Book picks similar to
The Peacock Poems by Sherley Anne Williams


poetry
black-writers
late-20th-century
national-finalists

The Cattle Killing


John Edgar Wideman - 1996
    His struggle to find her and save them both plummets them both into the nightmare of a society violently splitting itself into white and black. Spiraling outward from the core image of a cattle killing--the Xhosa people's ritual destruction of their herd in a vain attempt to resist European domination--the novel expands its narrator's search for meaning and love into the America, Europe and South Africa of yesterday and today.

Edgar Allan Poe (Complete Poems and Tales, Over 150 Works, including The Raven, Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat Book 8)


Edgar Allan Poe - 2013
    Even more than a century on, Poe dwells in the dark corner of our literary consciousness. Reading Edgar Allan Poe’s works still feels like walking a razor’s edge between grim amusement and irrevocable madness. Introducing “Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Poems and Tales” Our aim was to prepare a perfectly-formatted collection of Edgar Allan Poe's books that was designed specifically for your e-reader device at a fantastic price. We are pleased to offer you the result of our work! This tremendous "Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Works and Tales" series comes with the following great features: • The complete original text of over 150 works by Edgar Allan Poe, including short stories and poems;• Free audiobook access to full-length recordings of Edgar Allan Poe's works;• A beautifully illustrated version of Poe's most famous work - "The Raven";• Clean formatting designed to fit any screen size;• An easy-to-use active table of contents;• BONUS - Poe's Influence - Film and Television Adaptations, Poe in Music, Literature and Comics!• BONUS - Most Famous Quotes from Edgar Allan Poe! All works by Edgar Allan Poe are included in this wonderful collection. The most famous are: Short Stories: ”The Black Cat”, "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Masque of the Red Death", "The Premature Burial", "The Purloined Letter", “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”, “Hop-Frog” and many more! Poems: "The Raven", "Annabel Lee", "The Bells", "The City in the Sea", "A Dream Within a Dream", "To Helen", "Lenore", "Ulalume" and many more! Novels: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket—Poe's only complete novelCollected Essays The readers are raving about „Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Poems and Tales”: “Finding this incredible compendium, leaves me in total disbelief. I am thrilled. Yes, this is indeed Edgar Allan Poe: Ultimate Collection, incredibly well presented, well formatted and incredibly easy to use. What a gift to Edgar Allan Poe devotees. Highly Recommended!”“The book covers everything from his influence: film and tv adaptations, to his music, comics, and more. Beautifully written. Whether you are a Poe fan, or simply looking for a comprehensive resource - you will find everything you are looking for here - and maybe even a few surprises.”“From the beautiful and classical looking cover to the well-woven story of his life into the book, the quality of this work is top notch and SO easy to navigate&l

Married but Still Looking


Travis Hunter - 2002
    He’s a good-looking, smooth-talking former pro-basketball player, but he has a problem: He has never been satisfied with just one woman. Then he meets Terri and everything changes. Sort of.Genesis knows that Terri is perfect for him, and they become engaged. But Genesis just can’t seem to stop cheating on Terri nearly every chance he gets. Genesis’s best friend, Prodigy, constantly warns him that he’s going to mess up the best thing ever to happen to him, but Genesis is not ready to listen.After dealing with a family crisis, Genesis realizes the importance of his relationship with Terri, and he begins to change his cheating ways. He knows that once he says, “I do,” everything will fall into place. But it may be too late, because one of his past indiscretions comes back to haunt him, and Terri has a few surprises of her own for Genesis.

Trouble in Mind: Poems


Lucie Brock-Broido - 2004
    There is a new clarity to her work, a disquieting transparency, even in the midst of the wild thickets of language for which she is known. A poet “at the border of her own allegory,” Brock-Broido searches for a lexicon adequate to the extremities of experience–a quest that is as capricious as it is uncompromising. In the process, she reveals, unsparingly, things as they are. In “Pamphlet on Ravening” she recalls, “I was a hunger artist once, as well. / My bones had shone. / I had had rapture on my side.” The book is laced with sequences: haunted, odd self-portraits; a succession of poems provoked by discarded titles by Wallace Stevens; an intermittent series of fractured and beguiling lyrics that she variously refers to as fragments, leaflets, and apologues.Trouble in Mind is a book that astonishes us afresh at the agility and the uncanny will of language, which Brock-Broido is not afraid to follow where it may lead her: “That the name of bliss is only in the diminishing / (As far as possible) of pain. That I had quit / The quiet velvet cult of it, / Yet trouble came.” Even trouble, in Brock-Broido’s idiom, becomes something resplendent.From the Hardcover edition.

