Emmett Till in Different States: Poems

The poems in Emmett Till in Different States span more than 7 decades of events in Emmett Till’s legacy from the 1940s to the present. In them Philip Kolin shows how Emmett Till’s importance has expanded from being a Civil Rights martyr to becoming a choric, heroic commentator on the tragedies of Civil Rights injustices (e.g. Medgar Evers’s murder, the Freedom Riders, the murders of Chicago’s children, Trayvon Martin), and a voice of conscience for America to hear and heed. The title of this collection points to the multiple ways we can see Emmett Till through time and space (e.g. geographic, historical, psychological, and theological.) Kolin weaves other voices throughout the poems in this collection, most notably Mamie Till, Gospel great Mahalia Jackson who bought Till’s gravestone, an old black woman (Aunt Aretha) who meets Till in the Delta, Till’s fictionalized brothers (other black men who have been slain and their bodies left to rot), his fictionalized sister based upon the Shulamite woman in the Song of Songs, the Chicago River, and even Carolyn Bryant, the white woman whom Till was said to have offended. These voices-and Till’s as well-emerge from a variety of traditions-Biblical, the blues, classical mythology, spirituals. According to Natasha Trethewey, the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States, ＂In the history of a nation still on the long journey toward full realization of its creed, there are stories that need to be told again and again. The murder of Emmett Till is one such story; it belongs to all of us and should be sung by many different voices. In Emmett Till in Different States, Philip Kolin adds his voice--a necessary retelling so that we might be transformed by the listening.＂--Philip C. Kolin ＂Emmett Till in Different States＂

Philip C. Kolin is the University Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Southern Mississippi where he also edits The Southern Quarterly, a nationally renowned journal of the Arts in the South. He has taught at the University of Southern Mississippi for 41 years and has also traveled extensively in the Mississippi Delta where Till was slain. He is a native Chicagoan who graduated from Chicago State University, Mamie Till s alma mater, the University of Chicago, and received his Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University. Kolin has lived in various parts of Chicago from the near west side, where Emmett Till s grandmother Alma Sparkman lived in the 1940s, to the far south side to the northern suburbs of the city. Kolin has published more than 40 books, and over 200 scholarly articles, many on African American writers, themes, and influences, and at least 250 poems. Regarded as an international authority on Tennessee Williams, Kolin has published books on Williams with Cambridge University Press, Greenwood Publishing, McFarland, and Peter Lang. In particular, he has been recognized for his groundbreaking work on African American productions of Williams s plays in such scholarly journals as African American Review and Theatre History Studies. Kolin has also published four books on contemporary African American Women playwrights, including the first book-length critical study of experimental dramatist Adrienne Kennedy (Univ. of South Carolina Press) and two books on Suzan-Lori Parks, the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer for drama (with McFarland and Routledge), plus he has edited a prized collection of essays for Routledge as such dramatists as Sonia Sanchez, Glenda Dickerson, Pearl Cleage, and Anna Deavere Smith. A poet as well, Kolin has published seven collections of poems, Reading God s Handwriting (Kaufmann, 2012), and most recently Departures: Poems (Negative Capability Press, 2014).＂