African American Writers: June Jordan to Richard Wright

African American Writers: June Jordan to Richard Wright PDF Author: Valerie Smith
Publisher: Gale Cengage
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Contains biographical and critical essays on the work of important African American writers.

African American Writers: June Jordan to Richard Wright

African American Writers: June Jordan to Richard Wright PDF Author: Valerie Smith
Publisher: Gale Cengage
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Contains biographical and critical essays on the work of important African American writers.

Civil Wars

Civil Wars PDF Author: June Jordan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684814048
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
From renowned poet and activist June Jordan comes the reissue of her classic collection of essays about love, power, violence, and the condition of race relations in America. "A major and indispensable reading experience."--Alice Walker.

African American Writers

African American Writers PDF Author: Valerie Smith
Publisher: Macmillan Reference USA
ISBN:
Category : African American authors
Languages : en
Pages : 582

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Book Description
Thirty-four critical essays on the lives and literary achievements of black American writers from as early as the first slave narratives down to the latest works of such contemporary figures as Ishmael Reed and Jean Toomer. Each essay strikes a balance between biography and literary criticism, giving full consideration to the effects of culture and life experience on the core writings of the tradition. Each author is situated in the context of American history and the unique experience of the African American people. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Some of Us Did Not Die

Some of Us Did Not Die PDF Author: June Jordan
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786751169
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
"She remains a thinker and activist who 'insists upon complexity.' "Reamy Jansen, San Francisco Chronicle*Some of Us Did Not Die brings together a rich sampling of the late poet June Jordan's prose writings. The essays in this collection, which include her last writings and span the length of her extraordinary career, reveal Jordan as an incisive analyst of the personal and public costs of remaining committed to the ideal and practice of democracy. Willing to venture into the most painful contradictions of American culture and politics, Jordan comes back with lyrical honesty, wit, and wide-ranging intelligence in these accounts of her reckoning with life as a teacher, poet, activist, and citizen.

soulscript

soulscript PDF Author: June Jordan
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767918460
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Black poets from the early twentieth century and onward come together for a moving anthology, edited and organized by the late, revered poet June Jordan. First published in 1970, soulscript is a poignant, panoramic collection of poetry from some of the most eloquent voices in the art. Selected for their literary excellence and by the dictates of Jordan’s heart, these works tell the story of both collective and personal experiences, in Jordan’s words, “in tears, in rage, in hope, in sonnet, in blank/free verse, in overwhelming rhetorical scream.” Soulscript features works by Jordan and other luminaries like Gwendolyn Brooks, Countee Cullen, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Gayl Jines, James Weldon Johnson, Audre Lorde, Claude McKay, Ishmael Reed, Sonia Sanchez, and Richard Wright, as well as the fresh voices of a turbulent era’s younger writers. Celebrated spoken-word poet Staceyann Chin, an original cast member of Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, has also added an introduction that speaks to Jordan’s legacy, helping to further cement soulscript as a visionary compilation that has already become a modern classic.

Black American Writers, Bibliographical Essays, vol 2: Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin & Amiri Baraka

Black American Writers, Bibliographical Essays, vol 2: Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin & Amiri Baraka PDF Author: NA NA
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349814334
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description


On Freedom and the Will to Adorn

On Freedom and the Will to Adorn PDF Author: Cheryl A. Wall
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469646919
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Although they have written in various genres, African American writers as notable and diverse as W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Alice Walker have done their most influential work in the essay form. The Souls of Black Folk, The Fire Next Time, and In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens are landmarks in African American literary history. Many other writers, such as Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, and Richard Wright, are acclaimed essayists but achieved greater fame for their work in other genres; their essay work is often overlooked or studied only in the contexts of their better-known works. Here Cheryl A. Wall offers the first sustained study of the African American essay as a distinct literary genre. Beginning with the sermons, orations, and writing of nineteenth-century men and women like Frederick Douglass who laid the foundation for the African American essay, Wall examines the genre's evolution through the Harlem Renaissance. She then turns her attention to four writers she regards as among the most influential essayists of the twentieth century: Baldwin, Ellison, June Jordan, and Alice Walker. She closes the book with a discussion of the status of the essay in the twenty-first century as it shifts its medium from print to digital in the hands of writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brittney Cooper. Wall's beautifully written and insightful book is nothing less than a redefinition of how we understand the genres of African American literature.

