Archive of Style: New and Selected Poems

Award-winning poet and essayist Cheryl Clarke’s illustrious career has spanned more than four decades and culminates in Archive of Style: New and Selected Poems, a long-awaited retrospective of the indelible work of a Black feminist, community and LGBTQ activist, and educator. This collection features carefully curated poems from Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (1982), Living as a Lesbian (1986), The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry 1980-2005 (2006), By My Precise Haircut (2016), and Targets (2019). Together these works show a brilliant thinker who has profoundly impacted generations of writers and activists. Clarke’s poetry and essays, centered around the Black, lesbian, feminist experience, have attracted an audience around the world. Her essays, “Lesbianism: an Act of Resistance” and “The Failure to Transform: Homophobia in the Black Community” revolutionized the thinking about lesbians of color and the struggle against homophobia. Her poetry and non-fiction have been reprinted in numerous anthologies and assigned in women and sexuality courses globally. Having published since 1977, Clarke and her work have become a foundational part of LGBTQ literature and activism. Archive of Style is a celebration and homage to one of American literature’s Black Women literary warriors.

Table of Contents:
Targets 2019 History On Their Way to Life Targets Emergency Surgery depth in a two dimensional space What It Take Brief Interval / Legacy/Legends Nephew 2016 lipstick corn What Does It Mean? Woman Ends Her Life: Elegy Tercet Reckless Domesticity Living as a lesbian in the archive of style Juanita’ (for D.C.) By My Precise Haircut 2016 Mandela: 12-15-2013 A Capital Car Chase Women of Letters Oh, Memory Fatal and Fateful A Sister’s Lament . . . Songs of Longing the empire A Child Die The Days of Good Looks: Prose And Poetry 1980-2000 (2005) Living as a lesbian underground, fin de siÈcle Billie Holiday Dreams of South Africa
 james dean longing Experimental Love (1993) War Crazy Men Greta Garbo Movement passing All Souls’ Day Flowers of Puerto Rico Buttons An Epitaph Rondeau Make-up Remember the Voyage Arroyo Querida Hard Living as a Lesbian at 45 Najeeb (1974-1989) Veronica Ashley Wood, My Niece Hanging Tough in the Persian Gulf: Elegy an old woman muses from her basement A Poet’s Death Humid Pitch (1989) Bulletin The Day Sam Cooke Died Sisters Part party pants (from Epic of Song) Frances Michael Erol Ilona of Hickory No Place Living As a Lesbian (1986) 14th Street wearing my cap backwards The woman who raised me living as a lesbian on the make journal entry: sisters for my mother, 1979 palm leaf of Mary Magdalene I come to the city freedom flesh Indira no more encomiums Intimacy no luxury Vicki and Daphne Fall journal entry: 1983 nothing sexual preference Miami: 1980 living as a lesbian underground a futuristic fantasy an exile I have loved sister of famous artist brother Pueblo Bonito jazz poem for Morristown, N.J. Intimacy no luxury marimba Kittatinny living as a lesbian at 35 Narratives: poems in the tradition of black women 1982 hair: a narrative Mavis writes in her journal The Older American Fathers April 4, 1968: Washington, D.C. The moon in cancer Gail the johnny cake Of Althea and Flaxie NEW POEMS Foreword to New Poems Grade Schooler Scholar Jo’burg, 2016 Never Any Proof Entry Back seat Juggernaut Betty Carter (1929-1998) The message Cost Signs of the Times Sandy Bland Sonnet for the Last Night Spring 2022 journal entry Emanuel 9 2015: their influence was wide Acknowledgements

About the Author :
Poet, critic, and activist Cheryl Clarke was born in Washington, DC. She earned her BA from Howard University and her MA and PhD from Rutgers University. Clarke is the author of five collections of poetry: Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (1983), Living as a Lesbian (1986), Humid Pitch (1989), Experimental Love (1993), and By My Precise Haircut (2016), which won a Hilary Tham Capital Competition. She wrote the critical study “After Mecca”: Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement (2005), and a volume collecting her poetry and prose was published as The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry of Cheryl Clarke, 1980–2005 (2006). Many of Clarke’s most influential essays, including “Lesbianism: an Act of Resistance” and “The Failure to Transform: Homophobia in the Black Community,” first appeared in landmark publications such as This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981) and Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983). Clarke served as editor for Conditions, an influential journal of lesbian feminist literature. All of Clarke’s writings advocate for queer communities of color, paying attention to the social implications of language and labels and the possibilities of art and activism to stage resistance to dominant culture. According to Alexis Pauline Gumbs, who co-organized a conference on Clarke at Rutgers in 2013, “Cheryl Clarke’s life and work offer an enduring rejection of straightness and a constant reorientation to alternative space.” Clarke was an influential administrator and teacher at Rutgers for more than 40 years. She founded the Office of Diverse Community Affairs and Lesbian-Gay Concerns, which became the Office of Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities, and retired as the Livingstone Dean of Students in 2013. For her service to LGBTQ communities, Clarke received a David Kessler Award. She currently lives in Hobart, New York, where she owns and operates Blenheim Hill Books with her partner, Barbara J. Balliet.

Review :
“Long a recorder of the difficult, juicy moment, the questions of difference, Cheryl Clarke gives us acute highlights along a journey travelled with resolve, pain, joy.”—Audre Lorde on Humid Pitch “[Clarke’s] musics are various: strong, or sharp, or quick, or lulling. Rich and requiring.”—Gwendolyn Brooks on Humid Pitch “Cheryl Clarke’s poems take fire from a deep and intelligent caring for other Black women and herself in them.” —Adrienne Rich, on Narratives “Cheryl Clarke’s poetry has always touched that place in me that responds to magic and music.”—Joy Harjo on Humid Pitch “Cheryl Clarke speaks with a direct and unique voice.”—June Jordan on Narratives