Poetry. In 1992 Earl S. Braggs won the Anhinga Prize, selected by Marvin Bell, for HAT DANCER BLUE. In 1998, supported by a summer fellowship from the University of Tennessee, he travelled to Russia. HOUSE ON FONTANKA is the product of that trip to Russia. Braggs' foreword indicates the tone and context of his new book perfectly: I would remember Langston Hughes' trip to Russia and the Negro in the American South movie, intended but never made. I would remember Claude McKay's speech to the Com-Intern and the book of essays America refused to publish. But he goes on, Braggs writes, to find my love had also grown into the profile of Anna Akmhmatova sitting quietly on the banks of the Black Sea... The pages of this book are crowded by people whom he loves like lost and found brothers and sisters. The pages of this book are flooded by love. Acoridng to the poet's own definition, this book is a 'guided, but unguarded tour' -- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

House on Fontanka

Literature & Fiction

Braggs, Earl S

Poetry

Anhinga Press

Poetry. "Earl S. Braggs' CROSSING TECUMSEH STREET is lively, vocal, and laced with an intelligent sense of humor. I enjoyed these poems. I am going to share some of them with my poetry workshop which meets this afternoon" --Billy Collins. "Both historian and prophet, Braggs takes us across Tecumseh Street into a world of dazzling visions, enormous disappointments, and guarded hopes. I don't think there's another poet today who could give us all this" -- Richard Jackson. Earl S. Braggs is a native of Wilmington, North Carolina. He is the author of three previous books - HAT DANCER BLUE, winner of the 1992 Anhinga Prize, WALKING BACK FROM WOODSTOCK, and HOUSE ON FONTANKA. All available from SPD.

Crossing Tecumseh Street

Poetry. "Earl S. Braggs' poems twist and wind through cities and streets, celebrating ordinary people and historical figures alike. He is generous enough to let them live in their own telling details, without bias. Like Whitman, he finds occasions for song everywhere. It is a rich, finely textured world full of surprises and insights. IN WHICH LANGUAGE DO I KEEP SILENT is a rich opportunity to experience this poet in all his powers"--James Tate.

In Which Language Do I Keep Silent

"People have long told stories like our story but most never quite as long." And so begins Earl S. Braggs complex jazz memoir of growing up black and poor in rural North Carolina. What is long about Braggs' story is not its length but how deeply the roots of race and history reach through the narrative in every unexpected direction. From the haphazard pleasures of a childhood in a rural shack in segregated "fishtown" to the civil unrest of Wilmington NC in the Civil Rights Era to the poet's coming of age as a writer in San Francisco. In the midst of familiar injustices, Braggs blows open our conceptions about good and bad, revealing violence where we expect safety and friendships where we expect derision. A white man presses a revolver into the boy's head, the bookmobile lady stops so he can get on. While the borders of Hampstead were segregated black and white, the design of this narrative never is.

A Boy Named Boy: Growing Up Black in "Whitetown" During the 1960s, Hampstead, NC

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Wet Cement Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Braggs, Earl S. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Braggs, Earl S

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Braggs, Earl S. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

House on Fontanka

Crossing Tecumseh Street

In Which Language Do I Keep Silent

A Boy Named Boy: Growing Up Black in "Whitetown" During the 1960s, Hampstead, NC