Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade
by Toi Derricotte (Editor), Camille T. Dungy (Associate editor), Cornelius Eady (Editor)
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Cave Canem has for the past ten years dedicated itself to the discovery and cultivation of new voices in African American poetry. Founded in 1996 by prizewinning poets Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, Cave Canem began as a weeklong summer workshop/retreat and has now expanded to include regional workshops, poetry readings, a series of public conversations between major poets and emerging younger poets, and an annual first-book prize. To mark the first decade of this pathbreaking project, show more Gathering Ground presents more than one hundred poems by Cave Canem participants and faculty. It embraces an impressive and eclectic gathering of forms, including sonnets, a bop (a new form created by a Cave Canem faculty member), blues, sestinas, prose poems, centos, free verse, and more. The roster of distinguished contributors includes Lucille Clifton, Yusef Komunyakaa, Marilyn Nelson, Sonya Sanchez, Al Young, and many others. For newcomers and aficionados alike, Gathering Ground assembles in one place the most innovative voices in contemporary African American poetry and boldly attests to the important position it holds in verse-making today. Toi Derricotte is author of the memoir The Black Notebooks and of four books of poetry: Tender, Captivity, Natural Birth, and The Empress of the Death House. She is Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. Cornelius Eady is the author of Brutal Imagination, Autobiography of a Jukebox, You Don't Miss Your Water, The Gathering of My Name, and Victims of the Latest Dance Craze. He is Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
As an incredibly varied anthology of poems, this work serves up poems from familiar names alongside poets who most poetry readers won't be familiar with, and the result is a fresh collection of voices that pops with style, meaning, and memorable lines. The variations in style and voice mean that, more than likely, any one reader won't be blown away by each poem in the book, but at the same time, it's hard to imagine the reader that won't be struck by multiple pieces here, to the point of wanting to read them over and share them, again and again.
Among the many poets represented here, some of my all-time favorite voices are represented--including Yusef Komunyakaa, A. Van Jordan, Patricia Smith, Regie O'Hare Gibson, Aracelis Girmay, Kevin show more Young, and Lucille Clifton. But even as someone who reads poetry constantly, in both collections and journals, there are names here that I've never heard, and that I've discovered as new favorites who I'll be seeking out more work from. Each reader is sure to find their own favorites, and line upon line that resonates with them.
Absolutely recommended. show less
Among the many poets represented here, some of my all-time favorite voices are represented--including Yusef Komunyakaa, A. Van Jordan, Patricia Smith, Regie O'Hare Gibson, Aracelis Girmay, Kevin show more Young, and Lucille Clifton. But even as someone who reads poetry constantly, in both collections and journals, there are names here that I've never heard, and that I've discovered as new favorites who I'll be seeking out more work from. Each reader is sure to find their own favorites, and line upon line that resonates with them.
Absolutely recommended. show less
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Toi Derricotte is an award-winning poet whose work tackles difficult and universal subject matter such as violence, racism, mother hood, and self-identity through an auto-biographical lens. She is the author of The Undertaker's Daughter and four previous poetry collections, including Tender, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize. She is the show more recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, among other honors. Derricotte is cofounder of Cave Canem, professor emerira at the university of Pittsburgh, and a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. show less
Camille T. Dungy is the editor of Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, the author of four prize-winning poetry collections, and author of the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Strangers.
Cornelius Eady is the director of the Creative Writing Program and an associate professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.
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Classifications
- Genres
- Poetry, Fiction and Literature, Literature Studies and Criticism
- DDC/MDS
- 811.54080896073 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American poetry in English 20th Century 1945-1999
- LCC
- PS591 .N4 .G38 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Collections of American literature Poetry
- BISAC
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- 30
- Popularity
- 923,431
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 2
