We’re happy to introduce Kwame Dawes, the editor for Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 394: 21st Century African American Poets, Second Series. Below are his reflections on the volume, highlighting that this second series is a vital continuation, celebrating the rich diversity and depth of African American poetry.
21ST CENTURY AFRICAN AMERICAN POETS SECOND SERIES, VOL. 394
| By Kwame Dawes |
Reading through the entries for the second series of contemporary African American poets in Gale’s Dictionary of Literary Biography (DLB) has reaffirmed my conviction that any accounting of the state of America in the last twenty years must contend with the dynamic presence of African American poets and African American poetics. This marked presence is evident in various ways, but is most striking in how the establishment of American poetry has recognized this important work through its major awards and prizes.
This publication benefits from the context of what has transpired in American poetry over the past two decades. To understand this, one might do well to compare this period with the several decades before. In short, I think this series is timely not just for African American poetry but for all American poetry. Critics and scholars will have to account for this phenomenon, and I think the DLB entries in this double series will go a long way in facilitating discussion. Apart from what I have focused on here—namely the major American poetry awards—any consideration would have to look at the proliferation of MFA creative writing programs in the US, the emergence of such organizations as Cave Canem, Furious Flower, and more recently, the African Poetry Book Fund, as well as the function of the African American poet as critic, citizen, and educator in the American literary system.
It would be naïve to ignore the impact of corrective engagement in positioning writers of color in the American literary landscape which has taken place, sometimes quietly and other times with fanfare, in the last two decades. Above all, this series reminds us that, at the end of the day, what we are looking at is the way in which talent—urgent, relevant, thoughtful, and fierce—has come to shape American poetry.
The strongest consideration for DLB vol. 394: 21st Century African American Poets is the fact it is the second series. By this, I mean its existence is framed by the circumstances of putting together the first series. The commissioning of the first series was exciting because it recognized that such a series was necessary, at least according to the editors of DLB, and I couldn’t have agreed more. I wouldn’t be the first to propose that the last twenty-five years have constituted especially significant times for African American poetry, and this is evidenced first by facts surrounding the culture of literary arts in America.
In 1999, Ai Ogawa won the National Book Award. She was the first Black poet to win the award since 1968. In the years since, seven African American poets have won the National Book Award, most recently in 2022 when John Keene was the winner for his collection, Punks. The roster of recognized poets includes Robin Coste Lewis, Nikky Finney, Terrance Hayes, Nathaniel Mackey, and Lucille Clifton (the latter two have been publishing significantly for decades).
The story is similar with the Pulitzer Prize. Established in 1917, the prize in the 20th century had only been won by Black poets in 1950 (Gwendolyn Brooks), 1987 (Rita Dove), and 1994 (Yusef Komunyakaa). But in the first decades of the 21st century, Black poets had won the Pulitzer Prize five times.
In 2012, D.A. Powell was the first African American poet to win the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. Since then, there have been five African American poets who have won the award, and in that same period, 10 African American poets have been finalists.
This pattern exists with many other prizes, but the final one worth noting is the highly prestigious Wallace Stevens Award, which gave its first prize in 1995. Between 1995 and 2010, no African American poet won the award (worth $100,000 and purporting to “recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry” by a major American poet). In 2011, Yusef Komunyakaa became the first African American to win the award, and between 2018 and 2022, the award was won each year by African American women: Sonia Sanchez, Nikky Finney, Rita Dove, Toi Derricotte, and Marilyn Nelson.
I’ve read this phenomenon of recognizing the work of African American poets in the 21st century as constituting a corrective to a system that had consistently ignored their achievement. There’s many reasons for this corrective, but it’s clear enough to me that efforts were made to expand the range of individuals who made these decisions, and in so doing, we saw more writers of color winning awards.
Given this “noise” in the literary world and the increasing prominence of African American poets, and given the growth in well-placed book publications by Black poets, the opportunity to give the kind of critical and canonizing attention that the DLB can create in American letters is one I welcome and consider timely. Very quickly, after listing the poets that should be granted this attention, it was clear to me that the greatest challenge would be formulating a list that would do justice to the work of African American poets in the last quarter century. The list was simply too long. So, after we contracted scholars to work on the first list, I proposed a second series, one designed not as a second tier, but simply as an addition to the existing list.
Given the often-unpredictable timing of securing contributors to commit to the project, we allowed the process to guide the content of DLB vol. 394. As a result of this approach, the second series is rich with poets who have made an impact on contemporary American poetry. A randomly plucked-out list offers insight into the range and depth of vol. 394, including entries for the experimental poet Douglas Kearney, Terrance Hayes, and anthologist Kevin Young. Adding to that is a roster of major poets who have been publishing since the 1970s and ’80s, including Haki R. Madhubuti, Rita Dove, Jayne Cortez, Ed Roberson, Patricia Smith, and Michael Harper, as well as emerging poets like Kyle Dargan and Danez Smith. The contributors chose the poets they wanted to work on from a list we shared, so each entry carries a tone of admiration, respect, and a strong sense of responsibility to the task.
This series is a splendid way for us to acknowledge and account for the years of diligent and brilliant productivity that have characterized so many African American poets over the last thirty years. These poets have continued to produce important work, and while they were not recognized during the decades prior to the 21st century, they are now being celebrated. They have proven to be deeply committed to the legacy of Black writing in this country and a powerful force in American letters.
This mammoth undertaking has been rewarding, but it couldn’t have happened without the amazing work of John Kuligowski and Tryphena Yeboah, whose value as associates can’t be overstated in guiding this process and working with the contributors and authors. They represent the future of scholarly editing in this country for their professionalism, diligence, and enthusiasm.
