Category Archives: Anthologies

By Broad Potomac’s Shore

Selected by the DC Public Libraries for the 2021 Route 1 Reads program, sponsored by the East Coast Centers for the Book.

 

A comprehensive anthology of poems by both well-known and overlooked poets working and living in the Washington, DC from the city’s founding in 1800 to 1930. Roberts expertly presents the work of 132 poets, including poems by such celebrated writers as Francis Scott Key, Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, Frederick Douglass, Ambrose Bierce, James Weldon Johnson, and Paul Laurence Dunbar as well as the work of lesser-known poets—especially women, writers of color, and working-class writers. A significant number of the poems are by writers who were born enslaved, such as Fanny Jackson Coppin, T. Thomas Fortune, and John John Sella Martin.

The book is arranged thematically, representing the poetic work happening in our nation’s capital from its founding through the Civil War, Reconstruction, World War I, and the beginnings of literary modernism. The city has always been home to prominent poets—including presidents and congressmen, lawyers and Supreme Court judges, foreign diplomats, US poets laureate, professors, and inventors—as well as writers from across the country who came to Washington as correspondents. A broad range of voices is represented in this incomparable volume.

Reviews

“This is a marvelously rich and satisfying project—a comprehensive treasure trove of poems by poets living in Washington, DC, during its first one hundred years as the nation’s capital. Roberts has resoundingly achieved her goal in this collection, which includes sample poems by well over one hundred poets. An impressive job of research and a valuable contribution to our understanding of Washington’s literary history.”

—Christopher Sten, Literary Capital: A Washington Reader

“Kim Roberts, once again, shows her skills as Washington D.C.’s literary historian. Impeccable research and a heart for the past make Roberts’s work shine bright, bringing voices to the page from the shadows. It’s our great good luck to make the acquaintance of these distinguished poetry ancestors from the early days of our Capital.”

—Grace Cavalieri, The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress

“Kim Roberts’s By Broad Potomac’s Shore confirms why she is called Washington’s literary historian. Informative, heartbreaking, and filled with delights, Roberts’s preface alone is worth reading for its concise and fascinating history of DC, the first place slavery officially ended, nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation took effect. Roberts’s anthology covers authors born in the 1750s to those born before 1900. She includes formerly enslaved persons, abolitionists, Confederates, at least one suspected Ku Klux Klan member, suffragists, African Americans, one President, public office holders, military leaders, and Native Americans, as well as some well-known poets: Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, Ambrose Bierce, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Elinor Wylie, Archibald MacLeish, and Jean Toomer.”

—Katherine Gekker, Delmarva Review, Volume 14, 2021

“Last fall, editor Kim Roberts published an illuminating anthology called By Broad Potomac’s Shore: Great Poems from the Early Days of Our Nation’s Capital. Some of the poets are familiar—Francis Scott Key, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass—but many were new to me. Each is presented with a helpful, brief biography. As befits our complicated history, the poems present a remarkable range of themes about America, from grand to intimate, from wildly celebratory to scathingly critical.”

—Ron Charles, The Washington Post, July 2, 2021

“Kim Roberts wants to talk back to the canon. That’s the point of putting together an anthology of historical poems, she says. As a local literary historian and a poet herself, she’s been thinking about the city’s literary culture since she first moved here three decades ago…The book is a very broad survey of what was being published and what was being read—you’ve got presidents and first ladies next to these writers whose names are now obscured.”

—Emma Sarappo, Washington City Paper, Sept. 24, 2020

“By Broad Potomac’s Shore is an anthology of 132 poets who were active in Washington, DC from the city’s founding to about 1930, with a focus on women and minority poets, as well as writers’ work that may have been lost to time.”

