We are thrilled to host a celebration with and for the one and only Cheryl Clarke, to mark the publication of Archive of Style: New and Selected Poems (Northwestern University Press).
The book collects curated poems from Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (1982), Living as a Lesbian (1986), The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry 1980-2005 (2006), By My Precise Haircut (2016), and her most recent collection, Targets (2019) from Bushel Editions. Together these works demonstrate the brilliance, depth, and humor of Cheryl’s voice, while never wavering from—in the poet’s own words—her “commitment to writing poetry that calls out the continuing peril of living as a black person in the United States—and anywhere else in the world.”
Cheryl will be joined by friends and community members who will each read a selection from the book. A martini bar and dance reception will follow!
Copies of Archive of Style will be available, courtesy of Blenheim Books, and a fresh printing of Cheryl’s chapbook Targets will also be on hand.
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Poet, critic, and activist Cheryl Clarke was born in Washington, DC. She earned her BA from Howard University and her MA and PhD from Rutgers University. Clarke is the author of five collections of poetry: Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (1983), Living as a Lesbian (1986), Humid Pitch (1989), Experimental Love (1993) and By My Precise Haircut (2016), which won a Hilary Tham Capital Competition. She wrote the critical study “After Mecca”: Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement (2005), and a volume collecting her poetry and prose was published as The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry of Cheryl Clarke, 1980-2005 (2006).
Read an interview with Cheryl about this book on Black Women Radicals.