"The essays in this volume pay tribute to Gwendolyn Brooks's legacy. They explore Brooks's sustained dialectic with American historical events such as World War II and the Civil Rights movement, the cultural complexities of racial segregation, major movements in black letters such as the Black Arts movement, modernist ideas promoting individuality and exploring the feelings associated with loneliness, rejection of the status quo in society, open critique...

These 18 critical essays place Brooks' work in a personal as well as social and cultural context and reflect in a chronological manner an appreciation of the entire range of Brooks' poetic vision. Beginning with a general assessment the essays analyze her poetry, her novel Maud Martha, and the unpublished "Songs After Sunset." ISBN 0-252-01367-0 : $27.50.

Critical essays on the works of twenty-eight modern American poets.