Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers

by Kevin Young

Standing at the crossroads of American literature and the current African American renaissance, Giant Steps presents a vibrant and wonderfully diverse collection of young black writing. Through generous selections of award-winning poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by writers born after 1960, this groundbreaking anthology welcomes readers into the future of African American writing. Taking its spirit and title from the John Coltrane composition released in 1960, Giant Steps offers an extraordinary window into post-civil rights literature. From Edwidge Danticat and Colson Whitehead to Rebecca Walker and Hilton Als, these authors are not "emerging" but have already arrived. They are National Book Award finalists and winners of the National Poetry Series and the Pushcart Prize. They have been featured in The New Yorker, Time, and Newsweek as our brightest stars; they have been heard through National Public Radio, Rhino Records, and Oprah's Book Club. Previously unpublished works by Danzy Senna, Philippe Wamba, and Elizabeth Alexander run alongside contemporary classics. They are popular and prophetic, literary and experimental. Together with a useful bibliography of current writing and a discography of influential music from soul to jazz to hip-hop, Giant Steps celebrates the complexities of race while paying tribute to the personal and collective histories that are forging this new generation. The writers found in Giant Steps are not "emerging" but have already arrived. From Best American Poetry and O. Henry Award winners to National Book Award finalists and Oprah's Book Club members, the thirty-five authors selected here are some of the best and the brightest writing today. The book features the full diversity of the African American experience, discussing everything from slavery to sexuality, growing up poor, gay, biracial, or all three. There are stories about the American Revolution, slave insurrections, and the year 1979; there are poems about loss and Sam Cooke; essays about sharecropping and the New South. New and unpublished writing by Danzy Senna, Colson Whitehead, and Darieck Scott is collected alongside work by such favorites as Edwidge Danticat, Kevin Powell, Hilton Als, and Randall Keenan. The writers in Giant Steps are at the heart of what's happening in contemporary culture, and this anthology welcomes readers to the future and powerful present of African American writing.The writers found in Giant Steps are not "emerging" but have already arrived. From Best American Poetry and O. Henry Award winners to National Book Award finalists and Oprah's Book Club members, the thirty-five authors selected here are some of the best and the brightest writing today. The book features the full diversity of the African American experience, discussing everything from slavery to sexuality, growing up poor, gay, biracial, or all three. There are stories about the American Revolution, slave insurrections, and the year 1979; there are poems about loss and Sam Cooke; essays about sharecropping and the New South. New and unpublished writing by Danzy Senna, Colson Whitehead, and Darieck Scott is collected alongside work by such favorites as Edwidge Danticat, Kevin Powell, Hilton Als, and Randall Keenan. The writers in Giant Steps are at the heart of what's happening in contemporary culture, and this anthology welcomes readers to the future and powerful present of African American writing.

Genres: Poetry, African American, Anthologies, Fiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2000

About the author

Kevin Young is an American poet heavily influenced by the poet Langston Hughes and the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Young graduated from Harvard College in 1992, was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University (1992-1994), and received his MFA from Brown University. While in Boston and Providence, he was part of the African-American poetry group, The Dark Room Collective.

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Young is the author of Most Way Home, To Repel Ghosts, Jelly Roll, Black Maria, For The Confederate Dead, Dear Darkness, and editor of Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers; Blues Poems; Jazz Poems and John Berryman's Selected Poems.

His Black Cat Blues, originally published in The Virginia Quarterly Review, was included in The Best American Poetry 2005. Young's poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and other literary magazines. In 2007, he served as guest editor for an issue of Ploughshares. He has written on art and artists for museums in Los Angeles and Minneapolis.

His 2003 book of poems Jelly Roll was a finalist for the National Book Award.

After stints at the University of Georgia and Indiana University, Young now teaches writing at Emory University, where he is the Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing, as well as the curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, a large collection of first and rare editions of poetry in English.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent source for writers I hadn't heard of (and some I had). I liked: Joe Wood, Edwidge Danticat, Rebecca Walker, Philippe Wamba, Anthony Walton.

[Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

has some few poems by claudia rankine cuz she is ace

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/469

here's a poem/video abourt zinedine zidane

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/pr...

[RK Byers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philippe Wamba's "Of Prophets and Madmen" is an absolute standout.