How have African American writers drawn on bad men and black boys as creative touchstones for their evocative and vibrant art? This is the question posed by Howard Rambsy's new book, which explores bad men as a central, recurring, and understudied figure in African American literature, and music. By focusing on how various iterations of the black bad man figure serve as creative muse and inspiration for literary production, Rambsy puts a wide variety of contemporary African American literary and cultural works in conversation with creativity research for the first time. Employing concepts such as playfulness, productivity, divergent thinking, and problem finding, Rambsy examines the works of a wide range of writers-including Elizabeth Alexander, Amiri Baraka, Paul Beatty, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Tyehimba Jess, Trymaine Lee, Adrian Matejka, Aaron McGruder, Evie Shockley, and Kevin Young-who have drawn on notions of bad black men and boys to create innovative and challenging works in a variety of genres. Through groundbreaking readings, Rambsy demonstrates the fruitfulness of viewing black literary art through the lens of the field of creativity research.

This is the story of Betts Blackshed and his journey back to the United States to find the family that his father left when he joined the British during the War of 1812. Betts journey to find family became his quest to start a family.

The Good Life And A Duo Of Short Stories From The Post Depression Former Antebellum South is a collection of three short stories that deal with the fun part of life of the mid 50's and early 60's of the rural south. All three stories focus on life as seen through the eyes of children of the time period.

A brief history of the Jeffries and Nunnally Family as they make the move from Mississippi to Tennessee

A journey through the days of growing up in rural Mississippi in the 1950's. A look at the sad, the happy, the cruel, and the joy of living in a not so perfect world. A mixture of folklore, reality, and the fantasy side of life as seen through the eyes of a child. A look at relationships between family, races, and communities at a time when nothing was perfect. A look at what it took to survive when survival was not promised to anyone. A look at life in a time and place that will never again be.

This is the story of African Americans going south to find freedom in the early 1800's as told by a Great Grandmother in rural Mississippi in the 1950's. The events taking place in this story are all based on historical facts. In truth this is much more than the stories of an aged great grandmother, but this story is a part of forgotten American history.

How have African American writers drawn on bad men and black boys as creative touchstones for their evocative and vibrant art? This is the question posed by Howard Rambsy's new book, which explores bad men as a central, recurring, and understudied figure in African American literature, and music. By focusing on how various iterations of the black bad man figure serve as creative muse and inspiration for literary production, Rambsy puts a wide variety of contemporary African American literary and cultural works in conversation with creativity research for the first time.Employing concepts such as playfulness, productivity, divergent thinking, and problem finding, Rambsy examines the works of a wide range of writers-including Elizabeth Alexander, Amiri Baraka, Paul Beatty, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Tyehimba Jess, Trymaine Lee, Adrian Matejka, Aaron McGruder, Evie Shockley, and Kevin Young-who have drawn on notions of bad black men and boys to create innovative and challenging works in a variety of genres. Through groundbreaking readings, Rambsy demonstrates the fruitfulness of viewing black literary art through the lens of the field of creativity research.

In this volume, Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody-Turner have compiled a collection of essays that offer access to some of the most innovative contemporary black fiction while addressing important issues in current African American literary studies. Distinguished scholars Houston Baker, Trudier Harris, Darryl Dickson-Carr, and Maryemma Graham join writers and younger scholars to explore the work of Toni Morrison, Edward P. Jones, Trey Ellis, Paul Beatty, Mat Johnson, Kyle Baker, Danzy Senna, Nikki Turner, and many others. The collection is bracketed by a foreword by novelist and graphic artist Mat Johnson, one of the most exciting and innovative contemporary African American writers, and an afterword by Alice Randall, author of the controversial parody The Wind Done Gone. Together, King and Moody-Turner make the case that diversity, innovation, and canon expansion are essential to maintaining the vitality of African American literary studies.

In this volume, Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody-Turner have compiled a collection of essays that offer access to some of the most innovative contemporary black fiction while addressing important issues in current African American literary studies. Distinguished scholars Houston Baker, Trudier Harris, Darryl Dickson-Carr, and Maryemma Graham join writers and younger scholars to explore the work of Toni Morrison, Edward P. Jones, Trey Ellis, Paul Beatty, Mat Johnson, Kyle Baker, Danzy Senna, Nikki Turner, and many others. The collection is bracketed by a foreword by novelist and graphic artist Mat Johnson, one of the most exciting and innovative contemporary African American writers, and an afterword by Alice Randall, author of the controversial parody The Wind Done Gone. Together, King and Moody-Turner make the case that diversity, innovation, and canon expansion are essential to maintaining the vitality of African American literary studies.

The outpouring of creative expression known as the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s spawned a burgeoning number of black-owned cultural outlets, including publishing houses, performance spaces, and galleries. Central to the movement were its poets, who in concert with editors, visual artists, critics, and fellow writers published a wide range of black verse and advanced new theories and critical approaches for understanding African American literary art.

"The Black Arts Enterprise and the Production of African American Poetry "offers a close examination of the literary culture in which BAM's poets (including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Larry Neal, Haki Madhubuti, Carolyn Rodgers, and others) operated and of the small presses and literary anthologies that first published the movement's authors. The book also describes the role of the Black Arts Movement in reintroducing readers to poets such as Langston Hughes, Robert Hayden, Margaret Walker, and Phillis Wheatley.

Focusing on the material production of Black Arts poetry, the book combines genetic criticism with cultural history to shed new light on the period, its publishing culture, and the writing and editing practices of its participants. Howard Rambsy II demonstrates how significant circulation and format of black poetic texts--not simply their content--were to the formation of an artistic movement. The book goes on to examine other significant influences on the formation of Black Arts discourse, including such factors as an emerging nationalist ideology and figures such as John Coltrane and Malcolm X.