"In A Fire in the Hills, Afaa focuses on one of the central threads in his body of work. His ongoing project of an articulation of self in relation to the external landscape of the community and the world and the writing of spirit through those revelations of sublimation of self gives way here to a material focus. The racial references are explicit as are the complexities of life lived as a Black man born in America in the mid-twentieth century. These...

"Praise for Jamaal May: "Linguistically acrobatic [and] beautifully crafted. [Jamaal May's] poems, exquisitely balanced by a sharp intelligence mixed with earnestness, makes his debut a marvel."--Publishers Weekly -- Following May's award-winning debut collection, Hum (2013), these new poems explore parallel landscapes of the poet's interior and an insidious American condition. Using dark humor that helps illuminate the pains of maturity and loss...

"A dynamic, moving hybrid work that celebrates Black youth, often too fleeting, and examines Black lives lost to police violence...Whiting Award-winner A. Van Jordan draws comparisons to Black characters in Shakespearean plays-Caliban and Sycorax from The Tempest, Aaron the Moor from Titus Andronicus, and the eponymous antihero of Othello-to mourn the deaths of Black people, particularly Black children, at the hands of police officers. What do these...