The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks
Description
“The cross-section of poets with varying poetics and styles gathered here is only one of the many admirable achievements of this volume.”
—Claudia Rankine in the New York Times
The Golden Shovel Anthology celebrates the life and work of poet and civil rights icon Gwendolyn Brooks through a dynamic new poetic form, the Golden Shovel, created by National Book Award–winner Terrance Hayes.
An array of writers—including winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize, and the National Book Award, as well as a couple of National Poets Laureate—have written poems for this exciting new anthology: Rita Dove, Billy Collins, Danez Smith, Nikki Giovanni, Sharon Olds, Tracy K. Smith, Mark Doty, Sharon Draper, Richard Powers, and Julia Glass are just a few of the contributing poets.
This second edition includes Golden Shovel poems by two winners and six runners-up from an international student poetry competition judged by Nora Brooks Blakely, Gwendolyn Brooks’s daughter. The poems by these eight talented high school students add to Ms. Brooks’s legacy and contribute to the depth and breadth of this anthology.
Praise for The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks
“Varied and dazzling.”
—Kenyon Review
“A lovely tribute, as well as an excellent collection of new work by a wide range of many of our most exciting contemporary poets.”
—New York Times Magazine
“Fresh and vital.”
—Poetry
“A substantial and dynamic contribution to American literature.”
—Booklist