In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry

Gathered into eight chapters, the works of many different poets of different ages and different walks of life present and explore what it means to be African-American. Langston-Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Thulani Davis, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou are among the poets represented.

One of the first anthologies of black poetry published since the 1960s, In Search of Color Everywhere represents a comprehensive gathering of material. The aim of the volume, in the words of editor E. Ethelbert Miller, is "to pull together a collection of poems that would make readers laugh and clap their hands." Unlike similar anthologies, the book is organized thematically rather than chronologically. Thus a section titled "Freedom" is followed by "Celebrations of Blackness" and "Love Poems." Contributing authors include such stalwarts as Phillis Wheatley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes, as well as younger poets such as Elizabeth Alexander, Jacquie Jones, and Kevin Young, who are well on their way to gaining wider audiences.