Derrick Harriell, assistant professor in English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi, won the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters 2014 Poetry Award for his collection of poems, Ropes, focused on the lives of black boxers in America. Cotton (Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2010) was his first collection of poems.

REVIEWS

Ropes: Poems by Derrick Harriell, Aquarius Press/Willow Books

“Promised Jim Crow/don’t go in the ring,/that the language of/the fourteenth amendment lies/ within those ropes. Long before Jackie Robinson bravely entered major league hatred, African Americans tied cultural pride, anxiety and politick to angry fists buffered with cotton. Derrick Harriell has mined the human history of lives perpetually in fight and woven a gutbucket stench of ghetto wail and back alley holler survival. The work of these four rounds, the transparent employment of voice and source, working the head, body, groin and knees, is a flurry of converging dialogues, real and cleverly imagined, in conversation with self, God, Uncle Sam, other Black pugilists and the women who adorn these boxers as trinket and stain. Jack Johnson, from Leavenworth, writes to Joe Louis We take turns dying. Myth, truth, lies and the substance of Black testosterone in viscous, historically-textured sonics, Ropes confirms Derrick Harriell is among the finest young poets in the country.”
—Quraysh Ali Lansana, author of mystic turf and Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy & Social Justice in Classroom & Community

“In 4 rounds, Derrick Harriell tours us through the cultural history of boxing, from Mike Tyson and Joe Frazier to one of the first African American pugilists, writing from 1855. These richly detailed persona poems are spoken by boxers and also the journalists, cutmen, and girlfriends who surround the ring. Harriell’s nuanced ear conveys not just the intimacies of a sport but the intimacies of the human spirit. Ropes is a knock out.”
—Beth Ann Fennelly, professor of English and director of the MFA Program at the University of Mississippi, and author of Tender Hooks and Open House

Cotton, Aquarius Press/Willow Books, by Derrick Harriell

The first collection of poems by Derrick A. Harriell, assistant professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi, Cotton, was published by Aquarius Press/Willow Books in 2010.

REVIEWS

“In his remarkable debut collection, Cotton, Derrick Harriell has created a mural in poems. The characters that inhabit this vivid tableau step into an active third dimension and allow us to witness the vicissitudes of their daily struggles, triumphs large and small, private desires. The community here is anchored by a specific Midwestern, African-American family which, in spite of both external and internal challenges, maintains its unity, however precarious at times. Death, passion, humor, mother wit, history, place, these are the colors that Harriell mixes and applies with such artistry that readers may not be so sure if they are watching a particular world or if that world is watching them. Harriell is among America’s most exciting new voices in poetry.”
—Maurice Kilwein Guevara

“All African Americans have a historic relationship with cotton. The southern United States was once the world s major supplier of cotton, King Cotton. It fueled the 19th Century s need for increasing the slave trade. The migrations of the freedmen could never put distance to that fact. Derrick Harriell s poems are the doors in the neighborhoods where they settled. The people of the streets, the houses, and the bars live in these poems. The personal family history of blues and redemptions are woven in the fabric, too. Both, noble and wicked traditions are revealed in a rich credible vernacular, a musical voice, like a storyteller sitting in your kitchen or on the barstool beside you testifying to the significant particulars, situations of poetic truths, the edgy full dimensions deep within the culture. Cotton is a stirring debut, and Derrick Harriell is a blues poet.”
—Gary Copeland Lilley, Author of The Subsequent Blues

Derrick Harriell was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He holds a Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a MFA in Creative Writing from Chicago State University. He is an assistant professor of Creative Writing for the Department of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi. He formerly taught Creative Writing at UW-Milwaukee. He has presented in conferences such as the Idlewild Writers Conference and will present at Chicago State University in 2013. A former assistant poetry editor for Third World Press, Harriell served as poetry editor for The Cream City Review. A Pushcart Prize Nominee, Harriell’s poems have appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including The Cream City Review, Reverie, the Lamplighter Review and Main Street Rag.

By Charles K. Ross, associate professor of history and director of African American Studies at the University of Mississippi

Outside the Lines, NYU Press (2001), traces how sports laid a foundation for social change long before the judicial system formally recognized the inequalities of racial separation. Integrating sports teams to include white and black athletes alike, the National Football League served as a microcosmic fishbowl of the highs and lows, the trials and triumphs, of racial integration.

Watching a football game on a Sunday evening, most sports fans do not realize the profound impact the National Football League had on the civil rights movement. Similarly, in a sport where seven out of ten players are black, few are fully aware of the history and contributions of their athletic forebears. Among the touchdowns and tackles lies a rich history of African American life and the struggle to achieve equal rights.

Although the Supreme Court did not reverse their 1896 decision of “separate but equal” in the Plessy v Ferguson case until more than fifty years later, sports laid a foundation for social change long before our judicial system formally recognized the inequalities of racial separation. Integrating sports teams to include white and black athletes alike, the National Football League served as a microcosmic fishbowl of the highs and lows, the trials and triumphs, of racial integration.

In this chronicle of black NFL athletes, Charles K. Ross has given us the story of the Jackie Robinsons of American football.

REVIEWS

“Ross provides a concise account of the pioneers who integrated pro football in the early part of the century and those who helped reintegrate the game in the era of World War II. It is a heroic yet tragic story ably told. One hopes the book might convince the pro football establishment to honor some of these stalwart athletes and coaches by enshrining them in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.”
—John M. Carroll, Lamar University, author of Fritz Pollard: Pioneer in Racial Advancement and Red Grange and the Rise of Modern Football

“Informative . . . Ross has opened some important doors.”
—American Historical Review

“Charles Ross’ stellar research clearly demonstrates that the African American struggle for merit and equality not only extends to the playing field but has, in fact, long defined the game of professional football. A must read for students of the game, from casual gridiron enthusiasts to scholars alike.”
—C. Keith Harrison

“…offers an interesting recitation of the on-again-off-again participation of blacks in the early years of pro football.”
—The Baltimore Sun

“An important analysis for all who care about the African American experience in professional sports. Significant not only for the history it tells, but for the questions it raises about race relations in football as an industry and as a United States institution.”
—Michael E. Lomax