Description
Poetry. African American Studies. This gripping collection examines the life and times of the legendary blues musician Lead Belly from a variety of intimate perspectives, using a range of innovative poetic forms. A biography in poems, LEADBELLY becomes a collage of song, culture and circumstance, alive and speaking.
"I suspect this book, about one man's journey through the blues, is as close as a book of poetry may get to describing what it means and what it costs to have this music in your veins."—Cornelius Eady
"This is one of the most powerful exchanges between poetry and history that I have read."—Toi Derricotte
Author Bio
Detroit native Tyehimba Jess' first book of poetry, LEADBELLY (Verse Press/Wave Books, 2005), was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. The Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named it one of the "Best Poetry Books of 2005." Jess, a Cave Canem and NYU alumnus, received a 2004 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was a 2004- 2005 Winter Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. Jess is also a veteran of the 2000 and 2001 Green Mill Poetry Slam Team, and won a 2000-2001 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry, the 2001 Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award, and a 2006 Whiting Fellowship. He exhibited his poetry at the 2011 TEDxNashville Conference. Jess is an Associate Professor of English at College of Staten Island.
Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA