The Ferguson Report An Erasure

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A meditation on our times, cast through a reconsideration of the Justice Department's investigation of the Ferguson Police Department In August 2014, Michael Brown—a young, unarmed Black man—was shot to death by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. What followed was a period of protests and turmoil, culminating in an extensive report that was filed by the Department of Justice detailing biased policing and court practices in the city. It is a document that exposes the racist policies and procedures that have become commonplace—from disproportionate arrest rates, to flagrant violence directed at the Black community. It is a report that remains as disheartening as it is damning. Now, award-winning poet Nicole Sealey revisits the investigation in a book that redacts the report, an act of erasure that reimagines the original text as it strips it away. While the full document is visible in the background—weighing heavily on the language Sealey has preserved—it gives shape and disturbing context to what remains. Illuminating what it means to live in this frightening age, and what it means to bear witness, The Ferguson Report: An Erasure is an engrossing meditation on one of the most important texts of our time.

A Poetry Pedagogy for Teachers generates imaginative encounters with poetry and invites educators to practice a range of poetry exercises in order to inform instructional approaches to reading and writing. Guided by pedagogical principles prompted by their readings of Wallace Stevens' “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” Maya Pindyck and Ruth Vinz provide critical discussion of prominent literacy practices in secondary classrooms and offer alternative approaches to encountering a text. They do this by way of experimental readings of Wallace Stevens' poem toward a set of thirteen pedagogical principles that anchor a pedagogy of poetic practices. The book also offers invitational exercises, the authors' own engagements with poetry practices, as well as student examples, visual modes of theorizing, and a gathering of relevant resources compiled by two classroom teachers. This is a book for secondary English teachers, teaching artists, English educators, college writing professors, readers and writers of poetry – both existing and aspirational – and any educator interested in poetry's capacities to pedagogically inform their subject matter and/or literacy practices.

ONE OF PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'S TOP 10 POETRY BOOKS OF FALL 2017 NPR'S MOST ANTICIPATED POETRY BOOKS OF 2017 A striking, full-length debut collection from Virgin Islands-born poet Nicole Sealey The existential magnitude, deep intellect, and playful subversion of St. Thomas-born, Florida-raised poet Nicole Sealey’s work is restless in its empathic, succinct examination and lucid awareness of what it means to be human. The ranging scope of inquiry undertaken in Ordinary Beast—at times philosophical, emotional, and experiential—is evident in each thrilling twist of image by the poet. In brilliant, often ironic lines that move from meditation to matter of fact in a single beat, Sealey’s voice is always awake to the natural world, to the pain and punishment of existence, to the origins and demises of humanity. Exploring notions of race, sexuality, gender, myth, history, and embodiment with profound understanding, Sealey’s is a poetry that refuses to turn a blind eye or deny. It is a poetry of daunting knowledge.

The 2021 edition of the leading collection of contemporary American poetry is guest edited by the former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, providing renewed proof that this is “a ‘best’ anthology that really lives up to its title” (Chicago Tribune). Since 1988, The Best American Poetry series has been “one of the mainstays of the poetry publication world” (Academy of American Poets). Each volume presents a choice of the year’s most memorable poems, with comments from the poets themselves lending insight into their work. The guest editor of The Best American Poetry 2021 is Tracy K. Smith, the former United States Poet Laureate, whose own poems are, Toi Derricotte’s words, “beautiful and serene” in their surfaces with an underlying “sense of an unknown vastness.” In The Best American Poetry 2021, Smith has selected a distinguished array of works both vast and beautiful by such important voices as Henri Cole, Billy Collins, Louise Erdrich, Nobel laureate Louise Glück, Terrance Hayes, and Kevin Young.

'A definitive guide, in here you'll find everything you need' S. J. Watson With over 4,000 industry contacts and over eighty articles from a wide range of leading authors and publishing industry professionals, the latest edition of this bestselling Yearbook is packed with all of the practical information, inspiration and guidance you need at every stage of your writing and publishing journey. Designed for authors and illustrators across all genres and markets, it is relevant for those looking for a traditional, hybrid or self-publishing route to publication; writers of fiction and non-fiction, poets and playwrights, writers for TV, radio and videogames. If you want to find a literary or illustration agent or publisher, would like to self-publish or crowdfund your creative idea then this Yearbook will help you. As well as sections on publishers and agents, newspapers and magazines, illustration and photography, theatre and screen, there is a wealth of detail on the legal and financial aspects of being a writer or illustrator. Includes advice from writers such as Peter James, Cathy Rentzenbrink, S.J. Watson, Kerry Hudson, and Samantha Shannon. Additional articles, free advice, events information and editorial services at www.writersandartists.co.uk

A moving, thought-provoking, and emotional anthology of classical and contemporary poems that invites us to celebrate poetry’s power to capture the truths that really matter. 100 Poems That Matter examines universal themes of love, loss, and the experiences that define us. At turns moving, thoughtful, and thrilling, 100 Poems That Matter feeds into the connections we all have to poetry and encourages us to bring a deeper sense of honesty into our lives. Featured poets include Emily Brontë, E.E. Cummings, Kahlil Gibran, Audre Lorde, and Emily Dickinson.

A reinvestigation of chemical biological weapons dropped on the Hmong people in the fallout of the Vietnam War In this staggering work of documentary, poetry, and collage, Mai Der Vang reopens a wrongdoing that deserves a new reckoning. As the United States abandoned them at the end of the Vietnam War, many Hmong refugees recounted stories of a mysterious substance that fell from planes during their escape from Laos starting in the mid-1970s. This substance, known as “yellow rain,” caused severe illnesses and thousands of deaths. These reports prompted an investigation into allegations that a chemical biological weapon had been used against the Hmong in breach of international treaties. A Cold War scandal erupted, wrapped in partisan debate around chemical arms development versus control. And then, to the world’s astonishment, American scientists argued that yellow rain was the feces of honeybees defecating en masse—still held as the widely accepted explanation. The truth of what happened to the Hmong, to those who experienced and suffered yellow rain, has been ignored and discredited. Integrating archival research and declassified documents, Yellow Rain calls out the erasure of a history, the silencing of a people who at the time lacked the capacity and resources to defend and represent themselves. In poems that sing and lament, that contend and question, Vang restores a vital narrative in danger of being lost, and brilliantly explores what it means to have access to the truth and how marginalized groups are often forbidden that access.

A poet of existential magnitude, deep intellect and playful subversion, America's Nicole Sealey writes poems that are restless in their empathic, succinct examination and lucid awareness of what it means to be human. The ranging scope of enquiry undertaken in ordinary beast- at times philosophical, emotional, and experiential - is evident in each thrilling twist of image by the poet. In brilliant, often ironic lines that move from meditation to matter of fact in a single beat, Sealey's voice is always awake to the natural world, to the pain and punishment of existence, to the origins and demises of humanity. Exploring notions of race, sexuality, gender, myth, history and embodiment with profound understanding, Sealey's is a poetry that refuses to turn a blind eye or deny. It is a poetry of daunting knowledge. ordinary beastwas first published in the US by Ecco in 2017, and was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. This first UK edition of her debut collection is published by Bloodaxe in 2023 at the same time as her second book of poetry, the ferguson report: an erasure, an excerpt from which won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2021.