"This volume is the first anthology of poetic writings on slavery from America, Britain, and around the Atlantic during the Enlightenment - the crucial period that saw the height of the slave trade but also the origins of the anti-slavery movement. Bringing together more than four hundred poems and excerpts from longer works that were written by more than two hundred and fifty poets, both famous and unknown, the book charts the emergence of slavery as part of the collective consciousness of the English-speaking world. The book includes: poems by forty women, ranging from abolitionists Hannah More and Mary Robinson to Frances Seymour, the Countess of Herford; works by more than twenty African or African American poets, including familiar names (Phillis Wheatley), intriguing figures (Afro-Dutch Latin scholar Johannes Capitein), and newly rediscovered black poets (an anonymous veteran of the Revolutionary War); and poetry by such canonical writers as Dryden, Defoe, Pope, Johnson, Blake, Boswell, Burns, Wordsworth, and Coleridge." "The poems speak of the themes of slavery: capture, torture, endurance, rebellion, thwarted romances, and spiritual longing. They also raise intriguing questions about the contradications between cultural attitudes and public policy of the time. Writers such as these, suggests editor James Basker, were not complicit in the imperial project or indifferent about slavery but actually laid the groundwork for the political changes that would follow."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Mirroring the structure of a quilt, this volume of poems are built in three layers, representing biblical/spiritual reference, musical reference, and references to sewing/quilting itself. These are the poems of American slavery."--

At the age of 19, Phillis Wheatley was the first black American poet to publish a book. Her elegies and odes offer fascinating glimpses of the beginnings of African-American literary traditions. Includes a selection from the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

In The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, editors Michael S. Harper and Anthony Walton present the definitive collection of black verse in the United States--200 years of vision, struggle, power, beauty, and triumph from 52 outstanding poets. From the neoclassical stylings of slave-born Phillis Wheatley to the wistful lyricism of Paul Lawrence Dunbar . . . the rigorous wisdom of Gwendolyn Brooks...the chiseled modernism of Robert Hayden...the extraordinary prosody of Sterling A. Brown...the breathtaking, expansive narratives of Rita Dove...the plaintive rhapsodies of an imprisoned Elderidge Knight . . . The postmodern artistry of Yusef Komunyaka. Here, too, is a landmark exploration of lesser-known artists whose efforts birthed the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts movements--and changed forever our national literature and the course of America itself. Meticulously researched, thoughtfully structured, The Vintage Book of African-American Poetry is a collection of inestimable value to students, educators, and all those interested in the ever-evolving tradition that is American poetry.