Poetry. African American Studies. "In his remarkable debut collection, COTTON, Derrick Harriell has created a mural in poems. The characters that inhabit this vivid tableau step into an active third dimension and allow us to witness the vicissitudes of their daily struggles, triumphs large and small, private desires. The community here is anchored by a specific Midwestern, African-American family which, in spite of both external and internal challenges, maintains its unity, however precarious at times. Death, passion, humor, mother wit, history, place, these are the colors that Harriell mixes and applies with such artistry that readers may not be so sure if they are watching a particular world or if that world is watching them. Harriell is among America's most exciting new voices in poetry"--Maurice Kilwein Guevara.

Cotton

Literature & Fiction

Harriell, Derrick

Poetry

Aquarius Press/Willow Books

Poetry. African American Studies. With MARINE LIFE: A WORLD IN POEMS, 2009 Pushcart Prize nominee and 2009 Poets and Writers Magazine Debut Poet Karen S. Williams offers a lush and lyrical new collection: a tender, evocative exploration of life in and out of the sea. Stirred by her lifelong interest in creation and the beauteous lessons of the marine world--interests born as she watched The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau in her grandmother's living room--these eighteen poems splash and play, enamor and sparkle like dolphins leaping towards a brilliant sun.

Marine Life: a World in Poems

Williams, Karen

Poetry. African American Studies. "These revelatory stanzas--deftly and lovingly crafted by a fierce poet at the peak of her powers--are both defiant and threaded with homespun wisdom. Here you'll find tales of family, chronicles of triumph and heartbreak, even an elusive mysticism touching down in unexpected places, as lyrical and soothing as psalms"--Patricia Smith.

Psalm of the Sunflower

Brim, Antoinette

Poetry. Foreword by Afaa Michael Weaver. ARC &amp; HUE explores the paradoxes of life in America's past and present through the eyes of a biracial woman pondering the complexities of the world. This collection is also rich in musicality, a chorus of strong voices such as Billie Holiday, Tina Turner, and Pablo Neruda. ARC &amp; HUE was nominated for an American Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, an Anisfield-Wolf Award, and a Hurston Wright Legacy Award.

Arc & Hue

Betts, Tara

Poetry. African American Studies. "For some years now, I have believed that Rachel Eliza Griffiths would be known as one of the most exquisite, powerful, and heartbreaking poets of her generation. Gracious and precise in its craft, unusually expansive in its emotional range, her new collection, MIRACLE ARRHYTHMIA, is a simply stunning volume of poems. Rachel Eliza Griffiths writes a poetry of perfected clarity and profound courage. She is a poet we will be looking to--for the consolation and wisdom of her work--for many more years to come"--David St. John.

Miracle Arrhythmia

Griffiths, Rachel Eliza

Fiction. African American Studies. In fluid prose, the stories in this remarkably mature collection chronicle an African American experience in the New South that is both rich and complex. Oftentimes, James Cherry's characters deal with the tragic and crippling—still there is humanity in the way he navigates each story plot without agenda or apology. Imbued with the complexities of the vernacular tradition, STILL A MAN is a beautiful exposition on what it means to be Black, Southern and Human. It is fearlessly honest while depicting economic class, violence and love in all their myriad forms.

Still A Man and Other Stories

Cherry, James

United States

Poetry. African American Studies. "In Kelly Norman Ellis's long-awaited second collection, a grand cinema of black life is honey-beamed and balanced on a 'nipple of coal.' Somewhere in the middle of turning these pages, the reader will helplessly rise and mercilessly hunt for dirty rice and Bill Withers. It is indeed the poet's job to save something, but Ellis does more—she swears to paper a luscious book so rich with black zest and drylongso that each page sets high our thirst for all that is human, longed for and inexplicable."—Nikky Finney"Every stanza in this fierce and formidable collection strikes a sweet, keening note for the colored girl—the front-row-center Sunday morning worshipper, the fast gal craving the jukebox on Saturday night, the grandmama arced over a stove-top staple, the precocious nappy-headed chile tripping the double-dutch line. With OFFERINGS OF DESIRE, Kelly Norman Ellis has graced us all with a gift that is nothing short of a miracle. She has blessed the sisterhood with a soundtrack."—Patricia Smith

Offerings of Desire

Ellis, Kelly Norman

Based on a true story. In her second full-length collection, A Penny Saved, Arisa White's elegantly harrowing poems investigate the idea of the captive within spousal abuse. Often utilizing the voice of the good wife Penny, these poems bring to the fore the effects of mental abuse in juxtaposition to a patriarchal world that tries to swallow the voice of Penny. White's poems drift from stream of consciousness to afterthought to dialogue in a way that exhibits her flexible and intimate relationship with language. With this dexterity, Penny's voice is realized.

A Penny Saved

White, Arisa

Poetry collection by Angela Narciso Torres, Willow Books Literature Awards Grand Prize Winner in Poetry. Part memoir, part love letter to the Philippines of her youth, Blood Orange has received critical acclaim for its ability to be at once vividly present in the moment and fully attuned to the under-dwelling currents of history.

Blood Orange

Torres, Angela Narciso

Literary Nonfiction. Asian &amp; Asian American Studies. Middle Eastern Studies. Women's Studies. Angie Chuang takes on an assignment to "find the human face of the country we're about to bomb" weeks after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Her five-year journey into the lives of the Shirzai family transports her far beyond journalism. She travels to their homeland Afghanistan, and becomes intimately involved with the family's story of loss and triumph over war. As she is drawn ever deeper into the Shirzais's lives, Chuang confronts unknown territory closer to her own home. Her own immigrant family from Taiwan is falling apart. Mental illness, divorce, and deeply rooted cultural taboos have shattered her own family's American Dream. Ultimately, she finds the two families are more similar than she had imagined. It is in journeying far away from her own home and family that she is drawn back to discover her own roots—and to confront the hard truths and broken places that lie at the heart of so many stories of migration and intergenerational struggle.

The Four Words for Home

Chuang, Angie

History & Criticism

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Books by Aquarius Press/Willow Books