In urgent newpoems, Mitchell L. H. Douglas depicts the assault on people of color inAmerica’s increasingly divided Heartland. A devotee of American popularculture, fromrock ’n’ roll to Star Wars to Marvel comic books, Douglas now wonders whetherwe will withstand its most odious, self-destructive elements in this searingcollection

"A Peculiar People creates an entire microcosm within these poems. Steven Willis crafts a cast of characters, showcasing their struggles, identities, & underlying emotions....[W]eaving pop-culture and screenwriting elements to allow the reader to view this social commentary with a fresh lens[, t]his collection examines the author’s life experience; the pain of being Black and facing systemic racism." --publisher's website

"Jonah Mixon-Webster works at the intersections of space and the body, race and region, sexuality and class. Stereo(TYPE), his debut collection of poetry, is a reckoning and a force, a revision of our most sacred mythologies, and a work of documentary reporting from Mixon-Webster’s hometown of Flint, Michigan, where clean tap water remains an uncertainty and the aftermath of racist policies persist. Challenging stereotypes through scenes that...

I Am the Rage is a poetry collection that explores racial injustice from the raw, unfiltered viewpoint of a Black woman in America. Dr. Martina McGowan is a retired MD, a mother, and a poet. Her poetry provides insights that no think piece on racism can; putting readers in the uncomfortable position of feeling, reflecting, and facing what it means to be a Black American. This entire collection was created during 2020, many shortly after the deaths...

"A timely, stirring, and confident examination of mixed- race identity, violence, and history skillfully rendered through the lens of motherhood. In Hybrida, Tina Chang confronts the complexities of raising a mixed-race child during an era of political upheaval in the United States. She ruminates on the relationship between her son's blackness and his safety, exploring the dangers of childhood in a post-Trayvon Martin era by invoking racialized roles...

Composed entirely of words taken from the letters and public statements of the notorious segregationist Bull Connor, the poems in White Bull use language that was wielded in violence and oppression to reckon with the present moment. The city of Birmingham is a character too, with its suffocating heat and humidity, quarry pools, and mountain in the distance. Here, the truth comes out, like a child whispering in the midst of a political rally,

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"Included in this...volume are the poems of 43 of America’s most talented African American wordsmiths, including Pulitzer Prize–winning poets Rita Dove, Natasha Tretheway, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Tracy K. Smith, as well as the work of other luminaries such as Elizabeth Alexander, Ishmael Reed, and Sonia Sanchez. Included are poems such as 'No Wound of Exit' by Patricia Smith, 'We Are Not Responsible' by Harryette Mullen, and 'Poem for My Father'...