Browse A-Z Authors: Fh-Fm

Winner, 2011 National Book Award for Poetry Winner, 2012 GCLS Award for Poetry Winner, 2012 SIBA Book Award for Poetry Nominee, 2012 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. The poems in Nikky Finney's breathtaking new collection Head Off & Split sustain a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African American life: from civil rights matriarch Rosa Parks to former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, from a brazen girl strung out on lightning to a terrified woman abandoned on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina. Finney's poetic voice is defined by an intimacy that holds a soft yet exacting eye on the erotic, on uncanny political and family events, like her mother's wedding waltz with South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, and then again on the heartbreaking hilarity of an American president's final State of the Union address. Artful and intense, Finney's poems ask us to be mindful of what we fraction, fragment, cut off, dice, dishonor, or throw away, powerfully evoking both the lawless and the sublime.

"Deep in the center of every tree, you'll find the heartwood. The characters in this new book by poet Nikky Finney are the heartwood of their small Kentucky communities. You'll meet Buck Jones and Mae Bennet, whose anger has twisted them up inside, Queenie Sims and Arizona Scott, who can see the good in people, and Trina Sims and Jenny Bryan, two young women who discover how much they are alike despite their different skin color.

Poems; 237 pages. Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry is a twenty-first-century paean to the sterling love songs humming throughout four hundred years of black American life. National Book Award winner Nikky Finney's fifth collection contains lighthouse poems, narrative hotbeds, and treasured artifacts--copper coins struck from a new matrix for poetry, one that testifies from the witness stand and punctuates the occasional lyric within a new language of "docu-poetry." The ancestors arise and fly, and the black female body is the "insurgent sensualist," hunted but fighting to live and love in the ways it wants and knows best: "I loved being / a black girl but had not yet learned / to play dead . . ." The tenderness of a father's handwritten notes shadows the collection like a ghost, while the treasured, not-for-sale interiority of a black girl's fountainhead takes over every page. "One yellaw gal with an all-black tongue has gone missing." Finney has composed a new black spiritual, and one of the great voices of our time again stamps her singular sound into the new day.

Poems, 59 pages.

In Rice, her second volume of poetry, Nikky Finney explores the complexity of rice as central to the culture, economy, and mystique of the coastal South Carolina region where she was born and raised. The prized Carolina Gold rice paradoxically made South Carolina one of the most oppressive states for slaves and also created the remarkable Gullah culture on the coastal islands. The poems in Rice compose a profound and unflinching journey connecting family and the paradoxes of American history, from the tragic times when African slaves disembarked on the South Carolina coast to the triumphant day when Judge Ernest A. Finney Jr., Nikky's father, was sworn in as South Carolina's first African American chief justice. Images from the Finney family archive illustrate and punctuate this collection. Rice showcases Finney's hungry intellect, her regional awareness and pride, and her sensitivity to how cultures are built and threatened. "First edition copyright (c) 1995 by Lynn Carol Nikky Finney. First published in Toronto (Ontario, Canada) in paperback in 1995 by Sister Vision: Black Women and Women of Colour Press."

The World Is Round, Nikky Finney's third volume of poetry, collects the wisps of memory we carry with us throughout our earthly lives and weaves them into deft and nuanced poems that emphasize understanding the cycles of life. The settings offer a view into the kaleidoscope of human experience: the sweetness and shock of family life, the omnipresent wash of memory, and the ebullience of warm Southern air. The World Is Round carries with it an implicit challenge--to the author as a poet, and to the reader as a fellow human--to see the characters and details and events of our lives with clarity, fearlessness, and love. The result is poems that range the gamut of human reach and resilience, fury and frailty. The poet's vision of community requires understanding and tolerance from every breathing soul. Finney illuminates the cruelties of the sometimes gawking, narrow-minded world and makes a plea for compassion inspired by our common humanity. "First published in the United States in 2003 by InnerLight Publishing. This edition published in 2013 by TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press by arrangement with Nikky Finney."

