LAURA MCCULLOUGH
  • About
  • Bio
  • Services
  • Books
  • News/blog

Major Jackson: smart, reasoned, original thinker

3/18/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Major Jackson’s essay on race in poetry, “A Mystifying Silence: Big and Black” cracked open the silence on the topic of race in poetry. First appearing in the American Poetry Review, it is reprinted in the anthology in a section called "Imperialism & Experiments:  Comedy, Confession, Collage, Conscience". Some of the essays in the section respond directly to Major Jackson's essay; others build upon it; some try to answer his call. In the coming days, there will be blog posts on the other essays--by Martha Collins, Jaswinder Bolina, Tess Taylor, Ailish Hopper, Tony Hoagland, and Patrick Lawrence--in this section.  Here is a tiny taste of Major Jackson's humane and intelligent essay:

Writing about race has to be so much more than writing about race, and moreover, race in poetry is not a mere discussion between black and white peoples of the United States, or a visit to the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, or some poeticized contraption set up to ensnare an overly sensitive group of readers who passionately believe in equity, justice, racial harmony, and change. It bears repeating again: for us to actualize as a country whose ideals and documents profess the value of a diverse ethnic and racial populace, we must begin to pen a body of poems that go beyond our fears and surface projections of each other to a fuller account of the challenges and reaches of an ever-evolving democracy.
 
To read the full essay and all of the others, please get the anthology!



 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Writing,  Making Music, Working with people, & Loving &  Living in New Jersey

    Archives

    July 2021
    February 2021
    December 2019
    December 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    A Sense Of Regard
    Claudia Rankine
    Laura McCullough
    Leslie McGrath
    Poetry
    Race
    R. Dwayne Betts
    Tony Hoagland
    University Of Georgia Press

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • About
  • Bio
  • Services
  • Books
  • News/blog