Anti-Racist Resources: Literature, Fiction, and Poetry

Acker, Camille. Training School for Negro Girls. The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2018. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: In her debut short story collection, Camille Acker unleashes the irony and tragic comedy of respectability onto a wide-ranging cast of characters, all of whom call Washington, DC home. A 'woke' millennial tries to fight gentrification, only to learn she's part of the problem; a grade school teacher dreams of a better DC, only to take out her frustrations on her students; and a young piano player wins a competition, only to learn the prize is worthless. Ultimately, they are confronted with the fact that respectability does not equal freedom. Instead, they must learn to trust their own conflicted judgment and fight to create their own space and sense of self."

Thomas, Sheree R., et al. Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. AK Press, 2015. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: "Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision, and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change."

Wilkinson, Crystal. The Birds of Opulence. The University Press of Kentucky, 2016. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "A lyrical exploration of love and loss, The Birds of Opulence centers on several generations of women in a bucolic southern black township as they live with and sometimes surrender to madness. [...] Crystal Wilkinson offers up Opulence and its people in lush, poetic detail. It is a world of magic, conjuring, signs, and spells, but also of harsh realities that only love -- and love that's handed down -- can conquer. At once tragic and hopeful, this captivating novel is a story about another time, rendered for our own."

Spencer, Rochelle, and Jina Ortiz. All About Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color. University of Wisconsin Press, 2014. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: "All About Skin features twenty-seven stories by women writers of color whose short fiction has earned them a range of honors [...] The prose in this multicultural anthology addresses such themes as racial prejudice, media portrayal of beauty, and family relationships and spans genres from the comic and the surreal to startling realism. It demonstrates the power and range of some of the most exciting women writing short fiction today."

Gautier, Amina. At-Risk: Stories. University of Georgia Press, 2011. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: "In Amina Gautier's Brooklyn, some kids make it and some kids don't, but not in simple ways or for stereotypical reasons. Gautier's stories explore the lives of young African Americans who might all be classified as "at-risk," yet who encounter different opportunities and dangers in their particular neighborhoods and schools and who see life through the lens of different family experiences. Gautier's focus is on quiet daily moments, even in extraordinary lives; her characters do not stand as emblems of a subculture but live and breathe as people."

Gautier, Amina. Now We Will Be Happy. University of Nebraska Press, 2014. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: "Now We Will Be Happy is a prize-winning collection of stories about Afro-Puerto Ricans, U.S.-mainland-born Puerto Ricans, and displaced native Puerto Ricans who are living between spaces while attempting to navigate the unique culture that defines their identity. Amina Gautier's characters deal with the difficulties of bicultural identities in a world that wants them to choose only one."

McCall, Sophie, et al. Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories from Turtle Island. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: Read, Listen, Tell brings together an extraordinary range of indigenous stories from across Turtle Island (North America). From short fiction to as-told-to narratives, from illustrated stories to personal essays, these stories celebrate the strength of heritage and the liveliness of innovation. [...] In a place and time when Indigenous people often have to contend with representations that marginalize or devalue their intellectual and cultural heritage, this collection is a testament to Indigenous resilience and creativity. It shows that the ways in which we read, listen, and tell play key roles in how we establish relationships with one another, and how we might share knowledges across cultures, languages, and social spaces. 

Jones, Stephen Graham. The Bird Is Gone: A Manifesto. Fiction Collective 2, 2003. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: "Imagine a world where the American government signed a conservation act to 'restore all indigenous flora and fauna to the Great Plains', which means suddenly the Great Plains are Indian again. Now fast-forward fourteen years to a bowling alley deep in the Indian Territories. People that bowling alley with characters named LP Deal, Cat Stand, Mary Boy, Courtney Peltdowne, Back Iron, Denim Horse, Naitche, and give them a chance to find a treaty signed under duress by General Sherman, which effectively gives all of the Americans back to the Indians, only hide that treaty in a stolen pipe, put it in a locker, and flush the key down the toilet. Ask LP Deal and the rest what they will trade to get that key back -- maybe everything.

​Limón, Ada. The Carrying. Milkweed Editions, 2018. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance."

