Gleeson Library is celebrating National Poetry Month (April) with a display in the lobby foyer of American Poets of Color. We have a couple objectives for the theme of this year’s display: 1) to hear from the poets on the topics of racism, stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination because poetry is often less rhetorically charged than politicized prose, as it offers multivalent insight on the many nuances of experience as well as the aesthetic delight and intrigue of poetics, prosody, lyricism, and imagism; 2) to highlight and build the library’s collection of contemporary American poetry written by early and mid-career poets of color; and 3) to connect USF students with poetry voices that are urgent, relatable, and recent.
As such, we invite you to browse/checkout the poetry books we have selected, to take in the individual poems that give voice to the display, and for you to suggest the purchase of books by lesser known American poets of color. To submit a purchase suggestion to the library, please use the “Suggest a Purchase” link through the library’s catalog (on the right side of the screen). With your help, we hope to offer an ever improved display for National Poetry Month next year.
![a poem from Tina Chang's 2011 collection, Of Gods & Strangers. Click to enlarge](https://usfblogs.usfca.edu/gleeson-gleanings/files/2015/04/img_10921.jpg?w=225)
![a poem from Saeed Jones's 2014 collection, Prelude to Bruise. Click to enlarge.](https://usfblogs.usfca.edu/gleeson-gleanings/files/2015/04/img_1083.jpg?w=225)
![a poem from Jericho Brown's 2014 collection, The New Testament. Click to enlarge](https://usfblogs.usfca.edu/gleeson-gleanings/files/2015/04/img_1081.jpg?w=225)
![a poem from Marilyn Chin's 2014 collection, Hard Love Province. Click to enlarge. Click here to access more poems and a recording of the poet reading them.](https://usfblogs.usfca.edu/gleeson-gleanings/files/2015/04/img_10951.jpg?w=225)