The New Negro


Alain LeRoy LockeEric Walrond - 1925
    DuBois, Locke has constructed a vivid look at the new negro, the changing African American finding his place in the ever shifting sociocultural landscape that was 1920s America. With poetry, prose, and nonfiction essays, this collection is widely praised for its literary strength as well as its historical coverage of a monumental and fascinating time in the history of America.

If Beale Street Could Talk


James Baldwin - 1974
    Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions-affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.

The Colossus of New York


Colson Whitehead - 2003
    Here is a literary love song that will entrance anyone who has lived in—or spent time—in the greatest of American cities. A masterful evocation of the city that never sleeps, The Colossus of New York captures the city’s inner and outer landscapes in a series of vignettes, meditations, and personal memories. Colson Whitehead conveys with almost uncanny immediacy the feelings and thoughts of longtime residents and of newcomers who dream of making it their home; of those who have conquered its challenges; and of those who struggle against its cruelties. Whitehead’s style is as multilayered and multifarious as New York itself: Switching from third person, to first person, to second person, he weaves individual voices into a jazzy musical composition that perfectly reflects the way we experience the city. There is a funny, knowing riff on what it feels like to arrive in New York for the first time; a lyrical meditation on how the city is transformed by an unexpected rain shower; and a wry look at the ferocious battle that is commuting. The plaintive notes of the lonely and dispossessed resound in one passage, while another captures those magical moments when the city seems to be talking directly to you, inviting you to become one with its rhythms. The Colossus of New York is a remarkable portrait of life in the big city. Ambitious in scope, gemlike in its details, it is at once an unparalleled tribute to New York and the ideal introduction to one of the most exciting writers working today.From the Hardcover edition.

Bebe's By Golly Wow!


Yolanda Joe - 1998
    A big, strapping "steak-colored" man who is as strong as he is sensitive, Isaac is the man of Bebe's dreams. But he's also a father dealing with the challenges of raising a thirteen-year-old daughter on his own.Much to Bebe's surprise, Isaac's whip-smart daughter, Dashay, turns out to be the "other woman" who threatens to keep them apart. Meanwhile Sandy, Bebe's best friend, who is struggling in the workplace as she clashes with the new owners of the radio station, continues on her adventure in search of true love, refusing to give up. Set in Chicago and told in alternating voices, Bebe's By Golly Wow sparkles with Yolanda Joe's deft storytelling, in-your-face dialogue, and marvelous insight as she paints a sensitive and funny tale of modern romance, family transitions, and heartfelt friendships.

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self


Danielle Evans - 2010
    In each of her stories, Danielle Evans explores the non-white American experience with honesty, wisdom, and humor. They are striking in their emotional immediacy, based in a world where inequality is a reality, but the insecurities of young adulthood and tensions within family are often the more complicating factors. One of the most lauded debuts of the year, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self announces a major new talent in Danielle Evans.

Zirconia


Chelsey Minnis - 2001
    With formal invention and a wild personae, ZIRCONIA compels one to follow gem-strewn trails of feminine intuition, savagery, ennui, fantasy, and intimacy to their diabolically fruitful conclusions.

Gardening in the Dark


Laura Kasischke - 2004
    Her poems take us to the flip side of human consciousness, where anything can happen at any time. Tinged with surrealism, her work makes visionary leaps from the quotidian to sudden, surprising epiphanies.

Angelique


Lorena Gale - 2000
    Gale has fashioned a spare but powerful tale that thrusts the indignities of slavery and the stupidity of racism out of the murky 18th century and into the here and now.—Martin Morrow, Calgary Herald

Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose


Wallace Stevens - 1957
    It included many poems missing from Stevens's Collected Poems, along with Stevens's characteristically inventive prose and pieces for the theater. Now Milton J. Bates, the author of the acclaimed Wallace Stevens: A Mythology of Self, has edited and revised Opus Posthumous to correct the previous edition's errors and to incorporate material that has come to light since original publication. A third of the poems and essays in this edition are new to the volume. The resulting book is an invaluable literary document whose language and insights are fresh, startling, and eloquent.

Waiting to Exhale


Terry McMillan - 1992
    The story of friendship between four African American women who lean on each other while "waiting to exhale": waiting for that man who will take their breath away.