by Ross Gay
First published 2019
The Furious Flower Poetry Center stands as America's first academic center dedicated to Black poetry. Editors Joanne V. Gabbin and Lauren K. Alleyne have assembled work from more than one hundred distinguished poets, including Jericho Brown, Tracy K. Smith, and Justin Philip Reed. The collection pairs their poems with scholarly essays from experts like Kwame Dawes, Evie Shockley, and Meta DuEwa Jones. These voices span multiple generations and artistic approaches, creating a vibrant tapestry that illuminates Black literary narratives from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The anthology examines the evolution of Black poetic expression while pointing toward its future directions. Readers encounter both intellectual insight and emotional resonance as the collection celebrates the distinctive qualities of Black poetic voices.
Genres: anthologies, african-american, poetry, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family
Setting: America
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
480 pages · Paperback · TriQuarterly