With The Jazz Poetry Anthology, this volume offers a comprehensive exploration of the history of jazz poetry. The Second Set gathers many poets omitted from The Jazz Poetry Anthology, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Arthur Brown, Diane di Prima, Henry Dumas, Nikki Giovanni, David Henderson, Anselm Hollo, Haki Madhubuti, Michael McClure, Larry Neal, Dudley Randall, Eugene B. Redmond, Carolyn M. Rodgers, Ntozake Shange, A. B. Spellman, and Jay Wright. The Second Set fills out the history of jazz poetry with poems written before World War II, as well as those from the Black Arts Movement of the...
With The Jazz Poetry Anthology, this volume offers a comprehensive exploration of the history of jazz poetry. The Second Set gathers many poets omi...
Bringing new life to the world's oldest story, Yusef Komunyakaa and Chad Gracia have refashioned a classic Sumerian legend into a compelling verse play. In this ageless saga, Gilgamesh of Uruk, part god and part man, embarks on an other-worldly quest in search of immortality. This new version elaborates on the key themes of the story and weaves them into a vibrant and emotional new form. Wesleyan's edition of Gilgamesh is like no other and will take its place among the most powerful and engaging interpretations of this timeless tale.
Bringing new life to the world's oldest story, Yusef Komunyakaa and Chad Gracia have refashioned a classic Sumerian legend into a compelling verse pla...
This powerful collection of Yusef Komunyakaa's poetry delves, with his characteristic allusiveness, intelligence, and intensity, into an age of war and conflict, both global and internal, racial and sexual. "Sweetheart, was I talking war in my sleep / again?" he asks, and the question is hardly moot: "Sometimes I hold you like Achilles' / shield," and indeed all relationships, in this telling, are sites of violence and battle. His line is longer and looser than in Taboo or Talking Dirty to the Gods, and in long poems like "Autobiography of My Alter Ego" he sounds almost...
This powerful collection of Yusef Komunyakaa's poetry delves, with his characteristic allusiveness, intelligence, and intensity, into an age of war an...
Conversations with Yusef Komunyakaa brings together over two decades of interviews and profiles with one of America's most prolific and acclaimed contemporary poets. Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947) describes his work alternately as -word paintings- and as -music, - and his affinity with the visual and aural arts is amply displayed in these conversations. The volume also addresses the diversity and magnitude of Komunyakaa's literary output. His collaborations with artists in a variety of genres, including music, dance, drama, opera, and painting have produced groundbreaking performance...
Conversations with Yusef Komunyakaa brings together over two decades of interviews and profiles with one of America's most prolific and accl...
Conversations with Yusef Komunyakaa brings together over two decades of interviews and profiles with one of America's most prolific and acclaimed contemporary poets. Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947) describes his work alternately as -word paintings- and as -music, - and his affinity with the visual and aural arts is amply displayed in these conversations. The volume also addresses the diversity and magnitude of Komunyakaa's literary output. His collaborations with artists in a variety of genres, including music, dance, drama, opera, and painting have produced groundbreaking performance...
Conversations with Yusef Komunyakaa brings together over two decades of interviews and profiles with one of America's most prolific and accl...
A new and intimate collection from one of America's most important poets
The latest collection from one of our preeminent poets, The Chameleon Couch is also one of Yusef Komunyakaa's most personal to date. As in his breakthrough work, Copacetic, Komunyakaa writes again of music as muse--from a blues club in the East Village to the shakuhachi of Basho. Beginning with "Canticle," this varied new collection often returns to the idea of poem as hymn, ethereal and haunting, as Komunyakaa reveals...
A Boston Globe Best Poetry Book of 2011
A new and intimate collection from one of America's most important poets...
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa is well known for his jazz poetry, and this book is the first to bring together the verve and vitality of his oeuvre. The centerpiece of this volume is the libretto "Testimony." Paying homage to Charlie Parker, "Testimony" was commissioned for a radio drama with original music by eminent Australian composer and saxophonist Sandy Evans. Remarkably rich and evocative, encompassing a wide range of musical energy and performers, this moving affirmation of Parker's genius became a milestone in contemporary radio theater. Twenty-eight additional poems...
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa is well known for his jazz poetry, and this book is the first to bring together the verve and vitality of...