New African American Books: Poetry
April 27, 2010
Take time out to slow down and appreciate love in various forms. From love of self to love of that special someone. “Sensual Sounds” will help you apppreciate the world around you. Available on amazon and barnesandnoble.com. Published by IUniverse.
Sensual Sounds: A Collection
by Marcie Eanes
Iuniverse
Available 01/20/10 in Paperback
Sensual Sounds is a thought-provoking poetry collection designed to inspire and encourage readers to cherish intimate relationships. Nationally featured writer, poet and motivational speaker Marcie Eanes draws for everyday experiences to create compelling poetic verse.
Sensual Sounds is separated into five sections. Each reflects Eanes’s skill and talent in encouraging readers to rediscover personal passions and mend strained relationships along with celebrating everyone’s bliss. Sensual Sounds contains something for everyone. Eanes’s upbeat poetry, which has been presented in a variety of settings, resonates with audiences everywhere. Among poetry’s varied landscape, Eanes’s unique voice is much needed nourishment for the soul. Sensual Sounds is a priceless addition to all avid poetry lovers’ collections.
April 24, 2010
Beacon Press
Available 02/01/10 in Hardcover
This new volume by the much-loved poet Sonia Sanchez, her first in over a decade, is music to the ears: a collection of haiku that celebrates the gifts of life and mourns the deaths of revered African American figures in the worlds of music, literature, art, and activism.
In her verses, we hear the sounds of Max Roach “exploding in the universe,” the “blue hallelujahs” of the Philadelphia Murals, and the voice of Odetta “thundering out of the earth.” Sanchez sings the praises of contemporaries whose poetic alchemy turns “words into gems”: Maya Angelou, Richard Long, and Toni Morrison. And she pays homage to peace workers and civil rights activists from Rosa Parks and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm to Brother Damu, founder of the National Black Environmental Justice Network. Often arranged in strings of twelve or more, the haiku flow one into the other in a steady song of commemoration. Sometimes deceptively simple, her lyrics hold a very powerful load of emotion and meaning. There are intimate verses here for family and friends, verses of profound loss and silence, of courage and resilience. Sanchez is innovative, composing haiku in new forms, including a section of moving two-line poems that reflect on the long wake of 9/11.
In a brief and personal opening essay, the poet explains her deep appreciation for haiku as an art form. With its touching portraits and by turns uplifting and heartbreaking lyrics, Morning Haiku contains some of Sanchez’s freshest, most poignant work.
February 20, 2010
Clifton, honored poet from Buffalo, dies
By Jay Rey
Updated: February 14, 2010, 12:14 pm
Published: February 13, 2010, 5:11 pm
Lucille Clifton, born and raised in the Buffalo area before going on to achieve some of the literary world’s highest honors as a major American poet, died Saturday morning at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore at age 73, her sister told The Buffalo News.
Clifton, who lived in Columbia, Md., and was the former poet laureate of the state, was a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee.
She won the National Book Award in 2001 for “Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000,” and in 2007, she became the first African-American woman to be awarded one of the literary world’s highest honors — the Ruth Lilly Prize for lifetime achievement by the Poetry Foundation.
Clifton had published 11 poetry collections, autobiographical prose and 20 children’s books. Her poems have appeared in more than 100 anthologies. In 1987, she became the only author to have had two books nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in the same year and was a finalist for the prestigious award.
For more, see The Buffalo News.
September 6, 2009
Available 12/05/08
The Great Invitation is a collection of poetry that will inspire your soul. Each poetic selection is filled and inspired by the Holy Scriptures. God has sent out the greatest invitation of them all through his son Jesus Christ. The question is will you accept this invitation to heaven. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”-John 3:16 Salvation is waiting, and God has shown us patience, accept his invitation.
June 24, 2009
In the Nude
by C. Alexandra Allen
Devreux Publishing & Art Media, LLC (DPAM)
Available 02/16/09
C. Alexandra Allen delivers an impressive collection of poetry and prose that embraces readers from all walks of life. She writes with a brilliant fearlessness about politics, hip-hop, loss of innocence, spirituality, and matters of the heart.
This introspective piece is about celebrating who you are. It is about learning life lessons. Moreover, at some moments, In the Nude is an ode to redemption. C. Alexandra Allen explores each of these themes with confidence; and she does not disappoint those coming along for the journey.