June Jordan

June Jordan PDF Author: Valerie Kinloch
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313014396
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
June Jordan was born on July 9, 1936, in Harlem, New York, to Mildred and Granville Jordan, Jamaican natives. During her life, she became one of the most prolific, important, and influential African American writers of her time. Before her death from breast cancer in 2002, Jordan published more than 27 books, including Some of Us Did Not Die, Solider: A Poet's Childhood, Poetry for the People: Finding a Voice through Verse, Haruko Love Poems, and Naming Our Destiny. Her work Civil Wars, a collection of letters and essays, addressed such topics as violence, homosexuality, race, and black feminism. Working in many genres and touching on many themes and issues, Jordan was a powerful force in American literature. This biography reveals the woman, the writer, the poet, the activist, the leader, and the educator in all her complexity. Working in many genres and touching on many themes and issues, June Jordan was a powerful force in American literature. This biography reveals the woman, the writer, the speaker, the poet, the activist, the leader, and the educator in all her complexity. June Jordan was born on July 9, 1936, in Harlem, New York, to Mildred and Granville Jordan, Jamaican natives. During her life, she became one of the most prolific, important, and influential African American writers of her time. Before her death from breast cancer in 2002, Jordan published more than 27 books, including Some of Us Did Not Die, Solider: A Poet's Childhood, Poetry for the People: Finding a Voice through Verse, Haruko Love Poems, and Naming Our Destiny. Her work Civil Wars, a collection of letters and essays, addressed such topics as violence, homosexuality, race, and black feminism. Kinloch offers a life and letters of this prolific writer, delving into both her biography and her contributions as a writer and activist. This approach unveils the power of language in Jordan's poems, essays, speeches, books—and ultimately in her own life—as she challenged political systems of injustice, racism, and sexism. Kinloch examines questions surrounding the pain of writing, the anger of oppression, and the struggle of African American women to assert their voices. Attention is paid to the ways in which Jordan's life informed her writings her perspectives, and her contributions to the global landscape of class, race, and gender issues. The writer's major works are explored in detail, as Kinloch weaves discussions of her life into critical considerations of her writings. Ultimately, this portrait illustrates the ways in which Jordan's career represented her dedication to making words work; her ability to rally and revolutionize the spirit of people invested in decolonization, love, and freedom; and her responsiveness to the world in which she lived.

Within the Circle

Within the Circle PDF Author: Angelyn Mitchell
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822315445
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 548

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Book Description
Within the Circle is the first anthology to present the entire spectrum of twentieth-century African American literary and cultural criticism. It begins with the Harlem Renaissance, continues through civil rights, the Black Arts Movement, and on into contemporary debates of poststructuralist and black feminist theory. Drawing on a quote from Frederick Douglass for the title of this book, Angelyn Mitchell explains in her introduction the importance for those "within the circle" of African American literature to examine their own works and to engage this critical canon. The essays in this collection--many of which are not widely available today--either initiated or gave critical definition to specific periods or movements of African American literature. They address issues such as integration, separatism, political action, black nationalism, Afrocentricity, black feminism, as well as the role of art, the artist, the critic, and the audience. With selections from Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, W. E. B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Barbara Smith, Alice Walker, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and many others, this definitive collection provides a dynamic model of the cultural, ideological, historical, and aesthetic considerations in African American literature and literary criticism. A major contribution to the study of African American literature, this volume will serve as a foundation for future work by students and scholars. Its importance will be recognized by all those interested in modern literary theory as well as general readers concerned with the African American experience. Selections by (partial list): Houston A. Baker, Jr., James Baldwin, Sterling Brown, Barbara Christian, W. E. B. DuBois, Ralph Ellison, LeRoi Jones, Sarah Webster Fabio, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W. Lawrence Hogue, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, Deborah E. McDowell, Toni Morrison, J. Saunders Redding, George Schuyler, Barbara Smith, Valerie Smith, Hortense J. Spillers, Robert B. Stepto, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, Mary Helen Washington, Richard Wright

The Sexual Mountain and Black Women Writers

The Sexual Mountain and Black Women Writers PDF Author: Calvin C. Hernton
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
A bold exploration of the controversial role that black women writers have played in the making of African-American literature by the bestselling author of Sex and Racism in America. "Confirms that black women authors are celebrating a literary Fourth of July in America".--Plain Dealer. (Anchor)