Preface: How to use this book -- Between practice, 1984 -- Reflections and foresight upon a century of poetry, 2016 -- The nine muses of a poetry enthusiast's view of history or the nine multi-faced, multifaceted muses of American poetic production? (Twentieth century examination, key I) -- Twentieth century examination, part I: Where would you begin? -- My Gwendolyn Brooks -- William Waring Cuney, born 1906 -- Margaret Danner, born 1915 -- Mari Evans, born 1919 -- Wallace Stevens Key -- Twentieth century examination, part II: Did modernism begin at the same time as American poetry, or vice versa? -- Poetry Foundation journal days, 2006 -- Bob Kaufman, born 1925 -- Russell Atkins, born 1926 -- Raymond Patterson, born 1929 -- Twentieth century examination, part III: Why so few poems concerning the atomic bomb? -- A Lucille Clifton-inspired Sterling Brown teaching fable -- Sonia Sanchez, born 1934 -- Michael S. Harper, born 1938 -- Barbara Chase-Riboud, born 1939 -- Intro: SOS: Poems 1961-2013, works by Amiri Baraka -- Twentieth century examination, part IV: How should we go about awarding Gwendolyn Brooks a posthumous Novel Prize in literature? -- Toi Derricotte, born 1941 -- Lorenzo Thomas, born 1944 -- Ai, born 1947 -- Yusef Komunyakaa, born 1947 -- Everyday mojo letters to Yusef -- Twentieth century examination, part V: How old is contemporary poetry? -- James Baldwin Cave Canem keynote, 2017 -- Afaa M. Weaver, born 1951 -- Tony Hoagland, born 1953 -- Lynda Hull, born 1954 -- Patricia Smith, born 1955 -- Lucie Brock-Broido, born 1956 -- Essex Hemphill, born 1957 -- Twentieth century examination, part VI: What happened to the last of the last poets? -- Reginald Shepherd, born 1963 -- David Cloud Berman, born 1967 -- A Frank Stanford lyric speech act test with visions -- "Folk stone" -- Twentieth century examination, part VII: Where do poets come from? -- Introduction to Wicked enchantment: selected poems -- Cornelius Eady reading introduction, 2003 -- Toi Tribute, 2012 -- Twentieth century examination, part VIII: How many of your muses rest in peace? -- The Time Seibles bookbioboardgame -- The renegade poetic fortune-telling machine -- Brigit Pegeen Kelly and the case of the missing manuscript! (1951-2016) -- Guan Guan, 1929-2021 -- Twentieth century examination, part IX: What grows harder to see as you get closer to it? -- The African rainbow lizard -- A poetics of practice keynote.
Summary:
Canonized, overlooked, and forgotten African American poets star in Terrance Hayes's brillian contemplations of personal and allegorical literary development....Illustrated micro-essays, graphic book reviews, biographical prose poems, and nonfiction sketches make reading an imaginative and critical act of watching your language. Hayes has made a kind of poetic guidebook with more questions than answers. "If you don't see suffering's potential as art, will it remain suffering?" he asks in one of the lively mock poetry exam questions of this musing, mercural collection. Hayes's astonishing drawings and essays literally and figuratively map the acclaimed poet's routs, roots, and wanderings through the landscape of contemporary poetry.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.