Malin Pereira's collection of eight interviews with leading
contemporary African American poets offers an in-depth look at the
cultural and aesthetic perspectives of the post-Black Arts Movement
generation. This volume includes unpublished interviews Pereira
conducted with Wanda Coleman, Yusef Komunyakaa, Thylias Moss,
Harryette Mullen, Cornelius Eady, and Elizabeth Alexander, as well
as conversations with Rita Dove and Cyrus Cassells previously in
print. Largely published since 1980, each of these poets has at
least four books. Their influence on new generations of poets has
been wide-reaching. The work of this group, says Pereira, is a
departure from the previous generation's proscriptive manifestos in
favor of more inclusive voices, perspectives, and techniques.
Although these poets reject a rigid adherence to a specific black
aesthetic, their work just as effectively probes racism,
stereotyping, and racial politics. Unlike Amiri Baraka's claim in
"Home" that he becomes blacker and blacker, positioning race as a
defining essence, these poets imagine a plurality of ideas about
the relationship between blackness and black poetry. They question
the idea of an established literary canon defining black
literature. For these poets, Pereira says, the idea of "home" is
found both in black poetry circles and in the wider transnational
community of literature.
A Sarah Mills Hodge Foundation Publication.
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