A New York Times best-selling author of eleven novels and memoirs, Pat Conroy is one of America's most beloved storytellers and a writer as synonymous with the South Carolina low country as pluff mud or the Palmetto tree. As Conroy's writings have been rooted in autobiography more often than not, his readers have come to know and appreciate much about the once-secret dark familial history that has shaped Conroy's life and work.Conversations with the Conroys opens further the discussion of the Conroy family through four revealing interviews conducted in 2014 with Pat Conroy and four of his six siblings: brothers Mike, Jim, and Tim and sister Kathy. In confessional and often comic dialogs, the Conroys openly discuss the perils of being raised by their larger-than-life parents, USMC fighter pilot Col. Don Conroy (the Great Santini) and southern belle Peggy Conroy (née Peek); the complexities of having their history of abuse made public by Pat's books; the tragic death of their youngest brother, Tom; the chasm between them and their sister Carol Ann; and the healing, redemptive embrace they have come to find over time in one another. With good humor and often-striking candor, these interviews capture the Conroys as authentic and indeed proud South Carolinians, not always at ease with their place in literary lore, but nonetheless deeply supportive of Pat in his life and writing.Edited and introduced by the Palmetto State's preeminent historian, Walter Edgar, Conversations with the Conroys includes the first publications of Pat Conroy's interview with Edgar as the keynote address of the 2014 One Book, One Columbia citywide "big read" program, the unprecedented interview with the Conroy siblings for SCETV Radio's Walter Edgar's Journal, the resulting live Conroy Family Roundtable held at the 2014 South Carolina Book Festival, and a recent interview in Charleston following Pat Conroy's induction into the Citadel's Athletics Hall of Fame. This collection is augmented with an afterword from National Book Award-winning poet Nikky Finney and nearly fifty photographs, many from the Pat Conroy Archive in the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of South Carolina Libraries, and published here for the first time. Through the resulting treasure trove of text and images, this volume is as much a keepsake for Conroy's legion of devoted fans as it is a wealth of insider information to broaden the understanding of readers and researchers alike of the idiosyncratic world of Pat Conroy and his family.

DVD; approx. 214 minutes. "This 3-part program provides the definitive teaching tool for exploring the world of today's black poetry. Providing a more focused, ambitious approach than its 1998 predecessor, Furious Flower II presents outstanding critical scholarship on black contemporary poetry's origins and trends, its conflicts and consonances. Throughout, notable authors share insights and offer inspiration to fledgling poets about the creative process, and about daily life as a published writer. Interspersed with these critical conversations are impassioned readings of the most representative poems of each poet. Viewers can watch as one of America's most exciting cultural movements evolves before their eyes and ears. Program I - Roots and First Fruits traces black literary traditions from African American folklore to the Blues Aesthetic to Hip Hop, and illuminates their impact on poetry. Program II - Cross-Pollination in the Diaspora reflects upon the reciprocal influence between black American poets and writers from the African literary Diaspora. Program III - Blooming in the Whirlwind locates black poets within their historic moment and contextualizes them within relevant political movements - Civil Rights, Black Nationalism, post-colonialism and multiculturalism."--Www.newsreel.org.

Judith Lee Stronach Memorial Lectures on the Teaching of Poetry, 10th. "May 17, 2013, The Morrison Library, The University of California, Berkeley." Introductions by Raymond Lifchez and Lyn Hejinian.

In 1941, Jacob Lawrence, then just twenty-three years old, completed a series of sixty small tempera paintings with text captions about the Great Migration. Within months of its making, Lawrence's Migration series was divided between The Museum of Modern Art (even numbered panels) and the Phillips Memorial Gallery (odd numbered panels). The work has since become a landmark in the history of African-American art, a monument in the collections of both institutions, and a crucial example of the way in which history painting was radically reimagined in the modern era. In 2015 and 2016, marking the centenary of the Great Migration's start (1915-16), the panels will be reunited in exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art and then The Phillips Collection. Published to accompany the exhibition, this publication both grounds Lawrence's Migration series in the cultural and political debates that shaped the young artist's work and highlights the series' continued resonance for artists and writers working today. An essay by Leah Dickerman situates the series in relation to heady contemporary discussions of the artist's role as a social agent; a growing imperative to write - and give image to - black history in the late 1930s and early 1940s; and an emergent sense of activist politics. Elsa Smithgall traces the exhibition history of the Migration panels from their display at the Downtown Gallery in New York in 1941 to their acquisition by MoMA and the Phillips Collection a year later. Short commentaries on each panel explore Lawrence's career and painting technique and aspects of the social history of the Migration portrayed in his images. The catalogue also debuts ten poems newly commissioned from acclaimed poets written in response to the Migration series. Elizabeth Alexander (honoured as the poet at President Obama's first inauguration) introduces the poetry project with a discussion of the poetic quality of Lawrence's work, as well as the impact and legacy of the poets in his orbit including Claude McKay and Langston Hughes. Contributors: Leah Dickerman; Elsa Smithgall; Elizabeth Alexander; Rita Dove; Nikky Finney; Terrance Hayes; Tyehimba Jess; Yusef Komunyakaa; Jodi Roberts; Patricia Spears Jones; Natasha D Trethewey; Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon; Crystal Williams; Kevin Young; Jacob Lawrence; Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.),; Phillips Collection.

