Anthologies of African American Writing

I Am New Orleans: 36 Poets Revisit Marcus Christian's Definitive Poem

"I Am New Orleans: 36 Poets Revisit Marcus Christian's Definitive Poem." Ed. Kalamu y Salaam. New Orleans: University of New Orleans Press/Rungate Press, 2020.

● Kalamu ya Salaam/Foreword 11
● Marcus B. Christian/I Am New Orleans 15
● Nia Gates/My Neighborhood Is Changing 28
● Karen Celestan/Blood Nativity 32
● Jerry W. Ward, Jr./Genders & Genres (law's labor loses love) 34
● JB Borders/We 38
● Kelly Harris-DeBerry/Post-Katrina Blues 40
● Marian Moore/Martha 45
● Nadir Lasana Bomani/The Last Days (My Uncle Michael Remembers) 46
● Mwende "FreeQuency" Katwiwa/Ode to New Orleans Home 48
● Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani/Color 52
● Niyi Osundare/New Orleans Is People 55
● Christine "Cfreedom" Brown/When You Think of New Orleans: (Who, What, When, Where, Why, & How) 57
● Baakir Tyehimba/A Battle for Algiers 66
● Carol Bebelle/Letter to New Orleans 68
● Frederick "Hollywood" Delahoussaye/The Soul of NO 73
● Sha' Condria Sibley/No Invitation to the Cookout 77
● Sunni Patterson/My City Ain't for Sale 80
● Akilah Toney/Minstrel Jubilee 2019: The New Orleans Negro 83
● Professor Arturo (Arthur Pfister)/I'm So New Orleans… 86
● Mona Lisa Saloy/New Orleans, a Neighborhood Nation 99
● Maurice M. Martinez/Niggers I Have Known 101
● Akeem Martin/Sunsets 107
● Ayo Fayemi-Robinson/O.d. 108
● Quo Vadis Gex-Breaux/Waterlogged, Nomadic Katrina Songs 110
● Christopher Williams/These Men, New Orleans Men 114
● Ayo Fayemi-Robinson/Tribute to Carol Bebelle 119
● Peteh Muhammad Maroon/City of My Birth 121
● Kristina Kay Robinson/Indian Red 124
● Michael "Quess?" Moore/Comfort Food 125
● G.F. Smith/A Poem for New Orleanians in the Key of Hamlet Called "That Is the Question" 126
● Tom Dent/Return to English Turn 130
● Kalamu ya Salaam/Beneath the Bridge 138
● Chuck Perkins/Street Names 143
● Jahi Salaam/Wake up call 145
● Brenda Marie Osbey/Everything Happens to (Monk and) Me 150
● Jerry W. Ward, Jr./Afterword 157

[The volume also includes poems from the following, though some copies have apparently circulated without them, as above:
● Asali Eclesiastes
● Valentine Pierce
● Skye Jackson]

● Kalamu ya Salaam was introduced to Marcus Christian by Tom Dent, and views this anthology as carrying on the tradition of the work of these earlier writers (Larson 2020).

● "This collection is a gathering of the saints. Contemporary writers with an ear to the ground, digging on the sense and sound of what all is going down. Plus, a couple of ancestor scribes whose amazing words and clear-eyed vision remain both accurate and relevant long, long after their physical demise. Hence, here is a compendium of views and visions, which collectively map the outlines of what it means to both be and to miss New Orleans" (publisher's website).

● Fischer, Uffe Dan Sparre. "African American Literature" 13 Oct. 2020. Website.

● Larson, Susan. "The Reading Life: Kalamu ya Salaam, Sunni Patterson." "The Reading Life" 27 Sept. 2020. WWNO (New Orleans Public Radio). Web.

● "From a Bend in the River: 100 New Orleans Poets." Ed. Kalamu ya Salaam. New Orleans: Rungate Press, 1998. 220 pp.

● "Louisiana Poetry Project." Web. This growing project includes poet pages on some of the contributors to this anthology: e.g. Mawiyah Kai EL-Jamah Bomani, Nadir Lasana Bomani, Kalamu ya Salaam, Mona Lisa Saloy, Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

● Salvaggio, Ruth. "Hearing Sappho in New Orleans: The Call of Poetry from Congo Square to the Ninth Ward." New Orleans: Louisiana State UP, 2012.

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