Poetry. African American Studies. "The domain of poet Will Alexander's nervy curiosity ranges from the icy Himalayas, to African savannahs, from physics, astronomy, and music, to alchemy, philosophy, and painting. Orishas, angels and ghosts all sing to this poet, instructing him in their art of verbal flight. This is a poet whose lexicon, a 'glossary of vertigo, ' might be culled from the complete holdings of a reconstituted Alexandrian library endowed for the next millenium"--Harryette Mullen.

A mesmerizing poetry collection by "an ecstatic surrealist on imaginal hyperdrive" (Eliot Weinberger).

Asia & Haiti presents two long poems by Los Angeles poet Will Alexander, which, in the broadest sense, are about the cultures, economics, politics, history, and social concerns of the title regions. Alexander's poetry presents a remarkable re-writing of a history. Caught up in the vortex of a surrealist vision and tornadoes of language, his words call up an American equivalent of Aime Cesaire.

Poetry. African American Studies. Philosophy. Essays. Now available as a second edition with a new preface from the author, Will Alexander's TOWARDS THE PRIMEVAL LIGHTNING FIELD (O Books, 1998) is a work of vertical philosophy revealing the strata of cultures and language, like geographical layers seen all at once. These essays comprise Alexander's search for origins outside the warrens of the visible, revealing a singular imagination that moves with the force of a manifesto and the impossible dexterity of the unknown. Described by Eliot Weinberger as probably the only African-American poet to take Aimé Cesaire as a spiritual father, Alexander's singular voice resonates far past the constrictions of the rational world. His work resembles no one's and is instantly recognizable. In part, he is an ecstatic surrealist on imaginal hyperdrive. He is probably the only African-American poet to take Aimé Césaire as a spiritual father...[Alexander] is a poet whose ecstasy derives from the scientific description of the stuff and the workings of the world.--Eliot Weinberger Will Alexander is by far the most original poet working in the United States today. A major force in the dissemination of surrealism, there is absolutely no one who sounds like Alexander, and he, most emphatically sounds like no one else.--Justin Desmangles If the quotidian amounts to little more than a dossier of unitary suffering, then Will Alexander's visionary essays commence the ignition of evolution beyond inclemency. Césaire, Lorca, Cheikh Anta Diop, non-European philosophy and cosmology, alchemical and anti-statist traditions: all animate this work; its range is incomparable. André Breton wrote that for surrealism 'life is elsewhere;' TOWARDS RGE PRIMEVAL LIGHTNING FIELD takes us in pleasure and terror along the way to that range, shimmering beyond grim power, 'where the waters and suns are both kindled by splendour.'--Barry Maxwell

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.

"One of the most prolific and original figures in the field of contemporary literature, Will Alexander is known worldwide for his arresting explorations of European and Caribbean surrealism, postcolonial history, twentieth-century philosophy, and contemporary scientific theory. Here, Alexander undertakes nothing less than a redefinition of the essay form itself, opening an "artery of twilight" wherein aesthetic, political, historical, social, cultural, scientific, and theoretical discourses often become indistinguishable elements of a holistic investigation into the composition--or, re-composition--of the physical and metaphysical worlds. Singing in Magnetic Hoofbeat is an indispensable record of Alexander's thought, and confirms his reputation as one of the foremost exponents of Afro-futurist modernism."--P.[4] of cover.