All of the published poetry of James Baldwin, including six significant poems previously only available in a limited edition. During his lifetime (1924-1987), James Baldwin authored seven novels, as well as several plays and essay collections, which were published to wide-spread praise. These books, among them Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, Giovanni's Room, and Go Tell It on the Mountain, brought him well-deserved acclaim as a public intellectual and admiration as a writer. However, Baldwin's earliest writing was in poetic form, and Baldwin considered himself a poet throughout his lifetime. Nonetheless, his single book of poetry, Jimmy's Blues, never achieved the popularity of his novels and nonfiction, and is the one and only book to fall out of print. This new collection presents James Baldwin the poet, including all nineteen poems from Jimmy's Blues, as well as all the poems from a limited-edition volume called Gypsy, of which only 325 copies were ever printed and which was in production at the time of his death. Known for his relentless honesty and startlingly prophetic insights on issues of race, gender, class, and poverty, Baldwin is just as enlightening and bold in his poetry as in his famous novels and essays. The poems range from the extended dramatic narratives of "Staggerlee wonders" and "Gypsy" to the lyrical beauty of "Some days," which has been set to music and interpreted by such acclaimed artists as Audra McDonald. Nikky Finney's introductory essay reveals the importance, relevance, and rich rewards of these little-known works. Baldwin's many devotees will find much to celebrate in these pages.

DVD; approx. 82 minutes. "THE REVIVAL: WOMEN AND THE WORD chronicles the US tour of a group of Black lesbian poets and musicians, who become present-day stewards of a historical movement to build community among queer women of color. Their journey to strengthen their community is enriched by insightful interviews with leading Black feminist thinkers and historians, including Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Nikki Finney, and Alexis Deveaux. As the group tours the country, the film reveals their aspirations and triumphs, as well as the unique identity challenges they face encompassing gender, race, and sexuality. This is a rarely seen look into a special sisterhood - one where marginalized voices are both heard and respected"--Women Make Movies WWW site.

The South: to render all that it means to an African American takes someone acutely tuned to their senses, someone with a patience, a passion even, for the region's history and contradictions. It takes a poet. In this new anthology, the first of its kind, more than one hundred contemporary black poets laugh at and cry about, pray for and curse, flee and return to - the South. Voices new to the scene appear in "The Ringing Ear" alongside some of the leading names in American literature today, including Sonia Sanchez, Yusef Komunyakaa, Harryette Mullen, Nikki Giovanni, Kevin Young, Cornelius Eady, and Al Young. The southern worlds opened up by these poets are echoed in how their poems are grouped, under headings like "Music, Food, and Work: Heeding the Lamentation and Roar of Things Made by Hand," or "Religion and Nature: The Lord Looks Out for Babies and Fools," or "Love, Flesh, and Family: The Hush and Holler Portraits."

For many, South Carolina is a sunny vacation destination. For those who have been lucky enough to call it home, it is a source of rich memories and cultural heritage. In this final volume of State of the Heart, thirty-eight nationally and regionally known writers share their personal stories about places in South Carolina that hold special meaning for them. While this is a book about place, it is ultimately about people's connections to one another, to a complex, common past, and to ongoing efforts to build a future of promise and possibility in the Palmetto state.Editor Aïda Rogers groups the essays thematically, with poetry, vintage photographs, and even recipes introducing each section. She unites pieces by New York Times best-selling novelists Patti Callahan Henry, CJ Lyons, and John Jakes; USA Today best-selling mystery writer Susan Boyer; historians Walter Edgar, Orville Vernon Burton, and Bernard Powers; artist and author Mary Whyte; and cookbook authors Sallie Ann Robinson and the Lee Brothers--just to name a few. Nikky Finney, a South Carolina native and winner of the 2011 National Book Award for poetry, provides the foreword. The afterword is written by Cassandra King, author of six novels, including the New York Times best seller The Sunday Wife."

