This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets

by Kwame Alexander

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A gorgeously curated anthology of contemporary Black poets, this is a collection with all the biggest names in the business, curated by poetic mainstay Kwame Alexander. It’s a celebration of Black joy, an uplifting of Black voices and a hopeful, incisive exploration of America.

A breathtaking poetry collection on hope, heart, and heritage from the most prominent and promising Black poets and writers of our time, edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander.

In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology, bestselling author and poet Kwame Alexander curates a collection of contemporary anthems at turns tender and piercing and deeply inspiring throughout. Featuring work from well-loved poets such as Rita Dove, Jericho Brown, Warsan Shire, Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Terrance Hayes, Morgan Parker, and Nikki Giovanni, This Is the Honey is a rich and abundant offering of language from the poets giving voice to generations of resilient joy, “each incantation,” as Mahogany L. Browne puts it in her titular poem, is “a jubilee of a people dreaming wildly.”
 
This essential collection, in the tradition of Dudley Randall’s The Black Poets and E. Ethelbert Miller’s In Search of Color Everywhere, contains poems exploring joy, love, origin, race, resistance, and praise. Jacqueline A.Trimble likens “Black woman joy” to indigo, tassels, foxes, and peacock plumes. Tyree Daye, Nate Marshall, and Elizabeth Acevedo reflect on the meaning of “home” through food, from Cuban rice and beans to fried chicken gizzards. Clint Smith and Cameron Awkward-Rich enfold us in their intimate musings on love and devotion. From a “jewel in the hand” (Patricia Spears Jones) to “butter melting in small pools” (Elizabeth Alexander), This Is the Honey drips with poignant and delightful imagery, music, and raised fists.
 
Fresh, memorable, and deeply moving, this definitive collection a must-have for any lover of language and a gift for our time.

 

 

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316417525
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	01/30/2024
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	43,545
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, publisher, two-time Emmy-nominated writer/producer, and #1 New York Times bestselling author of thirty-nine books, including Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances, The Door of No Return, and Light for the World to See: A Thousand Words on Race and Hope. A regular contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, Alexander is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2016 and 2020 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and the 2017 inaugural Conroy Legacy Award. In 2018, he founded the publishing imprint Versify and opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana, as a part of the Literacy Empowerment Action Project (LEAP), an international literacy program he co-founded. You can listen to his podcast Why Fathers Cry and find him online at KwameAlexander.com.

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/19/2024

This essential anthology, edited by poet and YA author Alexander (Why Fathers Cry at Night), includes work by more than 100 living Black poets, from Elizabeth Acevedo to Rita Dove. In his introduction, Alexander centers joy and wonder as guiding principles behind his selections, describing the anthology as “a gathering space for Black poets to honor and celebrate. To be romantic and provocative. To be unburdened and bodacious.” Indeed, joy permeates the poems, from Tony Medina’s ebullient “Black Boys,” in which he writes, “Black boys be bouquets of tanka/ Bunched up like flowers,” to Tyree Daye’s “Inheritance,” a meditation on what connects people to their forebears: “My mother will leave me her mother’s deep-black/ cast-iron skillet someday,/ I will fry okra in it,/ weigh my whole life on its black handle,/ lift it up to feel a people in my hand.” Xan Forest Phillips’s “Want Could Kill Me” explores desire and intimacy: “I want to buy you/ a cobalt velvet couch/ all your haters’ teeth/ strung up like pearls/ ...but my pockets/ are filled with/ lint and love alone.” Featuring a refreshing mix of established and emerging voices, this vital volume showcases a thriving and multifaceted poetic tradition. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 12/22/2023

Poet Alexander's (Why Fathers Cry at Night) anthology gathers an astonishing abundance of voices, introducing new poets and also offering a rich gathering of celebrated and familiar voices, beginning with Nikki Giovanni's exhilarating and deliciously wild revelry about travelling to Mars. Readers will also find poems by Rita Dove, Elizabeth Alexander, Nikki Grimes, Ross Gay, Marilyn Nelson, Yusef Komunyakaa, Jason Reynolds, and Natasha Tretheway, among others. The poems are organized thematically (joy, love, origin, race, resistance, praise) and make for rich browsing. Alexander's introduction to the volume makes it clear he doesn't want to pigeonhole Black writers but instead to celebrate the scope and individuality of their work. He refers to this book as an "unbridled selfie," and here that term seems not self-indulgent or ridiculous but necessary and even thrilling. VERDICT This amazing anthology may be the most important poetry collection of this decade. It is a book for poetry lovers, a book for the curious, a book of comfort, a book of prayer, a book of passion and a book of joy, a book of sorrow and a book of desire, but in the end, it is simply and wondrously a grand and glorious book.—Herman Sutter

Library Journal

Anyone who wants to know what's going on in contemporary Black poetry should seek out this anthology. Most of the big names, including Rita Dove and Nikki Giovanni, are here, as are a great many less famous but highly skilled poets. The quality of the poems ranges from quite good to fabulous; there's not a lemon in this bushel. Performers Mahogany L. Brown and Joel Damany Steingold are both excellent as they handle tones, accents, and emotions ranging from ultra-cool to deeply passionate. They clearly understand poetry (Brown's own is included) and how to convey it to listeners. Among other qualities, they understand the importance of line breaks. Listeners interested in American poetry--from Black poets or not--should enjoy this audiobook. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2024 - AudioFile