - will probably be different than the gems you will find in this poetry collection. Personally, it took me longer to read the older poems since English is not my first language. However, since I read the book 'normally' it became easier for me as I read more poems.
The collection spreads the 250 years over 8 parts:
1. Bury Me in A Free Land 1770-1899
2. Lift Every Voice 1900-1918
3. The Dark Tower 1919-1936
4. Ballads of Remembrance 1936-1959
5. Ideas of Ancestry 1960-1975
6. Blue Light Sutras 1976-1989
7. Praise Songs for the Day 1990-2008
8. After the Hurricane 2009-2020
I would definitely recommend this poetry collection to any poetry lover and advice them to read it how they want to. Start in the middle, skip to the end. However, you like it.
The collection spreads the 250 years over 8 parts:
1. Bury Me in A Free Land 1770-1899
2. Lift Every Voice 1900-1918
3. The Dark Tower 1919-1936
4. Ballads of Remembrance 1936-1959
5. Ideas of Ancestry 1960-1975
6. Blue Light Sutras 1976-1989
7. Praise Songs for the Day 1990-2008
8. After the Hurricane 2009-2020
I would definitely recommend this poetry collection to any poetry lover and advice them to read it how they want to. Start in the middle, skip to the end. However, you like it.
serenaac's review against another edition
4.0
African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song edited by Kevin Young is a compendium like no other, exploring the wide breadth of African American poetry from songs to poems and much more. There are eight sections in this collection and there are the familiar, often anthologized poems we've come to know, but there are also the unfamiliar poets who have been obscured by American culture for far too long. The struggle is real and it continues 250 years later.
Young says the collection contains "poems we memorize, pass around, carry in our memory, and literally inscribe in stone." And I would agree wholeheartedly with that.
This is a collection that should be brought to classrooms as young as elementary schools. These are the poems and truths that need to be taught so that we can learn from the past and move forward as a nation to a brighter future.
Full review posts on Dec. 2, 2020: https://savvyverseandwit.com/2020/12/african-american-poetry-250-years-of-struggle-and-song-edited-by-kevin-young.html
Young says the collection contains "poems we memorize, pass around, carry in our memory, and literally inscribe in stone." And I would agree wholeheartedly with that.
This is a collection that should be brought to classrooms as young as elementary schools. These are the poems and truths that need to be taught so that we can learn from the past and move forward as a nation to a brighter future.
Full review posts on Dec. 2, 2020: https://savvyverseandwit.com/2020/12/african-american-poetry-250-years-of-struggle-and-song-edited-by-kevin-young.html
qingyigeshu's review
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
slow-paced
4.0
FINALLY FINISHED THE WHOLE THING!!
zody's review against another edition
5.0
This is a beautiful collection of African American voices that have struggled for basic freedoms, human rights and their dreams. The book is organized by time and themes. I felt that it contained both famous authors and many that I hadn't been exposed too, which was a wonderful experience to be introduced to more authors of color.
theeuphoriczat's review against another edition
5.0
Thanks to #Netgalley for making this book available to me.
This is a collection of poems by African American poets who write about their experience living in American, their experience with racial inequality, motherhood, and the fear of raising children in a country infested with discrimination and marginalized profiling that leads to death of millions of sons and daughters.
I cannot express enough the importance of this book and the impression it made and I have also been introduced to a lot of new poets, one of them is Khadijah Queen whose prose addresses loss of the sense of self and that of family and the retention she wears to deflect from her problem in order to allow the focus to be moved to police brutality and the devastating effects it has on families and how sadness, tears, and marches are not an antidote or a treatment of pain experience for over 25o years.
There are so many poems that speak volumes about the black experience including those who were able to build thing up from the ground and others whose hard work was overshadowed and burnt to the ground like it was in Tulsa.
There is a poem by Clint Smith that addresses the injustice that Colin Kaepernick was dealt with in his poem "Your National Anthem". A child will grow, he won't remain a boy that you think is cute, because someday he would begin to ask for his right to live, then he is threatening and not so cute anymore.
I also really enjoyed Yusef Komunyakaa's poems such as "Annabelle" and "More Girl Than Boy" there is also Carl Phillips's poem "Blue" which struck a chord with me.
I hope you check this book out upon its release.
This is a collection of poems by African American poets who write about their experience living in American, their experience with racial inequality, motherhood, and the fear of raising children in a country infested with discrimination and marginalized profiling that leads to death of millions of sons and daughters.
I cannot express enough the importance of this book and the impression it made and I have also been introduced to a lot of new poets, one of them is Khadijah Queen whose prose addresses loss of the sense of self and that of family and the retention she wears to deflect from her problem in order to allow the focus to be moved to police brutality and the devastating effects it has on families and how sadness, tears, and marches are not an antidote or a treatment of pain experience for over 25o years.
There are so many poems that speak volumes about the black experience including those who were able to build thing up from the ground and others whose hard work was overshadowed and burnt to the ground like it was in Tulsa.
