British Black and Asian Poetry

Race, Aesthetics and Politics 1970-2023
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-009-71239-2
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 274 Seiten

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in Twenty-First-Century Literature and Culture

This book examines a wide sweep of prominent Black and Asian British poets, from Linton Kwesi Johnson and Jean 'Binta' Breeze through David Dabydeen, Bernardine Evaristo, and Jason Allen-Paisant. Throughout, Omaar Hena demonstrates how these poets engage with urgent crises surrounding race and social inequality over the past fifty years, spanning policing and racial violence in the 1970s and 1980s, through poetry's cultural recognition in the 1990s and 2000s by museums, the 2012 London Olympics, the publishing scene, and awards and prizes, as well as continuing social realities of riots and uprisings. In dub poetry, dramatic monologues, ekphrasis, and lyric, Hena argues that British Black and Asian poets perform racial politics in conditions of spiraling crisis. Engaged and insightful, this book argues that poetry remains a vital art form in twenty-first-century global Britain. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hena, Omaar

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: British Black and Asian poetry in crisis; 1. Policing the crisis, sounding the violence: Linton Kwesi Johnson; 2. Voices of dissent: Valerie Bloom, Jean 'Binta' Breeze and Amryl Johnson; 3. Beyond recognition: race, visual culture, and ekphrasis in Maud Sulter and David Dabydeen; 4. Canons, publishing, and publics: Bernadine Evaristo, Lemn Sissay and Daljit Nagra; Surplus lyric: poetics of riot in Bhanu Kapil and D. S. Marriott; Conclusion: prizing race, race in crisis.

Über Autor(innen)

Hena, Omaar
Omaar Hena researches and teaches poetry in English, race and literature, and queer studies at Wake Forest University. His first book, Global Anglophone Poetry (Palgrave, 2015), studied postcolonial poetry and globalization. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First Century British Black and Asian Poetry.