DVD video. This disc is a recorded DVD and may not play on all DVD players or drives. Originally produced as a motion picture in 2001; broadcast on television on KET Kentucky Educational Television's Kentucky Muse series on February 5, 2008.
"Coal Black voices is an intimate mosaic of images, poetry, and storytelling by Afrilachian poets as they give glimpses of life in the American Black South and Appalachian region. The ensemble of African-American writers challenge simple notions of an all white Appalachian region and culture while drawing on the traditions such as the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and the experiences of the African Disapora. The poetry of the Affrilachian poets celebrates their African heritage and rural roots while encompassing themes of racism and Black identity. In this documentary they give voice to the pleasures of family, land, good food, artistic community, music and transformation"--Container.

Steve Flairty has captured the essence of what it means to be a Kentuckian with a heart and soul. In this collection of biographical portraits, Flairty describes my neighbors and yours -- ordinary people who are making a positive difference, living unselfish lives for the benefit of all.

The stories of those among us--silent heroes--who strive without public notice to improve the quality of life for their neighbors and their state.

The stories of those among us--silent heroes--who strive without public notice to improve the quality of life for their neighbors and their state.

Steve Flairty has captured the essence of what it means to be a Kentuckian with a heart and soul. In this collection of biographical portraits, Flairty describes my neighbors and yours -- ordinary people who are making a positive difference, living unselfish lives for the benefit of all.

In this collection of biographical portraits, Flairty describes ordinary people of Kentucky who are making a positive difference.

Biography.

Historian and novelist Flood brings to life the drama of Lincoln's final year, in which he oversaw the final campaigns of the Civil war, was re-elected president, and laid out his vision for the nation's future in a reunified South and in the expanding West. bw photographs.

Fiction.

If the Wright brothers' 1903 flights in Kitty Hawk marked the birth of aviation, World War I can be called its violent adolescence--a brief but bloody era that completely changed the way planes were designed, fabricated, and flown. The war forged an industry that would redefine transportation and warfare for future generations. InFirst to Fly, lauded historian Charles Bracelen Flood tells the story of the men who were at the forefront of that revolution: the daredevil Americans of the Lafayette Escadrille, who flew in French planes, wore French uniforms, and showed the world an American brand of heroism before the United States entered the Great War. As citizens of a neutral nation from 1914 to early 1917, Americans were prohibited from serving in a foreign army, but many brave young souls soon made their way into European battle zones: as ambulance drivers, nurses, and more dangerously, as soldiers in the French Foreign Legion. It was partly from the ranks of the latter group, and with the sponsorship of an expat American surgeon and a Vanderbilt, that the Lafayette Escadrille was formed in 1916 as the first and only all-American squadron in the French Air Service. Flying rudimentary planes, against one-in-three odds of being killed, these fearless young men gathered reconnaissance and shot down enemy aircraft, participated in the Battle of Verdun and faced off with the Red Baron, dueling across the war-torn skies like modern knights on horseback. Drawing on rarely seen primary sources, Flood chronicles the startling success of that intrepid band, and gives a compelling look at the rise of aviation and a new era of warfare.

Shortly after losing all of his wealth in a terrible 1884 swindle, Ulysses S. Grant learned he had terminal throat and mouth cancer. Destitute and dying, Grant began to write his memoirs to save his family from permanent financial ruin. As Grant continued his work, suffering increasing pain, the American public became aware of this race between Grant's writing and his fatal illness. Twenty years after his respectful and magnanimous demeanor toward Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, people in both the North and the South came to know Grant as the brave, honest man he was, now using his famous determination in this final effort. Grant finishedMemoirs just four days before he died in July 1885. Published after his death by his friend Mark Twain, Grant'sMemoirs became an instant bestseller, restoring his family's financial health and, more importantly, helping to cure the nation of bitter discord. More than any other American before or since, Grant, in his last year, was able to heal this--the country's greatest wound.

They were both prewar failures--Grant, forced to resign from the Regular Army because of his drinking, and Sherman, holding four different jobs, including a much-loved position at a southern military academy--in the years before the firing on Fort Sumter. They began their unique collaboration ten months into the war, at the Battle of Shiloh, each carefully taking the other's measure. They shared the demands of family life and the heartache of personal tragedy. They shared similar philosophies of battle, employed similar strategies and tactics, and remained in close, virtually daily communication throughout the conflict. They were incontestably two of the Civil War's most important figures, and the deep, abiding friendship they shared made the Union's ultimate victory possible. Poignant, riveting, and elegantly written, Grant and Sherman is a remarkable portrait of two extraordinary men and a singular friendship, forged on the battlefield, that would change the course of history.

