J. J. Phillips, Ishmael Reed, Gundars Strads, and Shawn Wong, Editors

The Before Columbus Foundation Anthology

Since 1976 the Before Columbus Foundation has been devoted to the taske of redefining our notion of mainstram American literature to reflect this ocuntry's milticultural, multiethnic, and multiracial diversity. Since 1980 it has sponsored the American Book Awards, which honor a wide spectrum of books that reflect this heritage. To recognixe literary excellence in this way demands a panoramic perspective, without restrictions and without quotas. Open, inclusive, democratic, the American Book Awards celebrates the many tributaries that flow into, in Ishmael Reed's words, the ocean of American literature.

The Before Columbus Foundation Poetry Anthology includes over 150 selections from a decade of American Book Award-winning poetry. Authors represented include Ai, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Edward Dorn, Allen Ginsberg, Maurice Kenny, Etheridge Knight, Colleen J. McElroy, Charles Olson, Sonia Sanchez, Gary Snyder, Quincy Troupe, Terence Winch, and Elizabeth Woody. It will quickly be seen as a landmark, pioneering volume and a literary event. This is the first book to reflect accurately the American literature of the present—and to prepare us for the American literature of the twenty-first century.