What Tells You Ripeness

What Tells You Ripeness: Black Poets on Nature.

Edited by Nikki Wallschlaeger

Guest poetry editor Nikki Wallschlaeger continues the groundbreaking work of Camille T. Dungy, whose anthology Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, was published in 2009. This collection highlights the natural world as, in Wallschlaeger’s words, a "space of connection, abundance, and complexity."

Featured poets:

Clarissa Álvarez

Derrick Austin

Prince Bush

Tyree Daye

Jeni De La O

jayy dodd

Danielle Legros Georges

Kelsey Marie Harris

S*an D. Henry-Smith

Faylita Hicks

Petero Kalulé

ML Kejera

Donika Kelly

Irène Mathieu

Shane McCrae

upfromsumdirt

J. Stephen Whitney

Nikki Wallschlaeger’s work has been published in The Nation, Brick, American Poetry Review, Witness, Kenyon Review, Poetry, and others. She is the author of the full-length collections Houses (Horseless Press 2015), Crawlspace (Bloof 2017), the graphic book I Hate Telling You How I Really Feel (Bloof Books 2019), and the forthcoming Waterbaby (Copper Canyon 2021). She is also the author of an artist book called “Operation USA” through the Baltimore-based book arts group Container, a project acquired by Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee.