The Big Smoke

Matejka, Adrian

ISBN 10: 0143123726 / ISBN 13: 9780143123729

Published by Penguin Poets, New York, 2013

About this Item

8vo, 109 pp. Seller Inventory # 112973

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Big Smoke

Publisher: Penguin Poets, New York

Publication Date: 2013

Binding: softcover

Condition: Fine copy

Edition: Later prt.

About this title

Synopsis:

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the National Book Award in Poetry--a collection that examines the myth and history of the prizefighter Jack Johnson
    The legendary Jack Johnson (1878-1946) was a true American creation. The child of emancipated slaves, he overcame the violent segregationism of Jim Crow, challenging white boxers--and white America--to become the first African-American heavyweight world champion. The Big Smoke, Adrian Matejka's third work of poetry, follows the fighter's journey from poverty to the most coveted title in sports through the multi-layered voices of Johnson and the white women he brazenly loved. Matejka's book is part historic reclamation and part interrogation of Johnson's complicated legacy, one that often misremembers the magnetic man behind the myth.

About the Author:

Adrian Matejka is a graduate of the Southern Illinois University Carbondale MFA program. The author of The Devil's Garden and Mixology, which was a winner of the National Poetry Series. his work has appeared in the American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, and Poetry. He teaches creative writing at Indiana University in Bloomington.