Blogging about Elizabeth Alexander, Allison Joseph, Marilyn Nelson, Evie Shockley, and Patricia Smith

I've enjoyed reading, thinking, and then blogging about poetry by Elizabeth Alexander, Allison Joseph, Marilyn Nelson, Evie Shockley, and Patricia Smith.

Joseph has been really productive over the last couple of years -- really throughout her career -- so I'm hoping to update my collection of blog entries on her work over the next year.  There's also so much more to say about poetry by Alexander, Nelson, and Shockley. Smith has a volume coming out in February on Emmett Till. You know I'm here for that. And though she published a few different volumes in 2016, Joseph has at least one more than I know of coming out in 2017.

When and if you're writing blogging something of a history of African American poetry, you'd do well to track the works of these five poets, I've learned. Collectively, they connect to a wide range of other poets and major trends we've been seeing develop in the field, especially over the last 20 years or so.

Related:
• Black women poets