—Holly Gambrell, “Local Author Love,” Northern Virginia Magazine, November 1, 2020

“As compared to New York, San Francisco or Chicago, Washington DC might not be among the first places the average person thinks of when it comes to poetry. But thanks to queer poet/historian/educator Kim Roberts that is changing. Beginning with her groundbreaking 2018 book A Literary Guide to Washington, DC: Walking in the Footsteps of American Writers from Francis Scott Key to Zora Neale Hurston, Roberts wisely turned our attention to the city’s rich literary history. For her new book, By Broad Potomac’s Shore: Great Poets from the Early Days of the Nation’s Capital (University of Virginia Press, 2020), she narrows her expansive focus from all writers to just poets (132 of them), including a substantial portion of whom were queer. The result is an indispensable collection honoring and celebrating a too often overlooked literary hub, one that is finally getting its chance to shine like a beacon.”

—Gregg Shapiro, Baltimore OUTloud, November 1, 2020

“Poetry and its history in Washington, DC are bringing attention to the hard truth that the Nation’s Capital is nothing more than a territory with no voting rights, that Black lives matter, and that women’s voices have always been consequential though not necessarily heard…While selections made by editor Kim Roberts reveal the hardships of a city used as the major trading point for slavery in the United States as well as a refuge to those emancipated, and…still now, under the choking control of Congress, Roberts’ intention is to define what it meant at that time to be an American.”

—Karren LaLonde Alenier, Scene4 Magazine, December 1, 2020

“The restorative power of verse often helps us express the inexpressible. You need only look into Kim Roberts’s new anthology, By Broad Potomac’s Shore: Great Poems from the Early Days of our Nation’s Capital, to find precedence. From slavery, race riots, and suffrage, to the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, local poets have brought lyricism, passion, and clarity to the topics of the day.”

—Karen Lyon, The Hill Rag newspaper, December 2020

A Literary Guide to Washington, DC: Walking in the Footsteps of American Writers from Francis Scott Key to Zora Neale Hurston

The site of a thriving literary tradition, Washington, DC, has been the home to many of our nation’s most acclaimed writers. From the city’s founding to the beginnings of modernism, literary luminaries including Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Henry Adams, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston have lived and worked at their craft in our nation’s capital.

In A Literary Guide to Washington, DC, Kim Roberts offers a guide to the city’s rich literary history. Part walking tour, part anthology, A Literary Guide to Washington, DC is organized into five sections, each corresponding to a particularly vibrant period in Washington’s literary community. Starting with the city’s earliest years, Roberts examines writers such as Hasty-Pudding poet Joel Barlow and “Star-Spangled Banner” lyricist Francis Scott Key before moving on to the Civil War and Reconstruction and touching on the lives of authors such as Charlotte Forten Grimké and James Weldon Johnson. She wraps up her tour with World War I and the Jazz Age, which brought to the city some writers at the forefront of modernism, including the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Sinclair Lewis. The book’s stimulating tours cover downtown, the LeDroit Park and Shaw neighborhoods, Lafayette Square, and the historic U Street district, bringing the history of the city to life in surprising ways.

Written for tourists, literary enthusiasts, amateur historians, and armchair travelers, A Literary Guide to Washington, DC offers a cultural tour of our nation’s capital through a literary lens.

 

Reviews

“It is easy to feel like a second-class citizen in Washington, D.C. when it comes to our literary heritage. Washington is not commonly associated with a national recognized literary movement such as Transcendentalists in Boston or Beat Poets in Greenwich Village and San Francisco…But what D.C.’s literary tradition has existed all along, patiently awaiting a champion to identify who and what has been hiding in plain sight? Enter literary historian, writer, and editor Kim Roberts, whose A Literary Guide to Washington, DC shines a light on the work of American writers who lived and wrote in the nation’s capital between 1800 and 1930. Roberts’s book proves beyond a doubt that Washington has a proud literary legacy to celebrate and cherish.”
—Carolyn Crouch, Washington History, Vol. 31, Nos. 1 & 2, Fall 2019

