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Incisive observations on popular music, poetry, and culture, and on the ways that gender, race, class, and contemporary politics shape artistic production.
Poet and critic Tyrone Williams (1954–2024) was a prolific reviewer of poetry, poetics, and culture, publishing nearly 150 reviews between 1975 and 2023. Starting with his omnibus reviews of music in a college student newspaper, this collection presents a selection of Williams's reviews that address prominent topics in American culture and in literary criticism, including the reception of experimental and innovative poetry; the history of African American writing and its reception; and the ways that poets, other writers, and musicians negotiate gender, class, and race. Williams understood art as deeply connected to everyday living. From readings attentive to the nuances of a single line of verse to broad evaluations of poetry collections and music in relation to historical and contemporary movements or events, Williams's reviews are instructive for students of American literature and culture and for anyone interested in the profound work poetry performs in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. Written in engaging and often witty and impassioned prose, these reviews will both delight and provoke their readers.
"I know of nothing to compare to this volume by Tyrone Williams. It stands as a master class in the musical and literary culture of the recent decades." — Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Pennsylvania State University
Cristanne Miller is Distinguished Professor and Edward H. Butler Professor of English Emerita at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. She is the author of Reading In Time: Emily Dickinson in the Nineteenth Century. Claire Tranchino is a PhD candidate in English at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Her research examines the construction of gender and race in contemporary American poetry through psychoanalytic and aesthetic theories. Aaron VanSteinberg is also a PhD candidate in English at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. His research charts the relationships between race, professionalism, and labor in postwar North American poetry. Evie Shockley is Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Cristanne Miller, Claire Tranchino, Aaron VanSteinberg
Reviews
1. "Vinyl Judgments." Review of Patrick Meehan, Attack, David Ruffin, Willie Hutch, LaBelle, The Eagles, P.F.M., Frankie Valli, and Rufus. 1975
2. "Emmylou Kicks Loose, Carlton Tastes Success." Review of Emmylou Harris, Slow Children, Prince, Carl Carlton, Diana Ross, Joni Mitchell, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Chocolate Milk, Modern English, and Linda Ronstadt. 1983
3. Kofi Natambu, The Melody Never Stops. 1992
4. "Black Not Like Me: Hey Bro', This Here Negro Done Dropped His Mask," Review of Nella Larsen, Melvin Dixon, Dennis A. Williams, Raymond Andrews, Assotto Saint, Lucille Clifton, Gwen Everett, Thulani Davis. 1992
5. "Which Is to Say." Tyree Guyton, Toasted Memories. 1994
6. John Hope Franklin, The Color Line: Legacy for the Twenty-First Century; Gerald Early, ed., Lure and Loathing: Essays on Race, Identity, and the Ambivalence of Assimilation. 1994
7. "Blowing It: Biography Meets Critique in Armond White's Take on 2Pac." Armond White, Rebel for the Hell of It. 1998
8. Geneviève Fabre and Michel Feith, Jean Toomer and the Harlem Renaissance; Lawrie Balfour, The Evidence of Things Not Said: James Baldwin and the Promise of American Democracy. 2001
9. Gerald Early, ed. Miles Davis and American Culture. 2002
10. Elizabeth Willis, Meteoric Flowers. 2006
11. "Finkelstein's Track." Norman Finkelstein, Track. 2006
12. "'Apparently I Am Picking Fights': Cultural Studies and Poetics Mix It Up in Taylor Brady's Yesterday's News." Taylor Brady, Yesterday's News. 2007
13. Harryette Mullen, Recyclopedia; Evie Shockley, A half-red sea. 2007
14. Barbara Guest, The Collected Poems. 2009
15. Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris, eds. Poems for the Millennium Volume One: From Fin-de-Siècle to Negritude. c. 2009
16. Judith Goldman, l.b.; or, catenaries. 2012
17. "Hunches, Hedges, etc.: Mini-Reviews of Chapbooks and Books of Poetry." 2014 [selections]
Ed Roberson, The New Wing of the Labyrinth
Roberto Tejada, Exposition Park
Joel Felix, Limbs of the Apple Tree Never Die
Harmony Holiday, Negro League Baseball
Colin Smith, 8 x 8 x 7
Fred Moten, The Feel Trio
Julian Brolaski, gowanus atropolis
Jennifer Scappettone, From Dame Quickly
Coda
18. Ignacio Infante, After Translation: The Transfer and Circulation of Modern Poetics Across the Atlantic; Vera M. Kutzinski, The Worlds of Langston Hughes: Modernism and Translation in the Americas. 2015
19. David Brazil, Antisocial Patience. 2015
20. Dawn Lundy Martin, Life in a Box Is a Pretty Life. 2015
21. M. NourbeSe Philip, She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks. 2016
22. "Figure of the Father." Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, The Glory Gets. 2016
23. Rita Dove, Collected Poems: 1974–2004. 2016
24. Ralph La Charity, litanies said handedly: poetry, collage, & performance. 2017
25. Tracie Morris, handholding: 5 kind: sonic, textual engagements. 2017
26. CAConrad, While Standing in Line for Death. 2018
27. "Examples of: On Barrett Watten's Questions." Barrett Watten, Questions of Poetics: Language Writing and Consequences. 2019
28. Asiya Wadud, Crosslight for Youngbird, 2019
29. "Cash Matters (Credit Antimatters)." Taylor Brady, Unbound Extracts; Susan Briante, The Market Wonders. 2019
30. "Black/Women Are Alive After Tomorrow." Dawn Lundy Martin and Erica Hunt, eds. Letters to the Future: Black Women / Radical Writing. 2019
31. Dawn Lundy Martin, Good Stock Strange Blood; Harmony Holiday, Hollywood Forever; Duriel E. Harris, No Dictionary of a Living Tongue. 2020
32. "The Real Lives of Julie Carr." Julie Carr, Real Life: An Installation. 2020
33. Xandria Phillips, Hull. 2020
34. "A Refusal of Despair." Dante Di Stefano, Ill Angels. 2020
35. Randall Gavin Horton, {#289-128}. 2020
36. "On Julia Bloch's The Sacramento of Desire." Julia Bloch, The Sacramento of Desire. 2021
37. "Tracing Perfume in Double Trio." Nathaniel Mackey, Double Trio. 2021
38. Galina Rymbu, Eugene Ostashevsky, Ainsley Morse, eds., F Letter: New Russian Feminist Poetry. 2021
39. Lauren Russell, Descent. 2022
40. "Carmelina: Figures & Virgil Kills: Stories." Ronaldo Wilson, Carmelina: Figures and Virgil Kills: Stories. 2022
41. "On 26 Tears by George Tysh and Chris Tysh." George Tysh and Chris Tysh, 26 Tears. 2023
42. Carla Harryman, Cloud Cantata. 2023
Coda by Evie Shockley
Appendix: Bibliography of Tyrone Williams's Reviews
Index