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This work illuminates today's Black experience through the voices of transformative and powerful African American poets. Included in this volume are the poems of 43 African American wordsmiths, including Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Rita Dove, Natasha Tretheway, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Tracy K. Smith. Each is accompanied by a photograph of the poet along with a first-person biography. The anthology also contains personal essays on race such as "The Talk" by Jeannine Amber and works by Harry Belafonte, Amiri Baraka, and The Reverend Dr. William Barber II, architect of the Moral Mondays movement, as well as images and iconic political posters of the Black Lives Matter movement, Malcolm X, and the Black Panther Party. Taken together, Of Poetry and Protest gives voice to the current conversation about race in America while also providing historical and cultural context.
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Required for MS/HS collections. Powerful pieces, and you learn snippets about each poet (some of whom were new to me). Shared a few poems with 7th graders, they appreciated them, but age-appropriateness varies by selection. Pieces that moved me the most: “No Wound of Exit”, “statement on the killing of patrick dorismond”, and “Li'l Kings”