The Cracks Between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be forms an extended consideration not only of Harryette Mullen’s own work, methods, and interests as a poet, but also of issues of central importance to African American poetry and language, women’s voices, and the future of poetry. Together, these essays and interviews highlight the impulses and influences that drive Mullen’s work as a poet and thinker, and suggest unique possibilities for the future of poetic language and its role as an instrument of identity and power.

Showcases brilliant and experimental work in African American poetry. Just prior to the Second World War, and even more explosively in the 1950s and 1960s, a far-reaching revolution in aesthetics and prosody by black poets ensued, some working independently and others in organized groups. Little of this new work was reflected in the anthologies and syllabi of college English courses of the period. Even during the 1970s, when African American literature began to receive substantial critical attention, the work of many experimental black poets continued to be neglected. Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone presents the groundbreaking work of many of these poets who carried on the innovative legacies of Melvin Tolson, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Robert Hayden. Whereas poetry by such key figures such as Amiri Baraka, Tolson, Jayne Cortez, Clarence Major, and June Jordan is represented, this anthology also elevates into view the work of less studied poets such as Russell Atkins, Jodi Braxton, David Henderson, Bob Kaufman, Stephen Jonas, and Elouise Loftin. Many of the poems collected in the volume are currently unavailable and some will appear in print here for the first time. Coeditors Aldon Lynn Nielsen and Lauri Ramey provide a critical introduction that situates the poems historically and highlights the ways such poetry has been obscured from view by recent critical and academic practices. The result is a record of experimentation, instigation, and innovation that links contemporary African American poetry to its black modernist roots and extends the terms of modern poetics into the future.

The year is 2112, and the United States has recently been torn apart by a nuclear world war and a civil war. Even Silver Creek, New York—the hometown of Devonshire Jones—has become all but a shattered, hopeless place to live. In the aftermath of war and destruction, for Devonshire, life has become a series of monotonous, endless tasks: find fresh water, stock up on provisions, fix what is broken, repeat—all for what? To build a new life all alone? And that is what Devonshire is: all alone in an old farmhouse with no one but a cat and himself to talk to. And although there are others around town, he just can’t break free from his mind. For, although the wars are over, another war still rages on in Devonshire’s head; his mind keeps taking him down a dark road to his past, a place full of regrets, lost chances, and painful memories. What if I didn’t do this? What if I didn’t say that? And how could anyone not sit in the past, imagining it differently, when the future stretching out forever is so bleak? Or is it? Maybe there is a chance to make peace and live for today. But what will it take for Devonshire to do so? The Cracks Between Paved Stones is a thoughtful, compelling story of love, loneliness, acceptance, and why we must keep moving forward.

The astonishing, powerful debut by the winner of a 2016 Whiting Writers' Award WHEREAS her birth signaled the responsibility as mother to teach what it is to be Lakota therein the question: What did I know about being Lakota? Signaled panic, blood rush my embarrassment. What did I know of our language but pieces? Would I teach her to be pieces? Until a friend comforted, Don’t worry, you and your daughter will learn together. Today she stood sunlight on her shoulders lean and straight to share a song in Diné, her father’s language. To sing she motions simultaneously with her hands; I watch her be in multiple musics. —from “WHEREAS Statements” WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. “I am,” she writes, “a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation—and in this dual citizenship I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.” This strident, plaintive book introduces a major new voice in contemporary literature.

Stella greets Christopher when he shrinks and falls through the cracks in the school floor due to boredom. The two decide to look around and discover some classrooms where children are actively participating in their education and enjoying learning.

In a small Southern town in 1944, two girls secretly help a seriously ill army deserter, a decision that changes their perceptions of right and wrong. Issues of moral ambiguity and accepting consequences for actions are thoughtfully considered in this deftly crafted story.