Just as blues influenced the Harlem Renaissance and jazz influenced the Black Arts Movement, hip-hop's musical and cultural force has shaped the aesthetics of and given rise to a new generation of American poets.

Edited by poets Kevin Coval, Nate Marshall, and Quraysh Ali Lansana, "The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop" is the first anthology of poetry from the hip-hop generation. The BreakBeat Poets are multigenerational and multiracial. They are the real-life documentarians of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, employing traditional and wildstyle poetics to narrate a new country and city landscape.

Kevin Coval is the author of "Schtick," "L-vis Lives : Racemusic Poems," "Everyday People," and the American Library Association "Book of the Year" finalist "Slingshots: A Hip-Hop Poetica." He is the founder of Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, artistic director at Young Chicago Authors, and teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Nate Marshall is from the south side of Chicago. He is an MFA candidate in creative writing at the University of Michigan. His work has appeared in "Poetry" magazine, "Indiana Review," the "New Republic," " PANK] Online," and in many other publications.

Quraysh Ali Lansana is author of eight poetry books, three textbooks, and a children's book; editor of eight anthologies; and co-author of a book of pedagogy. He is associate professor of English and creative writing at Chicago State University. Two collections of his poetry will be released in 2014.

Reflections on the profound influence of poet, educator, and social activist Gwendolyn Brooks through examinations of her life and work. Poet, educator, and social activist Gwendolyn Brooks was a singular force in American culture. The first black woman to be named United States poet laureate, Brook's poetry, fiction, and social commentary shed light on the beauty of humanity, the distinct qualities of black life and community, and the destructive effects of racism, sexism, and class inequality. A collection of thirty essays combining critical analysis and personal reflection, The Whiskey of Our Discontent, presents essential elements of Brooks' oeuvre on race, gender, class, community, and poetic craft, while also examining her life as poet, reporter, mentor, sage, activist, and educator. Quraysh Ali Lansana has written and edited more than a dozen books to include BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip Hop. He teaches writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chi

Hip-Hop is the largest youth culture in the history of the planet rock. This is the first poetry anthology by and for the Hip-Hop generation. It has produced generations of artists who have revolutionized their genre(s) by applying the aesthetic innovations of the culture. The BreakBeat Poets features 78 poets, born somewhere between 1961-1999, All-City and Coast-to-Coast, who are creating the next and now movement(s) in American letters. The BreakBeat Poets is for people who love Hip-Hop, for fans of the culture, for people who've never read a poem, for people who thought poems were only something done by dead white dudes who got lost in a forest, and for poetry heads. This anthology is meant to expand the idea of who a poet is and what a poem is for. The BreakBeat Poets are the scribes recording and remixing a fuller spectrum of experience of what it means to be alive in this moment. The BreakBeat Poets are a break with the past and an honoring of the tradition(s), an undeniable body expanding the canon for the fresher.

Since 1989, Tia Chucha Press has been a leader in publishing artistically innovative and culturally provocative voices in poetry. The roster of poets the Press has brought to publication reflects a deep commitment to diversity and features established artists, such as Elizabeth Alexander, Virgil Suarez, and Diane Glancy, as well as first books by award-winning poets Terrance Hayes, A. Van Jordan, and Patricia Smith. Tia Chucha Press has had a powerful impact on the literary world as a very important first press for many poets and a respectable, high quality press for all. ""The Tia Chucha Press Anthology"" is more than a book of poetry; it is a fifteen year archive of real American life, a testament of democracy in verse, from the gritty streets of East Los Angeles to lonely Indiana avenues. The work in this anthology explores the tough and the tender, the personal as political, with humor, passion, humanity, and grace. ""The Tia Chucha Press Anthology"" includes study guides and writing exercises suitable for middle school, high school, and college-aged learners. Both thematic and craft issues are highlighted.

Christopher Stewart is from Dallas, Ali Lansana is from Enid, OK. A white man and a black man both born in post Kennedy, post-King southwestern USA, though both disagree with that geographical tag. Through these poems, the poets assert that their births, their ways of seeing, and their pains are rooted in what Ali Lansana's OU film professor termed "the Walmart Republic," a land where shopping center is community center. Where the failures of the father are re-learned in the lessons of the son. As poet Elise Paschen declares, "Quraysh Ali Lansana and Christopher Stewart pack the punch in these gritty poignant poems. Their poetic techniques counterpoint each other from lyric narratives to sharp edgy sonic bursts, creating a novel-like narrative. We follow two different journeys which begin in the Bible Belt and reach adulthood in places across the map. These gutsy poems explore identity and race against the backdrop of an ever-changing America."

In "Our Difficult Sunlight," Quraysh Ali Lansana and Georgia Popoff demonstrate the power of poetry in the K-12 classroom. Drawing on their combined thirty years as teaching artists, the authors explore the terrain of the 21st-century public school and outline strategies for using the reading and creation of poetry to improve students' reading comprehension and writing skills. Highlighting best practices, exercises, and anecdotes rooted in their diverse experiences as a Chicago-based, African American poet/professor and a Caucasian poet/educator from upstate New York, Lansana and Popoff offer insights into how engaging young people in writing and sharing poetry can break down barriers to learning, aid in exploration of critical issues, and foster connections among students and teachers from very different backgrounds.