Awkward-Rich, Cameron. Dispatch: Poems. New York: Persea Books, 2019.
I met Awkward-Rich at MLA last year and since then have become a fan of his work. His new poetry collection just came out and I ordered it right away.
Harris, Middleton A., ed. The Black Book. 1974. New York: Random House, 2009.
This book is famous because Toni Morrison was the Random House editor who worked on the original edition, and while doing so she read the newspaper clipping that became the inspiration for her 1987 novel Beloved, one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. I have always been interested in reading Harris’s book because of this genesis story. I recently got a promotional email about a new hardcover printing and ordered an exam copy for consideration in my African American Literature course.