Mississippi Valley State University News February 23, 2016 Zheng Publishes African American Haiku: Cultural Visions Dr. John Zheng, professor and chair of the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Mississippi Valley State University, has published an edited book with the University Press of Mississippi. African American Haiku: Cultural Visions, the first study solely dedicated to exploring the power of African American haiku, offers insights into African American poets' innovations in the haiku form, shedding light on a neglected aspect of black poetry. Notable scholars present new interpretations of well-known works. Essays trace the verse of five major African American haiku poets: Richard Wright, James Emanuel, Etheridge Knight, Sonia Sanchez, and Lenard D. Moore. Dana Gioia, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, comments that "John Zheng's remarkable new book examines one of the most interesting and unexpected conjunctions in modern American literature--the adoption of the Japanese haiku form by African American writers. Half a refuge from racial politics and half a subtle form of cultural rebellion, the African American haiku opened new creative possibilities for the ten writers Zheng explores in this deft and original volume. This book is a real addition to American literary scholarship." Jerry W. Ward, a distinguished Richard Wright scholar, writes that "The essays collected in African American Haiku: Cultural Visions expand and deepen our understanding of black poetic tradition from the beginning of twentieth century to present... Just as he did in The Other World of Richard Wright, John Zheng provides a concise and scholarly frame for inquiry about how African American poets have studied, embraced, and make innovations in an ancient Japanese genre. His introduction, an invaluable literary historical guide, makes a persuasive argument regarding haiku, African American modernity, and cross cultural poetics...This book is seminal for future inquiries about the transformation of haiku in literary contact zones and about how diversity is constituted by the cosmopolitan practices of individual African American poets. This book will have a strong and necessary impact on new, theoretically sophisticated directions in the study of modern and contemporary African American poetry." SANDRA M. PHOENIX Executive Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 800-999-8558, ext. 4820 404-592-4820 Skype: sandra.phoenix1 Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/hbculibraryalliance1/ 1438 West Peachtree NW Suite 200 Atlanta,GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (LYRASIS) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children.