Spirit & flame Book

Spirit & Flame celebrates the creativity of the African American poet. This volume, comprising more than two hundred pieces, delivers the artistic and political fervor of new and established black voices around the country - in the oral tradition; in tanka and sonnets; in lyrics that echo the sound of jazz, hip hop, and rap. Heir to the classic Black Fire published in 1968, the book exemplifies modern black aesthetics, bringing together some of the best African American poets of the last decade.

Keith Gilyard, poet, editor and director of Syracuse University's Writing Program, aims toward a "big, bad, promising, encompassing, Black, lyrically strutting ideal" in Spirit & Flame: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. From eminences like Amiri Baraka and Toi Derricotte to experimental historian gale jackson and Dark Room collective member Natasha Trethewey, this collection outlines the depth and breadth of black poets working in the 1990s.