Bookcover: Kente Cloth

Kente Cloth

Jas Mardis — editor.
Contributors: Authors included in Kente Cloth: Nia Akimbo; Phyllis W. Allen; Monica Frazier Anderson; Cassandra M. Bailey; Bertram Barnes; Gayle Bell; Mawiyah Kai el-Jaman Bomani; Nadir Lasana Bomani; Froswa' Booker-Drew; Sharon Bridgforth; Emotion Brown; Sybil Cannon; Meta Carstaphen; Vicky Charleston; Michael Ollie Clayton; Pearl Garrett Crayton; Valeri Bridgeman Davis; Anthony A. Douglas; Freddi Williams Evans; Fred Fowler; Asabi Olufemi Ifasola; James Thomas Jackson; Greg Johnson; Linda Jones; Glenn Joshua; Saddi Khali; Bob Lee; Ife Nzingha Talibah Mahdi; Michele L. Majors; Jas. Mardis; Charley Moon; Emily M. Newsome; Adrienne Norris; Lindsay Patterson; Chuck Perkins; Kalamu ya Salaam; Tim Seibles: Bernestine Singley; Zenaura Melynia Smith; Monica Denise Spears; Clifton L. Taulbert; Lorenzo Thomas; Rev. Dr. Jesse Garfield Truvillion; Von; Keith Walker

January, 1998

Published

225

Pages

Recommended Text

Ideal for Classrooms

$19.95-$25.95

Buy

Paperback, Hardcover

Available

About Mardis's Kente Cloth

The literary voices found in Kente Cloth are as unique and varied as the hues of their skin. Their choice of subjects offers an equally varied glimpse into the region’s vast cache of truly new voices.

“Herein are the children of a Black Southwest… from storytellers, railroad bosses, liars, cooks, hairdressers, bus riders, singers, farm hands and the like. They tell the tales of fisher folk, ditch diggers, quilters and planters of trees. They come washed in the blood of the lamb and drenched in the wind-carried love of deep woods hollars and back alley brawls. They come drenched with the cacophony of prayers from childbirth to childhood and the laying down of the too young soul. They come strong from the womb of desolation disguised as charity and welcomed by the hands of fate. These are the writers of lives being lived and not of the merely imagined or coughed up writing class creations.

These mostly unpublished writers have fought and birthed and churched and gathered ‘round gravesites, together. They have hunted the lakes, swamps, valleys and eyes of the racial beasts, together. They have come back again each year to honor their dead, together. They have wished for a passion and found it on the early morning dew of backyard pears, together. They have walked a mile and more in the brogan steppers of the elders, together. They have ratcheted out the long days and nights toward progression, where their voices have been abandoned for the smooth elegance of the other brother, together. They have endured silence together, and I am honored in accepting these wonderful and horrible and gloried voices of this brief collection. Each of these letters bear witness to the honor and discovery of being alive in a way that alive is not practiced today: Considered and just.” —Jas. Mardis, from the Introduction

Classroom Adoption

Kente Cloth is a recommended text for use in classrooms where the following subjects are being studied: Creative Writing, Literature, and Poetry.

A compilation of previously unpublished poems, short stories, essays, and creative nonfiction by writers of African descent from Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Mardis’ poem, “Invisible Man” was included in the Pushcart Prize XXIV, and the book includes a short story by Bernestine Singley, editor of “When Race Becomes Real.”

Adopted By

[“University of Texas at San Antonio for "Literature of Texas and the Southwest"”]

About the Editor

JAS. MARDIS is an award-winning poet and commentator. He is also a storyteller specializing in the Family Story and a Quiltmaker in the tradition of his family. He lives in Dallas with his daughter.

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