This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets

Kwame Alexander

Jan 2024 · Sold by Little, Brown

About this ebook

A breathtaking poetry collection on hope, heart, and heritage from the most prominent and promising Black poets and writers of our time, edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander. In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology, bestselling author and poet Kwame Alexander curates a collection of contemporary anthems at turns tender and piercing and deeply inspiring throughout. Featuring work from well-loved poets such as Rita Dove, Jericho Brown, Warsan Shire, Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Terrance Hayes, Morgan Parker, and Nikki Giovanni, This Is the Honey is a rich and abundant offering of language from the poets giving voice to generations of resilient joy, “each incantation,” as Mahogany L. Browne puts it in her titular poem, is “a jubilee of a people dreaming wildly.”
 
This essential collection, in the tradition of Dudley Randall’s The Black Poets and E. Ethelbert Miller’s In Search of Color Everywhere, contains poems exploring joy, love, origin, race, resistance, and praise. Jacqueline A.Trimble likens “Black woman joy” to indigo, tassels, foxes, and peacock plumes. Tyree Daye, Nate Marshall, and Elizabeth Acevedo reflect on the meaning of “home” through food, from Cuban rice and beans to fried chicken gizzards. Clint Smith and Cameron Awkward-Rich enfold us in their intimate musings on love and devotion. From a “jewel in the hand” (Patricia Spears Jones) to “butter melting in small pools” (Elizabeth Alexander), This Is the Honey drips with poignant and delightful imagery, music, and raised fists.
 
Fresh, memorable, and deeply moving, this definitive collection a must-have for any lover of language and a gift for our time.

 

 

 

About the author

Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, publisher, two-time Emmy-nominated writer/producer, and #1 New York Times bestselling author of thirty-nine books, including Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances, The Door of No Return, and Light for the World to See: A Thousand Words on Race and Hope. A regular contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, Alexander is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2016 and 2020 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and the 2017 inaugural Conroy Legacy Award. In 2018, he founded the publishing imprint Versify and opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana, as a part of the Literacy Empowerment Action Project (LEAP), an international literacy program he co-founded. You can listen to his podcast Why Fathers Cry and find him online at KwameAlexander.com.