Kapri, Britteney Black Rose. Black Queer Hoe. Haymarket Books, 2018. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "Women's sexuality is often used as a weapon against them. In this refreshing, unapologetic debut, award-winning performance poet and playwright Britteney Black Rose Kapri lends her unmistakable voice to fraught questions of identity, sexuality, reclamation, and power in a world that refuses black queer women permission to define their own lives and boundaries. Black Queer Hoe is a powerful intervention into important and ongoing conversations."

Smith, Clint. Counting Descent. Write Bloody Publishing, 2016. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: "Clint Smith's debut poetry collection is a coming of age story that seeks to complicate our conception of lineage and tradition. Smith explores the cognitive dissonance that results from belonging to a community that unapologetically celebrates black humanity while living in a world that often renders blackness a caricature of fear. His poems move fluidly across personal and political histories, all the while reflecting on the social construction of our lived experiences. Smith brings the reader on a powerful journey, forcing us to reflect on all that we learn growing up, and all that we seek to unlearn moving forward."

Clark, Tiana. I Can't Talk About the Trees Without the Blood. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "For prize-winning poet Tiana Clark, trees will never be just trees. They will also and always be a row of gallows from which Black bodies once swung. This is an image that she cannot escape, but one that she has learned to lean into as she delves into personal and public histories, explicating memories and muses around race, elegy, family, and faith by making and breaking forms as well as probing mythology, literary history, her own ancestry, and yes, even Rihanna."

Shockley, Evie. the new black. Wesleyan University Press, 2012. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "Smart, grounded and lyrical, Evie Shockley's the new black integrates powerful ideas about 'blackness,' past and present, through the medium of beautifully crafted verse. the new black sees our racial past inevitably shaping our contemporary moment, but struggles to remember and reckon with the impact of generational shifts: what seemed impossible to people not many years ago -- for example, the election of an African American president -- will have always been a part of the world of children born in the new millennium." Find the online reader's companion at http://thenewblack.site.wesleyan.edu.

Chen, Chen. When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities. BOA Editions Ltd, 2017. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: "In this ferocious and tender debut, Chen Chen investigates inherited forms of love and family -- the strained relationship between a mother and son, the cost of necessary goodbyes -- all from Asian American, immigrant, and queer perspectives. Holding all accountable, this collection fully embraces the loss, grief, and abundant joy that come with charting one's own path in identity, life, and love."

Chin, Justin. Bite Hard. Manic D Press, 2018. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: In Bite Hard, Chin explores his identity as an Asian, a gay man, an artist, and a lover. He rails against both his own life experiences and society's limitations and stereotypes with scathing humor, bare-bones honestly, and unblinking detail. Whether addressing 'what really goes on in the kitchen of Chinese restaurants' or a series of ex-boyfriends, all named Michael, Chin displays his remarkable emotional range and voice as a poet."

Olivarez, José. Citizen Illegal. Haymarket Books, 2018. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "Poet Jose Olivarez explores the stories, contradictions, joys, and sorrows that embody life in the spaces between Mexico and America. He paints vivid portraits of good kids, bad kids, families clinging to hope, life after the steel mills, gentrifying barrios, and everything in between. Drawing on the rich traditions of Latinx and Chicago writers like Sandra Cisneros and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olivarez creates a home out of life in the in-between. Combining wry humor with potent emotional force, Olivarez takes on complex issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and immigration using an everyday language that invites the reader in, with a unique voice that makes him a poet to watch. 

McKibbens, Rachel. blud. Copper Canyon Press, 2017. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: "McKibens's blud is a collection of dark, rhythmic poems interested in the ways in which inherited things -- bloodlines, mental illnesses, trauma -- affect their inheritors. Reveling in forma nd sound, McKibbens's writing takes back control, undaunted by the idea of sinking its teeth into the ugliest moments of life, while still believing -- and looking for -- the good underneath all the bruising. 

Martinez, David Tomas. Post Traumatic Hood Disorder. Sarabande Books, 2018. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "A searing interrogation of identity, masculinity, and contemporary culture, Post Traumatic Hood Disorder's references range from Icarus to Sir Mix-A-Lot as the speaker assembles a bricolage self-portrait from the fractures of his past. Sliding between scholarly diction and slangy vernacular, Martinez's poems showcase a versatility of language and a wild-hearted poetic energy that is thoughtful, vulnerable, and distinctly American."

