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Relating his fatherless childhood in inner-city Los Angeles, a poet and journalist describes his yearning, and that of other African American men, to escape this destructive cycle to achieve personal security and happiness.
Animating Black and Brown Liberation introduces a vital new tool for reading American literatures. Rooted in both ancient Egyptian ideas about life and cutting-edge theories of animacy, or levels of aliveness, this tool—ankhing—enables Michael Datcher to examine the ways African American and Latinx literatures respond to and ultimately work to resist hegemonic forces of neoliberalism and state-sponsored oppression. Weaving together close readings and politically informed philosophical reflection, Datcher considers the work of writer-activists Toni Cade Bambara, Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, June Jordan, Salvador Plascencia, and Ishmael Reed, in light of theoretical interventions by ...
This New York Times–bestselling memoir about an African American man’s struggles and triumphs is “heartrending and beautiful” (Junot Diaz Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao). A Today Show Book Club selection, Raising Fences tells the story of a man whose youth was spent committing petty crimes, experimenting with sex, and developing a mortal fear of police. Like many young black men, Michael Datcher’s childhood was marked by the gaping hole left by an absent father. Out of that absence grew the desire to fulfill a dream that seemed almost a fantasy: to leave the streets behind, build a family, and become what he had wanted so badly—a good fath...
What happens to fraternal love when identical twins stop being identical? To romantic love when indiscretions done in the dark have a secret witness? What happens to a family when the love that binds also strangles? Inspired by Egyptian mythology and young America's coming-of-age story, AMERICUS follows the lives of rambunctious identical twins Asar and Set Americus. After Set contracts vitiligo (a skin disease that fades body pigmentation in patches), he goes from family favorite to stare-provoking freak at 10-years-old. When Set's super-capable mother can't keep her promise to cure him, Set blames her, but not more than she blames herself. "... in an era of white mob violence that crested ...
A timely and profound anthology from the national bestselling author of Black, White and Jewish, Representing a stunning range of essayists and novelists, both men and women, this groundbreaking anthology boldly confronts the complications, possibilities, uncertainties, and joys of being a man in the 21st century.
The impact of absent fathers on sons in the black community has been a subject for cultural critics and sociologists who often deal in anonymous data. Yet many of those sons have themselves addressed the issue in autobiographical works that form the core of African American literature. A Fatherless Child examines the impact of fatherlessness on racial and gender identity formation as seen in black men’s autobiographies and in other constructions of black fatherhood in fiction. Through these works, Tara T. Green investigates what comes of abandonment by a father and loss of a role model by probing a son’s understanding of his father’s struggles to define himself and the role of communit...
Winner of the Harper Lee Award (2018) Fierce and sensual, the poems in Outlandish Blues merge everyday speech with a shimmering lyricism and burst from the page into song. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers sees the blues, what she terms the "shared 'blue notes,''' as an important intersection between the secular and the divine, and between the various African American vernacular traditions, from spirituals to jazz. Part Nina Simone, part Bessie Smith, her poems are filled with a sweaty honesty, moving from the personal to the collective experience. This movement is often accomplished through the use of personae, concentrated here in a stunning series of poems on the Biblical figures of Hagar and Sarah. Whether about a contemporary domestic scene, a slave ship, or Aretha Franklin, these are poems that speak to the soul of experience.
This anthology begins with the memory of landscapes and landmarks, presenting poems in the For My People tradition of Margaret Walker. It includes a section titled "Blood and Disappointment in the Land," which documents ongoing social struggles. Other poems focus on the love that is essential for survival, rebirth, and dreams. More than 100 prominent African American poets contribute, including the distinguished and award-winning poets Toi Derricotte, Sam Cornish, Jabari Asim, and Pinkie Gordon Lane.
"Memoir recounting the author's childhood, struggle to overcome a legacy of anger and violence, and journey to become a voice for others"--
Thirty-seven Los Angeles authors contribute stories, poems and essays about contemporary LA.