The Before Columbus Foundation Poetry Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards, 1980-1990 - Softcover

Before Columbus Foundation

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393308332 ISBN 13: 9780393308334

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991

Synopsis

“This is a publication of major significance, particularly with the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage approaching. It makes a vital contribution to our understanding of what is happening in this society.” ―Professor Dennis Brutus, University of Pittsburgh

Since 1976 the Before Columbus Foundation has been devoted to the task of redefining our notion of mainstream American literature to reflect this country’s multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial diversity. Since 1980 it has sponsored the American Book Awards, which honor a wide spectrum of books that reflect this heritage. To recognize literary excellence in this way demands a panoramic perspective, without restrictions and without quotas. Open, inclusive, democratic, the American Book Awards celebrates the many tributaries that flow into, in Ishmael Reed’s words, the ocean of American literature. The Before Columbus Foundation Poetry Anthology includes over 150 selections from a decade of American Book Award-winning poetry. Authors represented include Ai, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Edward Dorn, Allen Ginsberg, Maurice Kenny, Etheridge Knight, Colleen J. McElroy, Charles Olson, Sonia Sanchez, Gary Snyder, Quincy Troupe, Terence Winch, and Elizabeth Woody. It will quickly be seen as a landmark, pioneering volume and literary event. Along with The Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology, which is being published simultaneously, it is the first book to reflect accurately the American literature of the present―and to prepare us for the American literature of the twenty-first century.

About this title

About the Author:

The Before Columbus Foundation was founded in 1976 as a nonprofit educational and service organization dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature.

Ishmael Reed is the author of over twenty-five books―including Mumbo Jumbo, The Last Days of Louisiana Red, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down and Juice!. He is also a publisher, television producer, songwriter, radio and television commentator, lecturer, and has long been devoted to exploring an alternative black aesthetic: the trickster tradition, or “Neo-Hoodooism” as he calls it. Founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley for over thirty years, retiring in 2005. In 2003, he received the coveted Otto Award for political theater.

From Publishers Weekly:

Touted as "multicultural," this is a ragtag collection of work by well-known poets (Ai, Amiri Baraka, Edward Dorn, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg) and a large selection of poetry from the margins of American culture. Some of these poems surprise with their freshness (as does the work of Quincy Troupe), but the majority of the writing is indeed of marginal quality. Take for example Maurice Kenny's poem: "The day I was born my father bought me a 22. / A year later my mother traded it for a violin. / Ten years later my big sister traded that / for a guitar, and gave it to her boyfriend . . . / who sold it. / Now you know why I never learned to hunt, / or learned how to play a musical instrument, / or became a Wall St. broker." While good-natured and unpretentious, this poem is neither memorable nor intellectually provocative. Phillips's convoluted introduction is full of nonsensical ideas such as the following: "When Jewish-American poet Hilton Obenzinger writes poetry sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians he places his health and safety in jeopardy right here in the land of the free and home of the brave."
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0393308332
• ISBN 13: 9780393308334
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 476
• Editor: Phillips J. J., Reed Ishmael, Strads Gundars, Wong Shawn