Title: Olio
Description: "With ambitious manipulations of poetic forms, Tyehimba Jess presents the sweat and story behind America’s blues, worksongs and church hymns. Part fact, part fiction, Jess's much anticipated second book weaves sonnet, song, and narrative to examine the lives of mostly unrecorded African American performers directly before and after the Civil War up to World War I. Olio is an effort to understand how they met, resisted, complicated, co-opted, and sometimes defeated attempts to minstrelize them. Named a top poetry book of spring 2016 by Library Journal."--Publisher's website (viewed 05/11/2016).
Subjects: Social life and customs, African Americans in the performing arts, African American Participation, World War, 1914-1918, African Americans, African American entertainers, Poetry, Poetry (poetic works by one author), American poetry, Music, Freed persons, History