A HARD SUMMATION is a suite of 13 new poems by Afaa Michael Weaver, covering the history of African Americans from the Middle Passage to Now. Like a rite of passage, struggle has been unyielding and synonymous with the black experience in America. In this rich compilation, Weaver unearths a genealogical deficit that permeates through generations. But in this collection, you won't hear the poems cry foul or attempt to appease friend or offend foe. Its intention is hardly to be conclusive. When you add it all up, A HARD SUMMATION offers us an opportunity to listen, celebrate, commemorate, and appreciate the successes and failures of the past in order to develop a current and contextual understanding of what it means to be Black and American.

A Hard Summation

Literature & Fiction

Weaver, Afaa Michael

Poetry

Central Square Press

FEAR OF DOGS &amp; OTHER ANIMALS is a collection for the thirteenth hour, when the day or journey is seemingly half-over and a much needed respite is eminent but is never fully actualized. Shauna M. Morgan, in her debut collection, offers 13 heartrending poems that take us down familiar roads at a time when headlines about advances in race relations contradict the realities of the black experience. These poems should not have been necessary but they are, being both timely and timeless in the way they boldly explore the forgotten spaces some are reluctant to tread.

Fear of Dogs & Other Animals

Morgan, Shauna M

LETTERS FROM CONGO, a powerful collection by Haitian-American poet Danielle Legros Georges, invites readers to journey every air mile traveled by a family trying to survive the perpetual uncertainty of life in exile. In these 13 intimate poems, written as letters, an address, a physical location where someone can be reached, swiftly morphs into a statement about the delicate nature of voicing one’s political opinions under the Duvalier regime. In crafting these necessary poems, Georges compels the reader to abandon any notion of a romantic and glamorous life when living in exile and offers a glimpse into a family's daily struggle with separation that has no expiration date.

Letters from Congo

Georges, Danielle Legros

In his debut English language collection, Patrick Sylvain brings forth an excavation of historical significance. In this magnificent chapbook of poems, Sylvain takes the reader on a contemporary exploration of Caribbean &amp; Haitian histories marred by man-made and natural disasters. From the undertow of the Atlantic Ocean to the rubbles of a catastrophic earthquake, each poem is a relic, bellowing "ancestral tongues" in an attempt to "un-scab the past." This is a book for all generations.
Sylvain is a poet, writer, social critic, and photographer. Published in several scholarly and creative anthologies, journals and reviews, including: African American Review, Agni, Allegro Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, Anchor Magazine, Callaloo, Caribbean Writers, Transition, The Savannah Review, Dirty Chai, Ploughshares, SX Salon, Vallum Contemporary Poetry, Haiti Noir, International Journal of Language and Literature, Human Architecture, The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. Sylvain was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in poetry. His academic essays are anthologized in several edited collections, including: "The Idea of Haiti: Rethinking Crisis and Development, " edited by Millery Polyné; "Politics and Power in Haiti," edited by Paul Sutton and Kate Quinn; and "Haiti Noir" edited by Edwidge Danticat. Sylvain received his B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, in Political Science and Social-Psychology, and earned his Ed.M. as a Conant Fellow from Harvard University Graduate School of Education; and was also a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow at Boston University Creative Writing Department where he earned his MFA. He has taught at several universities, including Brown (where is affiliated with Africana Studies), UMass/Boston (Anthropology) and Harvard (AAAS). Sylvain is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at Brandeis University where he is the Shirle Dorothy Robbins Creative Writing Prize Fellow.

Underworlds

Sylvain, Patrick

A HOUSE IN ITS HUNGER is a collection that grapples with the intimacy of relationships behind closed doors. In this stunning debut, Jennifer Steele cleverly explores the complexities of the body as a dwelling and the compilation of emotional experiences it consumes and harbors over time. At its core, this suite of 13 poems is a house and also a body under renovation, one constantly shifting between acceptance and resistance of the type of depredation that often leaves one feeling like a guest in one’s own body.

A House In Its Hunger

Steele, Jennifer

Every Morning A Foot Is Looking For My Neck

Penn, Bonita Lee

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