Across a turbulent history, Black poets created a rich and multifaceted tradition that has been both a reckoning with American realities and an imaginative response to them. One of the great American art forms, African American poetry encompasses many kinds of verse: formal, experimental, vernacular, lyric, and protest. The anthology opens with moving testaments to the power of poetry as a means of self-assertion, as enslaved people voice their passionate...

Ada or ardor : a family chronicle: a witty and parodic account of a ma's lifelong love for his sister. Transparent things: weaves dream, memory, and time into a haunting novella of a young American's marriage, the murder of his wife, and a lone journey to uncover the truth. Look at the harlequins: Nabokov's final novel, about a novelist very much like himself. An ironic, intricate hall of mirrors that blurs the line between fiction and autobiography....