Explains how Hitler gained the political experience he needed to make himself the leader of Germany, covering his life up to the writing of Mein Kampf.

After his surrender at Appomattox, Robert E. Lee lived only another five years - the forgotten chapter of an extraordinary life. These were his finest hours, when he did more than any other American to heal the wounds between North and South. Flood draws on new research to create an intensely human and a "wonderful, tragic, and powerful . . . story for which we have been waiting over a century" (Theodore H. White).

Fiction.

Fiction.

Fiction. Harry Purdick was one of thousands of young Americans called into service and thrown into battle at the outbreak of the Korean War. Summoned to face one enemy, they were engulfed by another-- the Communist Chinese. Harry's story enters a new dimension when he is captured by the Chinese.

Fiction.

The first novel in Dave Flora's Ghost Zero series. Revenge is a dead man's game. Eddie Quick was just a kid trying to figure out small town life when he winds up with a haunted ring that someone is willing to kill for! Now, the only thing that can save his life is making a deal with the ghost of a gun-slinging vigilante, Charles Pallentine, and tracking down the man who killed him. Of course, it's not THAT simple. Pallentine is probably crazy, the ring may carry an ancient curse.... And his new girlfriend may be working for the killer! Together, Eddie and Charles become GHOST ZERO, avenger of the helpless dead, and race to stop a man who uses ghosts to kill! Illustrated by the Dave Flora

The second novel in the Ghost Zero series.Eighteen year-old Eddie Quick has it all: a beautiful girl, a haunted house, and a cursed ring that lets him see ghosts. Nearly a year ago, he locked the ring away - along with his ghostly mentor, Charles Pallentine - and tried to live a normal life.Unfortunately, someone is killing off the members of the Midnight Society, Pallentine's old vigilante team, and raising them as ghastly corpses with the goal of ending the ultimate crime, life itself!Eddie takes up the ring to become Ghost Zero, the gun-slinging, ghostly avenger, but is quickly out matched by the team of super-powered zombies. Fighting for his life, and racing to stop a fiend that can kill with a single word, it will take all Eddie has and more to come out of this one dead or alive.Haunted heroes fill The Midnight Society with ghostly thrills and harrowing chills, driven by characters you'll love to root for (and against)!

Fiction. Written, created, and illustrated by Dave Flora ; designed and lettered by Anthony Schiavino.

Fiction. Written, created, and illustrated by Dave Flora; designed and lettered by Anthony Schiavino.

"What do you know about the wilderness and being a survivor? Woody, Chloe, Mom, and Dad are getting away from watching TV and gearing up for an old fashioned camping trip. Woody is especially excited since this is his first chance to show he is a real sports dog. Follow the pups' adventure every step of the way from packing a backpack, mapping the course, assembling the tent, and surviving in the wilderness. In the end will Woody and Chloe learn what it means survivors?"--Publisher's website.

Kentucky's favorite canines Woody and Chloe are busy once again. Woody makes an interesting purchase at a yard sale that leads him on an exciting journey. Follow them as they learn about the Civil War, but more importantly how people can have differing viewpoints, but still be friends.

Come along as Woody and his family visit Washington, D.C. and learn about our nation's history! Read a bonus chapter, not included in the syndicated series, that is Woody's personal journal.

Juvenile Fiction. By Leigh Anne Florence; illustrations by James Asher.

Juvenile fiction. By Leigh Anne Florence; illustrations by James Asher. Woody, the Dachshund, travels around Kentucky with his family.
Originally published in Kentucky newspapers, one chapter a week for 10 weeks during late 2005.

A witty book about Woody, the adorable dachshund, who finds a new home in Tinytown, Kentucky. Read along as Woody is adopted by his new Mom and his wiener dog sister, Chloe. Written in rhyme with colorful illustrations, this book is a hit with young and old.

They captured our hearts in Woody The Kentucky Wiener: The Adoption. They are back to continue their journey. Read along as Woody and Chloe learn about their new human family member. Written in rhyme with colorful illustrations, this book will be a favorite for all ages.