Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson's...

...this writing thing was some kind of magic trick I didn't yet understand... Nikki Grimes discovered the power of writing at the tender age of six, when, alone in her room, she poured her fears, anger, and tears onto a piece of paper - and felt sweet relief. Words and faith were her most enduring companions as life flung her headlong from one harrowing experience to the next through her childhood and teenage years. Words, spilled into notebook after...

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the most intense of the riots that comprised the "Red Summer" of violence across the nation's cities, is an event that has shaped the last century but is widely unknown. In 1919, award-winning poet Eve L. Ewing explores the story of this event--which lasted eight days and resulted in thirty-eight deaths and almost 500 injuries--through poems recounting the stories of everyday people trying to survive and thrive in the...

From Children's Literature Legacy Award-winning author Nikki Grimes comes a feminist-forward new collection of poetry celebrating the little-known women poets of the Harlem Renaissance-- paired with full-color, original art from today's most talented female African-American illustrators. Taking inspiration from the unsung women poets of the era, Grimes uses the "Golden Shovel" poetry method to create original poems drawn from the words of ... groundbreaking...

"Poet, firebrand, mother, radical, healer, and sage, Nikki Giovanni has always been celebrated for her inspired and courageous voice. For decades, she has spoken out on the sensitive issues -- race and gender, violence and inequality -- that touch our national consciousness. As energetic and insightful as ever, Nikki Giovanni now offers us an intimate and affecting look at her personal history and the hidden corners of her own heart. In A Good Cry,...

For the first time ever, the complete poetry collection spanning three decades from Nikki Giovanni, renowned poet and one of America's national treasures. When her poems first emerged during the Black Arts Movement, in the 1960s, Nikki Giovanni immediately took her place among the most celebrated, controversial and influential poets of the era. Now, more than thirty years later, Giovanni still stands as one of the most commanding, luminous voices...

Inspired by the #SayHerName campaign launched by the African American Policy Forum, these poems pay tribute to victims of police brutality as well as the activists insisting that Black Lives Matter. Elliott engages poets from the past two centuries to create a chorus of voices celebrating the creativity, resilience, and courage of Black women and girls. This collection features forty-nine powerful poems, four of which are tribute poems inspired by...

"From the New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist, a biography in verse and prose of science fiction visionary Octavia Butler. Acclaimed novelist Ibi Zoboi illuminates the young life of the visionary storyteller Octavia E. Butler in poems and prose. Born into the Space Race, the Red Scare, and the dawning Civil Rights Movement, Butler expereinced an American childhood that shaped her into the groundbreaking science-fiction...

Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea is a tour de force from Nikki Giovanni, one of the most powerful voices in American poetry and African American literature today. From Black Feeling, Black Talk and Black Judgment in the 1960s to Bicycles in 2010, Giovanni's poetry has influenced literary figures from James Baldwin to Blackalicious, and touched millions of readers worldwide. In Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea, Giovanni turns her gaze toward the state of the...

Presents a selection of the African American poet's work which celebrates childhood, work, solitude, aging, courage, and the experience of freedom.