Literary scholar and poet Carmen Gillespie asks us to consider the significance of the United States capital in African-American literature at a time when America is still learning how to read its first African-American lead political protagonist. Dr. Gillespie also discusses the role that poetry can play in reshaping the perception of national traumas such [...]

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[View Title on Goodreads.com] Prufer, Kevin. National Anthem. New York: Four Way Book, 2008. 82 pp. $15.95 (paper). Reviewed by Reginald Dwayne Betts There are poets writing who know a poem is also place, a crowded room where one can be whomever he or she desires, who understand that to be able to write a [...]

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“Whatever, yo!” Whatever happened those of us existing outside the black/white racial dynamic in the U.S. being acknowledged as more than “whatever”? Kelly Tsai has a new spoken word video out asking us, as we approach election day 2008, to peel back the worn veils of “whatever” and recognize what needs to be seen underneath. [...]

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ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS: Adam Bradley R. Scott Heath Natalie Hopkinson Natalie Y. Moore Mark Anthony Neal

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In the second half [read part one] of “Visionary Literature,” literature scholar Keith Leonard and poet/literary activist Ethelbert Miller conclude by bringing the conversation home (literally D.C.) concerning the increasingly slippery nature of “black” identity and the need for fostering more apprenticeship and speaking of truth to power among contemporary writers.

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As African-American literary institutions such as Callaloo and Cave Canem continue to grow in size and influence, are they really seeing the big, global cultural picture? Literary activist and D.C. icon E. Ethelbert Miller sat down with literature scholar Keith D. Leonard to drop a few eye-openers.

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Tanz, Jason.Other People’s Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America. New York, NY: Bloomsburg USA, 2007. 272 pp. $24.95 (cloth). [View Title on Goodreads.com] To be sure, there is no dearth of critical exploration of white male obsession with and love of black masculine cool. Take, for instance, Norman Mailer’s 1957 Dissent essay, [...]

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