Gripping and terrifying, eloquent and heart wrenching, this debut collection delves into hellish territory: prison life. Soulful poems somberly capture time-bending experiences and the survivalist mentality needed to live a contradiction, confronting both daily torment and one's illogical fear of freedom.

Yusef Komunyakaa has become one of America's most compelling poets. Pleasure Dome gathers over twenty-five years of work, including early uncollected poems and a rich selection of new poems. Best known for Neon Vernacular, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1994, and for Dien Cai Dau, a collection of poems chronicling his experiences as a journalist in Vietnam, Yusef Komunyakaa has become one of America's most compelling poets. Pleasure Dome...

Stephen Adly Guirgis takes a critical look at the U.S. justice system. Angel Cruz is a young man sent to prison for a practical joke gone horribly wrong. Now, Angel's only human contact is a death-row inmate, an over-aggressive guard, and a sleazy public defender.

The Crump family is adrift and in trouble. Widowed Godfrey is under the spell of Sweet Father Divine, while his teen daughters, Ernestine and Ermina, immerse themselves in the illusions of Hollywood to escape racial prejudice. But things change quickly when free-spirited Aunt Lily shows up: Godfrey remarries a white woman, Ermina discovers boys, and Ernestine is torn between Communism and bebop! Playwright Lynn Nottage received the 2009 Pulitzer Prize...

In her first book of poetry since Why Don't You Sing? Maya Angelou, bestselling author of the classic autobiography I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, writes with lyric, passionate intensity that reaches out to touch the heart and mind. This memorable collection of poems exhibits Maya Angelou's unique gift for capturing the triumph and pain of being black and every man and woman's struggle to be free. Filled with bittersweet intimacies and ferocious...

In five autobiographical vignettes, Charlayne Woodard tells the moving tale of her African-American family through three generations of love, struggle, and triumph. This NAACP award-winning play is a one-woman tour de force. Chosen as a “Recommended Young Adult Audiobook” by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association. Pretty Fire is the first play of a trilogy that continued with Neat and ended...

"A poetic and raw coming-of-age memoir in essays about blackness, masculinity, and addiction"-- Provided by publisher.

"A masterpiece . . . Trouble in Mind still contains astonishing power; it could have been written yesterday." -VultureAhead of its time, Trouble in Mind, written in 1955, follows the rehearsal process of an anti-lynching play preparing for its Broadway debut. When Wiletta, a Black actress and veteran of the stage, challenges the play's stereotypical portrayal of the Black characters, unsettling biases come to the forefront and reveal the ways so-called...

Toi Derricotte's fourth collection of poetry. Tender probes sexuality, spirituality, emotion, child abuse, mother hatred, and the physical and psychological ravages of violence. These poems are raw and upsetting in subject matter, yet extremely readable.

Poet, author and playwright Langston Hughes was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance in the late 1950s. His writings capture the spirit of black culture as it struggled for recognition and acceptance. Tambourines to Glory is a morality fable illustrating the perpetual fight between good and evil. Angelic Essie Belle Johnson and devilish Laura Reed both agree that they need to do something to spice up their lives-and earn more money. So, they start...