Research Catalog

Title

Power and possibility : essays, reviews, and interviews / Elizabeth Alexander.

Author

Alexander, Elizabeth, 1962-

Publication

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2007.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Woodberry Poetry Room (Harvard College Library). Collections, repository. poe

Description

188 p.; 21 cm.

Summary

A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation. Elizabeth Alexander is considered one of the country's most gifted contemporary poets, and the publication of her essays in The Black Interior in 2004 established her as an astute critic and cultural commentator as well. Arnold Rampersad has called Alexander "one of the brightest stars in our literary sky ... a superb, invaluable commentator on the American scene." In this new collection of her essays, reviews, and interviews, Alexander again focuses on African American artistic production, particularly poetry, and the cultural contexts in which it is created and experienced. The book's first section, "Black Arts 101," takes up the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sterling Brown, Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Rita Dove (among others); artist Romare Bearden; dancer Bill T. Jones; and dramatist August Wilson. A second section, "Black Feminist Thinking," provides engaging meditations ranging from "My Grandmother's Hair" and "A Very Short History of Black Women and Food" to essays on the legacies of Toni Cade, Audre Lorde, and June Jordan. The collection's final section, "Talking," includes interviews, a commencement address--"Black Graduation"--And the essay "Africa and the World."

Series Statement

Poets on poetry

Uniform Title

Poets on poetry

Subject

• 1900-1999
• American poetry > History and criticism
• American poetry > 20th century > History and criticism
• African Americans > Intellectual life > 20th century
• African American poets > Interviews

Genre/Form

• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• Interviews

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-186).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

I. Black Arts 101 -- Dunbar lives! -- Sterling Brown: where academic meets vernacular -- Nerudiana -- Ode to Miss Gwendolyn Brooks (ten small serenades) -- The genius of Romare Bearden -- Lucille -- Living in Americas: poems by Victor Hernández Cruz -- The yellow house on the corner and beyond: Rita Dove on the edge of domesticity -- The one who went before and showed the way: remembering August Wilson -- Bill T. Jones still/here -- II. Black Feminist Thinking -- My grandmother's hair -- "Imitations of Life"? a very short history of black women and food in popular iconography from Jemima to Oprah, or, when is a pancake not just a pancake? -- Toni Cade's The Black Woman: An Anthology -- "Coming Out Blackened and Whole": fragmentation and reintegration in Audre Lorde's Zami and The Cancer Journals -- Black alive and looking straight at you: the legacy of June Jordan -- Memory, community, voice -- Kitchen table blues -- III. Talking -- A conversation with Deborah Keenan and Diane LeBlanc -- Who is the self in language? / rooted in language: an interview with Meta DuEwa Jones -- Black graduates' celebration -- Africa and the World.

ISBN

• 047209937X (cloth : alk. paper)
• 9780472099375 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 0472069373 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 9780472069378 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2007008824

OCLC

85833310

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library