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.
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Published by danielshankcruz
I grew up in New York City and lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Goshen, Indiana; DeKalb, Illinois; and Salt Lake City, Utah before coming to Utica, New York. My mother’s family is Swiss-German Mennonite (i.e., it’s an ethnicity, not necessarily a theological persuasion) and my father’s family is Puerto Rican. I have a Ph.D. in English and currently teach at Utica College. I have also taught at Northern Illinois University and Westminster College in Salt Lake City. My teaching and scholarship are motivated by a passion for social justice, which is why my research focuses on the literature of oppressed groups, especially LGBT persons and people of color. While I primarily read and write about fiction, I am also a devoted reader of poetry because, as William Carlos Williams writes, “It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet [people] die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.” Thinkers who influence me include Marina Abramovic, Kathy Acker, Di Brandt, Ana Castillo, Samuel R. Delany, Percival Everett, Essex Hemphill, Jane Jacobs, Walt Whitman, and the New York School of poets. I am also fond of queer Mennonite writers such as Stephen Beachy, Jan Guenther Braun, Lynnette Dueck/D’anna, and Casey Plett. In my free time I’m either reading, writing the occasional poem, playing board games (especially Scrabble, backgammon, and chess), watching sports (Let’s Go, Mets!), or cooking (curries, stews, roasts…).
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