Quraysh Ali Lansana is author of eight poetry books, three textbooks, a children's book, editor of eight anthologies, and coauthor of a book of pedagogy. He is a faculty member of the Writing Program of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Lansana served as Director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing at Chicago State University from 2002-2011, where he was also Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing until 2014. Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy & Social Justice in Classroom & Community (with Georgia A. Popoff) was published in 2011 and was a 2012 NAACP Image Award nominee. His most recent books include The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip Hop (with Kevin Coval and Nate Marshall) and The Walmart Republic (with Christopher Stewart).
Sandra Jackson-Opoku has authored two novels. The River Where Blood is Born earned the American Library Association Black Caucus Award for Best Fiction. Hot Johnny (and the Women Whom Loved Him) was an Essence Magazine bestseller. Her fiction, poetry, articles, essays, and scripts have appeared in Essence Magazine, Los Angeles Times Travel Section, Ms. Magazine, The Literary Traveler, Islands Magazine, and others. Her work has earned awards like the SCBWI Kimberly Colen Award for New Children's Writing, an American Antiquarian Society Fellowship for Creative Writers, the National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship, a CCLM/General Electric Fiction Award for Younger Writers, and an Illinois Arts Council Finalist Award. Jackson-Opoku also teaches literature and creative writing at schools, universities, workshops, and youth programs around the world. She has been on faculty at Columbia College Chicago, the University of Miami, Nova Southeastern University, and the Writer's Studio at the University of Chicago. She currently teaches in the English Department at Chicago State University where she serves as Fiction Coordinator of the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing.
[Gwendolyn Brooks'] profound and lasting influence is richly
celebrated in this vibrant, thematically organized homage marking
the centenary of her birth [...] Layers of cross-currents flow
across these pages through moving and affirming works in tribute to
and in dialogue with Brooks by established (Rita Dove, Calvin
Forbes, Patricia Smith) and emerging writers, all carrying forward
the legacy of this essential American poet of conscience and
artistic splendor.
--Booklist Majestic, exciting, enlightening, and entertaining [...]
an essential book for anybody who has any feeling for Chicago
literature, period. [Brooks'] work resonates now more profoundly
than anybody else who was writing when she wrote.
--Rick Kogan, WGN Radio "A vibrant celebration -- teeming with
poetry, essays and art -- inspired by the late poet and cultural
icon Gwendolyn Brooks."
--Chicago Tribune [Gwendolyn Brooks'] influence on Chicagoans can
be felt throughout the book, from Kevin Coval's ode to the poet to
Brooks's handwritten edits on two of Lansana's poems. [...] 16
years after her death, Revise the Psalm proves she continues to be
relevant.
--Chicago magazine Both scholarly and intimate, a 'praise-song' of
a generous, eloquent writer, teacher and activist who provided
insight into the Great Migration, the civil rights movement, Black
Power and the lives of working class and poor African
Americans.
--Newciy As a poet concerned with social justice, the issues of
Brooks' time -- black death and despair -- are still reverberating
today, guiding contemporary pens toward contemporary papers. Revise
the Psalm reminds us that Brooks' meditations and elegies are still
potent, still heart-wrenchingly necessary.
--Black Book Quotes This anthology is an homage of monumental
proportions. It is a literary offering from a partial list of poets
and writers who honor the major twentieth century American figure,
Miss Gwendolyn Brooks, Chicago poet, champion for Black expression
in American letters, advocate for the underdog in our society and
all children everywhere. It is a must for every library.
--Ana Castillo, author of So Far From God Gwendolyn Brooks provided
us with sun to flower. In Revise the Psalm, the brilliant writers
she influenced and inspired measure up to and magnify Brooks'
challenging, inclusive, disciplined art.
--Joanne V. Gabbin, Furious Flower Poetry Center Revise the Psalm
revisits and revitalizes the power of Gwendolyn Brooks's legacy of
"literary citizenship." Tributes from multi-ethnic writers, mostly
poets, attest to her transformative poetic practice, her sharp
attention to audience, her compassion for younger writers. This
anthology, edited by Quraysh Ali Lansana and Sandra Jackson-Opoku,
is a necessary intervention into forgetting, as we approach 100th
anniversary of one of the most brilliant poets of the 20th century
and, I daresay, the 21st.
--Cheryl Clarke, author of After Mecca: Women Poets and the Black
Arts Movement The works of Gwendolyn Brooks are our heritage. We
receive her remarkable artistic testament, the fruit of her
imagination and artistry and commitment. For other poets and
writers, this heritage is endlessly generative [...] In all her
writing, one recognizes her enormous capacity to respond with
wisdom and sympathy to human frailty and failure, to encourage and
to set an example, and to sustain her fierce loyalty to everyday
life. Her poems encompass men and women working, singing,
suffering, loving and grieving; joyous, sad, and angry; dejected,
despairing and foolish; hopeful, helpful, and heroic [...] From the
very beginning of her artistic career, she was deeply engaged with
her art, championing with her poetic range and brilliance the
humanity of those whom she portrayed. As another poet once said to
me long ago, Brooks's virtuosity was the proof of her commitment to
black life. To life. She stood with the great cause of civil rights
and also wrote of the great travails of being human in an uncivil
time and place. She wrote with special warmth, honesty, and realism
about children. Her work and her person have directly and
indirectly inspired, counseled, advised, and challenged all who
write poetry and fiction, and all who read. Nothing could be more
fitting or more welcome in the centennial year of Brooks's birth
than this moving collection of tributes to her.
--Reginald Gibbons
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