taste and fear of learning


TASTE AND FEAR OF LEARNING



Taste has created an abyss between African American novels which are canonized by teaching in college classrooms and those canonized by normal reading practices, and we are damned lucky the abyss exists.



Consider the novels that won the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Inc. (BCALA) Literary Awards between 2007 and 2017:



Marita Golden, After

Stephan L. Carter, New England White

Diane McKinney-Whetstone, Trading Dreams at Midnight

Pamela Samuels Young, Buying Time

Bernice McFadden, Glorious

Tayari Jones, Silver Sparrow

Martha Southgate, The Taste of Salt

Ayana Mathis, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Leonard Pitts, Freeman

James McBride, The Good Lord Bird

Lolita Tademy, Citizens Creek

Toni Morrison, God Help the Child

Jacqueline Wood, Another Brooklyn



Only Toni Morrison might be discussed in an African American literature course at a HWCU.



Poetry was not a BCALA award category until 2012, and the abyss is smaller.



Clint Smith, Counting Descent

Jacqueline Nicole Harris, On Life

Nate Marshall, Wild Hundreds

King Shakur, Streetlights, J's and Hip Hop: Making of a Poet

Kevin Young, Book of Hours

Nikki Giovanni, Chasing Utopia: a Hybrid

bell hooks, Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place

Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Mule and Pear



All of the poets might be discussed in a literature course at a HBCU.



We are blessed, thanks to the BCALA,  that the abyss lives in actuality.





Jerry W. Ward, Jr.                            August 26, 2017

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