There is a poem by Clint Smith that addresses the injustice that Colin Kaepernick was dealt with in his poem "Your National Anthem". A child will grow, he won't remain a boy that you think is cute, because someday he would begin to ask for his right to live, then he is threatening and not so cute anymore.
I also really enjoyed Yusef Komunyakaa's poems such as "Annabelle" and "More Girl Than Boy" there is also Carl Phillips's poem "Blue" which struck a chord with me.
I hope you check this book out upon its release.
skitch41's review
5.0
Like many aspects of American arts and culture, poetry has been extremely white. This book does a tremendous job of rounding out our country’s poetic landscape by pulling together the work of African American poets from as far back as the mid 1700s to the present day. Though poetry is still not my strong suit, many of the works here are absolutely fabulous and provide a great artistic counterpoint to the triumphalist narrative that many white American poets have given throughout our history. One of the best things about this collection though is how, by reading this book from cover to cover, one can get a sense of how African American poetry evolved over the years from the familiar verses and meters of the past to a completely original style that begins to take hold in the 20th century. The brief biographical sketches of the poets in the back of the book is also incredibly useful and I would highly recommend that you read each one before you read a poet’s work(s). One thing I do wish this book had done was provide some dates for when specific poems were written. While the book is organized into chronological sections, those sections are internally organized by the poets’s last names and many of the works seem to have been written outside of their proscribed time frame. Thus, it would have been nice to see when a poem was written, even if the editor could only make an educated guess. This volume in the fabled Library of America collection has provided a tremendous contribution to American letters that fans of poetry will enjoy for years to come.
annya6's review
4.0
I would like to thank the publisher of African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Son for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy through NetGalley.
I don't know much about African American Poetry with the exception of Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde so this anthology is an excellent introduction for readers like me, who are interested in this topic and would like to trace the roots of African American Poetry. I appreciated a lot the introduction in the book, which explained the sections in the book, guiding the reader, as the poetry evolved through the ages.
It's a book I will often revisit to discover more African American Poets.
I don't know much about African American Poetry with the exception of Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde so this anthology is an excellent introduction for readers like me, who are interested in this topic and would like to trace the roots of African American Poetry. I appreciated a lot the introduction in the book, which explained the sections in the book, guiding the reader, as the poetry evolved through the ages.
It's a book I will often revisit to discover more African American Poets.
theeuphoriczat's review
5.0
Thanks to #Netgalley for making this book available to me.
This is a collection of poems by African American poets who write about their experience living in American, their experience with racial inequality, motherhood, and the fear of raising children in a country infested with discrimination and marginalized profiling that leads to death of millions of sons and daughters.
I cannot express enough the importance of this book and the impression it made and I have also been introduced to a lot of new poets, one of them is Khadijah Queen whose prose addresses loss of the sense of self and that of family and the retention she wears to deflect from her problem in order to allow the focus to be moved to police brutality and the devastating effects it has on families and how sadness, tears, and marches are not an antidote or a treatment of pain experience for over 25o years.
There are so many poems that speak volumes about the black experience including those who were able to build thing up from the ground and others whose hard work was overshadowed and burnt to the ground like it was in Tulsa.
There is a poem by Clint Smith that addresses the injustice that Colin Kaepernick was dealt with in his poem "Your National Anthem". A child will grow, he won't remain a boy that you think is cute, because someday he would begin to ask for his right to live, then he is threatening and not so cute anymore.
I also really enjoyed Yusef Komunyakaa's poems such as "Annabelle" and "More Girl Than Boy" there is also Carl Phillips's poem "Blue" which struck a chord with me.
I hope you check this book out upon its release.
This is a collection of poems by African American poets who write about their experience living in American, their experience with racial inequality, motherhood, and the fear of raising children in a country infested with discrimination and marginalized profiling that leads to death of millions of sons and daughters.
I cannot express enough the importance of this book and the impression it made and I have also been introduced to a lot of new poets, one of them is Khadijah Queen whose prose addresses loss of the sense of self and that of family and the retention she wears to deflect from her problem in order to allow the focus to be moved to police brutality and the devastating effects it has on families and how sadness, tears, and marches are not an antidote or a treatment of pain experience for over 25o years.
There are so many poems that speak volumes about the black experience including those who were able to build thing up from the ground and others whose hard work was overshadowed and burnt to the ground like it was in Tulsa.
There is a poem by Clint Smith that addresses the injustice that Colin Kaepernick was dealt with in his poem "Your National Anthem". A child will grow, he won't remain a boy that you think is cute, because someday he would begin to ask for his right to live, then he is threatening and not so cute anymore.
I also really enjoyed Yusef Komunyakaa's poems such as "Annabelle" and "More Girl Than Boy" there is also Carl Phillips's poem "Blue" which struck a chord with me.
I hope you check this book out upon its release.
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