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Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi: Review
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi Review by Sidik Fofana The poem “Blue Seuss” by Terrance Hayes begins “Blacks stacked in boxes stacked on boxes/ Blacks in boxes stacked on shores” and ends “Blacks in rows of houses are/ Blacks in boxes too”. It is this same kind of African-American journey from the coasts of the motherland to…
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The Sellout by Paul Beatty: Review
The Sellout by Paul Beatty Farrar Straus & Giroux Review by Sidik Fofana “He’s demanding to know how it is that in this day and age a black man can violate the hallowed principles of the Thirteenth Amendment by owning a slave.” So reads the prologue of The Sellout, Paul Beatty’s romp of a third novel:…
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The Underground by Hamid Ismailov
The Underground by Hamid Ismailov Restless Books Review by Julian Cola
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It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time: Review
It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time by Angela Jackson Northwestern University Press Reviewed by Ciara Miller Angela Jackson’s sixth collection of poetry, It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time, covers a span of American history inclusive of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the Great Migration, and 21st-century Blackness. Her narrative approach is nonlinear. Jackson blurs…
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Lighting the Shadow: Review
Lighting the Shadow by Rachel Eliza Griffiths Four Way Books Khadijah Queen “Lighting the shadow, a woman / crawls out beneath her own war.” Thus lines 27 and 28 from the first poem in the book deliver both title and theme.
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Trouble Sleeping: Review
Trouble Sleeping by Abdul Ali New Issues Poetry & Prose Review by Rochelle Spencer
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Driving the King by Ravi Howard: Review
Driving the King by Ravi Howard HarperCollins Reviewed by Michelle Newby