The Black Romantic Revolution

Derik Smith is an associate professor of literature at Claremont Mckenna College. He specializes in the study of 20th-century and contemporary African American literature and culture. His writing has appeared in journals like Callaloo, African American Review, and World Order. Smith’s book Robert Hayden in Verse: New Histories of African American Poetry and the Black Arts Era (University of Michigan Press, 2018) focuses on the poetry of Robert Hayden.

Derik Smith

Horton! Thou Should Be Living in This Hour: On Matt Sandler’s “The Black Romantic Revolution: Abolitionist Poets at the End of Slavery”

"Writing only leads to more writing." — Colette

Literary Criticism

"Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history." — George Bernard Shaw

History

"I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, and that is poetry." — John Cage

Poetry

Derik Smith is an associate professor of literature at Claremont Mckenna College. He specializes in the study of 20th-century and contemporary African American literature and culture. His writing has appeared in journals like Callaloo, African American Review, and World Order. Smith’s book Robert Hayden in Verse: New Histories of African American Poetry and the Black Arts Era (University of Michigan Press, 2018) focuses on the poetry of Robert Hayden.

Derik Smith

Articles

Horton! Thou Should Be Living in This Hour: On Matt Sandler’s “The Black Romantic Revolution: Abolitionist Poets at the End of Slavery”