“Roberts has expert knowledge of the former residences of literary figures in D.C., like the Douglas Johnson house. Upon her arrival to the city, she immediately started researching the topic, primarily focusing on the homes of Walt Whitman, one of her favorite authors. She and fellow poet and friend Dan Vera developed a hobby of going to the former addresses of writers to see if the buildings were still standing. ‘You could say I’ve been writing this book for a really long time,’ Roberts says of A Literary Guide to Washington DC, ‘but I didn’t know that it was a book.’”
—Ella Feldman, Washington City Paper, October 24, 2019

“District resident Kim Roberts, a poet and literary historian, has compiled this unique guide that can expand your mind as you exercise your body. Follow four walking tours to the residences and places of interest in the lives and times of D.C.’s greatest writers, their spouses and social acquaintances.”
—Dinah Rokach, The Beacon Newspapers, October 8, 2019

“It’s not often that a literary history comes alive by inviting the reader to walk around and experience where prominent writers wrote…A pleasing layout makes the book easy to read, especially if the reader is on the street trying to understand why the destination has been singled out for literary tribute…Lots of historic nuggets to mine in Kim Roberts’s A Literary Guide to Washington, DC.”
—Karren LaLonde Alenier, Scene4 Magazine, Volume 19, Issue 6, November 2018

“Writer and literary historian Kim Roberts had been working on her most recent book, A Literary Guide to Washington, D.C., for years before she even knew she was writing a book. When Roberts moved to the nation’s capital 30 years ago, she began researching writers who had lived in the city in years prior. Roberts was disappointed at how few of these places talked about the writers who inhabited them, and began to map the lives of famous wordsmiths like Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes in their forays about the District. ‘I’ve always been really attracted to a sense of place,’ Roberts explained in a recent interview, saying that documenting the places these writers lived and worked ‘made the city come alive in a new way.’ Her research cumulated in this pocket-sized guidebook to the city, a collection of spotlights on historic places related to D.C.’s cultural scene, accompanied by short biographies of writers connected to Washington and four walking tours readers can follow. The book represents an impressive cross-section of writers from a variety of historical periods, ethnicities, and backgrounds.”
—Rebecca Gale, “Mr. Whitman Goes to Washington,” Preservation Magazine, August 8, 2018, National Trust for Historic Preservation

“Four walking tours take you where famous authors lived, worked, and partied. Learn about Walt Whitman’s experience tending injured Civil War soldiers or stop by the house where Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and other luminaries met for salons.”
—Washingtonian Magazine, August 2018 Issue

“The author, Kim Roberts, is a literary historian, which shows in the broad array of authors she mentions in this handy and engaging book full of photos and quotations. Walt Whitman and Henry Adams are here, of course, but also old writers who may be new to many readers, starting with the poet Joel Barlow (1754-1812). Roberts’s walking directions are easy to follow, but her tales of writers in the capital are so engaging that readers may feel they don’t even need to leave the house.”
—Ron Charles, Book Reviewer for The Washington Post, July 13, 2018

“Kim Roberts wrote the book on D.C. authors. She had to, because she felt the district hasn’t gotten its due as a literary city. ‘D.C. has never really had that identity, despite the fact that we’ve had so many important writers live here,’ says Roberts…’When I moved here 30 years ago, I wanted to know who they were and where they lived. It gave me a deeper sense of ownership of place.’ So she started offering walking tours that include stops like ‘Newspaper Row’ on 14th Street, and eventually decided to turn her extensive knowledge into a cultural tour of a book.”
—Washington Post Express, June 28, 2018

“Kim Roberts’ latest leads readers through the literary—and literal—landscape of the nation’s capital and reveals the city’s rich history in letters…Roberts’ literary guide is definitely one to pick up for those interested in Washington history, American literature between 1800 and 1930, African-American literature or even generally in the interplay between artists, their landscapes and their moments in history.”
—The DC Line, June 27, 2018

