Understanding Michael S. Harper

"Michael Antonucci's sustained engagement with Michael Harper's extensive oeuvre has paid off in this richly textured and highly illuminating study of one of the major American poets of the late twentieth century. Antonucci deftly navigates Harper's vast canon and epigrammatic approach to poetic language with dexterity and aplomb. In coining the terms 'generative kinship' and 'convergent history,' he expertly traverses the multiple landscapes and diverse populations in Harper's aesthetic universe, and he skillfully deploys them as an analytic to unfold and explicate Harper's superb mastery of American and African American formal poetics and oral traditions while showcasing Harper's love of the sounds and rhythms of African American music and musical vocality. A gift for readers at all levels, Antonucci's compelling reading of Harper provides the necessary resources for accessing the complexity and for understanding the magnitude of Harper's poetic vision and cultural underpinnings."—Thadious M. Davis, author of Southscapes: Geographies of Race, Religion, and Literature

"Michael Antonucci truly 'Understands' how Michael S. Harper sings a self intensely replete with 'poetic multivocality.' This excellent discussion draws on other scholars' work while building its own arresting, informative contribution. These close readings of Harper present how he imagined and sought 'A Love Supreme.' Antonucci indeed 'Understands' Michael S. Harper!"—Robert B. Stepto, Professor Emeritus, Yale University, and coeditor of Chant of Saints: A Gathering of Afro-American Literature, Art, and Scholarship, with Michael S. Harper