With 670 poems arranged into eight sections and a scholarly yet accessible introduction by Kevin Young (Book of Hours)--National Book Award finalist (Blue Laws), poetry editor of the New Yorker and newly named director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture--African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song is one impressive collection.
The "successive eras can give a sense of the steady march and percussive drum circle of poetry," Young writes. He curates an extraordinary collection that spans from Phillis Wheatley, the first published African American poet, to the slam poetry of today. Young includes poems to lovers, to children, to nature and home, poems celebrating "good times," poems of grief. "The African American experience," he writes, "is a central part of the nation's chorus." This is a book to be passed from hand to hand, generation to generation. --Jennifer M. Brown, senior editor, Shelf Awareness