“As Kim Roberts writes in her eloquent introduction to A Literary Guide to Washington, DC, writers here have often chafed against the perception that ‘government is DC’s only business.’ Her well-reseached book should put paid to that notion…A Literary Guide to Washington, DC is an invaluable resource.”
—The Hill Rag, June 2018

“The perfect accompaniment for a literature-inspired vacation in the U.S. capital. The compact size, clearly labeled maps, and succinct, informative text make this a handy guide to slip into your suitcase.”
—Library Journal, May 2018

 

 

Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC

Captures DC’s unique sense of place, from monuments to parks, from lawyers to bus stations, from go-go music to chili half-smokes. 101 poems, written between 1950 and the present, by past and current residents of the city.  The Washington Post says it “teems with poets who’ve distilled the region’s lifeblood into verse over the past 50 years.”

Contributors

Karren L. Alenier, Elizabeth Alexander, Kwame Alexander, Abdul Ali, Francisco Aragón, Naomi Ayala, Jonetta Rose Barras, Holly Bass, Paulette Beete, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Derrick Weston Brown, Sterling A. Brown, Sarah Browning, Regie Cabico, Kenneth Carroll, Grace Cavalieri, William Claire, Carleasa Coates, Jane Alberdeston Coralín, Ed Cox, Teri Ellen Cross, Ramola D, Kyle Dargan, Ann Darr, Tina Darragh, Christina Daub, Hayes Davis, Thulani Davis, Donna Denizé, Joel Dias-Porter, Tim Dlugos, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Roland Flint, Sunil Freeman, Deirdre Gantt, David Gewanter, Brian Gilmore, Robert L. Giron, Barbara Goldberg, Patricia Gray, Michael Gushue, Daniel Gutstein, O.B. Hardison, Jr., Essex Hemphill, Randall Horton, Natalie E. Illlum, Esther Iverem, Gray Jacobik, Brandon D. Johnson, Percy E. Johnston, Jr., Fred Joiner, Beth Joselow, Alan King, Michael Lally, Mary Ann Larkin, Merrill Leffler, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Saundra Rose Maley, David McAleavey, Richard McCann, Eugene J. McCarthy, Judith McCombs, Tony Medina, E. Ethelbert Miller, May Miller, Samuel Miranda, Miles David Moore, Yvette Neisser Moreno, Kathi Morrison-Taylor, Gaston Neal, Jose Emilio Pacheco, Jose Padua, Michelle Parkerson, Betty Parry, Linda Pastan, Richard Peabody, Adam Pellegrini, Elizabeth Poliner, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Liam Rector, Joan Retallack, Katy Richey, Joseph Ross, Ken Rumble, Robert Sargent, Gregg Shapiro, Myra Sklarew, Rod Smith, Alan Spears, Sharan Strange, A.B. Spellman, Hilary Tham, Maureen Thorson, Venus Thrash, Dan Vera, Rebecca Villarreal, Belle Waring, Joshua Weiner, Reed Whittemore, Terence Winch, Ahmos Zu-Bolton II.

Book Reviews

From Harriet, the blog of The Poetry Foundation, by Annie Finch:

“Fresh and memorable poems from a true range of voices. An additional unique charm is that each author bio ends with a sentence giving concrete information about DC evoked by that poet’s poem…All around, this is a fun and unique anthology and a great introduction to the very cool world of DC poetry.”

From Smartish Pace, by Wynn Yarbrough:

“One of the strengths of this collection is that local geography and life is always touched by national life and events, whether that be Bush’s second inauguration in ‘Second Inauguration’ or the legacy of slavery and Lincoln’s maid in ‘Elizabeth Keckley: 30 Years a Slave and 4 Years in the White House.’ Since so much history has taken place in D.C. and continues into the present moment, this collection engenders much of its richness from the intersections that are available to a poet writing for and in this city, even if it is because of nationwide outlets like the Kennedy Center, as in ‘billy eckstine comes to washington, d.c.’ where national fame intersects with local preoccupation.”