Vuong, Ocean. Night Sky with Exit Wounds. Copper Canyon Press, 2016. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: "Vuong, a 2014 Ruth Lilly fellow, writes beauty into and culls from individual, familial, and historical traumas. Vuong exists as both observer and observed throughout the book as he explores deeply personal themes such as poverty, depression, queer sexuality, domestic abuse, and the various forms of violence inflicted on his family during the Vietnam war."

Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo and Viet Thanh Nguyen. Go Home! The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2018. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: Asian diasporic writers imagine "home" in the twenty-first century through an array of fiction, memoir, and poetry. Both urgent and meditative, this anthology moves beyond the model-minority myth and showcases the singular intimacies of individuals figuring out what it means to belong."

Grimay, Aracelis. The Black Maria. BOA Editions Ltd., 2016. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: Taking its name from the moon's dark plains, misidentified as seas by early astronomers, The Black Maria investigates African diasporic histories, the consequences of racism within American culture, and the question of human identity. 

Butler, Octavia E., et al. Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation. Abrams ComicArts, 2017. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "More than 35 years after its release, Kindred continues to draw in new readers with its deep exploration of the violence and loss of humanity caused by slavery in the United States, and its complex and lasting impact on the present day. Adapted by celebrated academics and comics artists Damian Duffy and John Jennings, this graphic novel powerfully renders Butler's mysterious and moving story, which spans racial and gender divides in the antebellum South through the 20th century." 

Bui, Thi. The Best We Could Do. Abrams ComicArts, 2017.

Catalog description: "An intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family's journey from war-torn Vietnam, from debut author Thi bui. This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for the past. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves. While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent – the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through." 

Kaye, Julia. Super Late Bloomer: My Early Days in Transition. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2018. EBSCOhost.

Catalog description: Instead of a traditional written diary, Julia Kaye has always turned to art as a means of self-reflection. So when she began her gender transition in 2016, she decided to use her popular webcomic, Up and Out, to process her journey and help others with similar struggles realize they weren't alone.  Julia's poignant, relatable comics honestly depict her personal ups and downs while dealing with the various issues involving in transitioning – from struggling with self-acceptance and challenging societal expectations, to moments of self-love and joy. Super Late Bloomer both educates and inspires, as Julia faces her difficulties head-on and commits to being wholly, authentically who she was always meant to be. 

Thomasson, Teek, and A.K. Summers. Pregnant Butch: Nine Long Months Spent in Drag. Soft Skull Press, 2014. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "First pregnancy can be a fraught, uncomfortable experience for any woman, but for resolutely butch lesbian Teek Thomasson, it is exceptionally challenging: Teek identifies as a masculine woman in a world bent on associating pregnancy with a cult of uber-femininity. Teek wonders, "Can butches even get pregnant?" Of course, as she and her pragmatic femme girlfriend Vee discover, they can. But what happens when they do? Written and illustrated by A.K. Summers, and based on her own pregnancy, Pregnant Butch strives to depict this increasingly common, but still underrepresented experience of queer pregnancy with humor and complexity."

Gill, Joel Christian. Strange Fruit, Volume I: Uncelebrated Narratives From Black History. Fulcrum Publishing, 2014. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "Strange Fruit Volume I is a collection of stories from early African American history that represent the oddity of success in the face of great adversity. Each of the nine illustrated chapters chronicles an uncelebrated African American hero or event."

Spillet-Sumner, Tasha, and Natasha Donovan. Surviving the City. HighWater Press, 2018. EBSCOhost. 

Catalog description: "Winner of the Indigenous Voices Award, [...] Surviving the City is a story about womanhood, friendship, colonialism, and the anguish of a missing loved one. Milkwan and Dez are best friends. Milkwan is Anishinaabe; Dez is Inninew. Together, the teens navigate the challenges of growing up in an urban landscape – they're so close, they even completed their Berry Fast together. However, when Dez's grandmother becomes too sick, Dez is told she can't stay with her anymore. With the threat of a group home looming, Dez can't bring herself to go home and disappears. Millkwan is devastated, and the wound of her missing mother resurfaces. Will Dez's community find her before it's too late? Will Milkwan be able to cope if they don't?"