Poetry: Criticisms and Interpretations

Explores the relationship between the Black Arts Movement and black women writers of the period. Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Jayne Cortez, Alice Walker, and others.

Essays discuss the various ways poets are influenced by traditions from the poetry of the past. Among the poets studied are Donald Justice, Sseamus Heaney, James Tate, Paul Muldoon, Jorie Graham, and Czeslae, Milosz.

Focusing not only on soldier poets, but also on conscientious objectors and those deemed unfit for military service, Among the Nightmare Fighters sheds light on the struggles faced by writers from the onset of the U.S. involvement in the war in Europe to the painful physical and psychological aftereffects soldiers carried with them following their service years.