Archive of Style: New and Selected Poems (Hardcover)
Description
A new retrospective of a titan of LGBTQ literature, activism, and Black feminism
Award-winning poet and essayist Cheryl Clarke’s illustrious career has spanned more than four decades and culminates in Archive of Style: New and Selected Poems, a long-awaited retrospective of the indelible work of a Black feminist, community and LGBTQ activist, and educator. This collection features carefully curated poems from Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (1982), Living as a Lesbian (1986), The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry 1980-2005 (2006), By My Precise Haircut (2016), and Targets (2019). Together these works show a brilliant thinker who has profoundly impacted generations of writers and activists.
Clarke’s poetry and essays, centered around the Black, lesbian, feminist experience, have attracted an audience around the world. Her essays, “Lesbianism: an Act of Resistance” and “The Failure to Transform: Homophobia in the Black Community” revolutionized the thinking about lesbians of color and the struggle against homophobia. Her poetry and non-fiction have been reprinted in numerous anthologies and assigned in women and sexuality courses globally. Having published since 1977, Clarke and her work have become a foundational part of LGBTQ literature and activism. Archive of Style is a celebration and homage to one of American literature’s Black Women literary warriors.
About the Author
Poet, critic, and activist Cheryl Clarke was born in Washington, DC. She earned her BA from Howard University and her MA and PhD from Rutgers University. Clarke is the author of five collections of poetry: Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (1983), Living as a Lesbian (1986), Humid Pitch (1989), Experimental Love (1993), and By My Precise Haircut (2016), which won a Hilary Tham Capital Competition. She wrote the critical study “After Mecca”: Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement (2005), and a volume collecting her poetry and prose was published as The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry of Cheryl Clarke, 1980–2005 (2006). Many of Clarke’s most influential essays, including “Lesbianism: an Act of Resistance” and “The Failure to Transform: Homophobia in the Black Community,” first appeared in landmark publications such as This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981) and Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983). Clarke served as editor for Conditions, an influential journal of lesbian feminist literature.
All of Clarke’s writings advocate for queer communities of color, paying attention to the social implications of language and labels and the possibilities of art and activism to stage resistance to dominant culture. According to Alexis Pauline Gumbs, who co-organized a conference on Clarke at Rutgers in 2013, “Cheryl Clarke’s life and work offer an enduring rejection of straightness and a constant reorientation to alternative space.”
Clarke was an influential administrator and teacher at Rutgers for more than 40 years. She founded the Office of Diverse Community Affairs and Lesbian-Gay Concerns, which became the Office of Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities, and retired as the Livingstone Dean of Students in 2013. For her service to LGBTQ communities, Clarke received a David Kessler Award. She currently lives in Hobart, New York, where she owns and operates Blenheim Hill Books with her partner, Barbara J. Balliet.
Praise For…
Named a "Best Queer Book of 2024" by Autostraddle
“Writing at the intersection of Black feminism and L.G.B.T.Q. activism, Clarke has been an influential force since the late 1970s. This substantial career retrospective includes a handful of musical and often mournful new poems, among them a powerful elegy for Sandra Bland.” —New York Times Book Review
“[This] book is an homage to Clarke’s singular voice and to the importance of its place within Black and queer histories . . . a necessary addition to the “collected works” canon.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“Black lesbian feminist Cheryl Clarke’s five-decade poetry career accommodated a second pursuit—a little matter of changing the world to be a better place for Black women, the LGBTQ+ community, and the disenfranchised. She is as grounded as they come, her words seemingly destined for stone tablets.” —Foreword
“Clarke gifts us some of the most powerful and thought-provoking poetry of the decade. Archive of Style is a collection of poems that every feminist will need on their bookshelf.” —BUST
“An essential publication of work by an icon. This book deserves a prime spot on the bookshelves of anyone who cares about queer, feminist, and/or Black histories.” —Autostraddle
“Archive of Style presents an in-depth look at Black queer women and their lives, their struggles and triumphs, the things they care about deeply and what moves them. It’s also a snapshot of a career worth championing, Clarke is undoubtedly one of the most powerful Black queer minds in the current landscape, and with this look at her life’s work, she cements her legacy.” —Xtra
“Long a recorder of the difficult, juicy moment, the questions of difference, Cheryl Clarke gives us acute highlights along a journey travelled with resolve, pain, joy.” —Audre Lorde on Humid Pitch
“[Clarke’s] musics are various: strong, or sharp, or quick, or lulling. Rich and requiring.” —Gwendolyn Brooks on Humid Pitch
“Cheryl Clarke’s poems take fire from a deep and intelligent caring for other Black women and herself in them.” —Adrienne Rich, on Narratives
“Cheryl Clarke’s poetry has always touched that place in me that responds to magic and music.” —Joy Harjo on Humid Pitch
“Cheryl Clarke speaks with a direct and unique voice.” —June Jordan on Narratives
