Gregory Pardlo

"The core of this volume is a multidisciplinary retrospective on the state of Black Literature and Black people in the post-Katrina era. Hurricane Katrina is not just an (un)natural disaster, but a Holocaust, a reckoning, a metaphor for the Black condition in America. Though the winds ebb and waters recede, the effects of Hurricane Katrina reverberate beyond any gulf, far beyond that ravaged crescent of land Wynton Marsalis calls 'the soul of America.' Wrapped in these reflections is a wealth of work examining attendent issues of race, class, community, kinship, history, art, literature, war, love, and loss."