Tony Medina was born in the South Bronx, raised in the
Throgs Neck Housing Projects, and currently lives in the
Washington, DC, metropolitan area. He is the author of twelve
books for adults and children, the most recent of which is the
poetry collection, Committed to Breathing (Third World
Press, 2003)and Follow-up Letters to Santa From Kids
Who Never Got a Response (Just Us Books, 2003). Named by
Writer's Digest as one of ten poets to watch in the new
millennium, Medina's poetry, fiction and essays appear in over
eighty publications (including anthologies and literary
journals) and two CD compilations. His children's books,
DeShawn Days and Love to Langston (both illustrated
by R. Gregory Christie) have garnered several awards, including
the Parent's Guide Children's Media
Award (2001), thePaterson
Prize for Books for Young People (2002), and the Rhode Island
Children's Book Award (2003). Among his three anthologies, In
Defense of Mumia won The American Booksellers
Association's Firecracker Alternative Book Award and Bum Rush
the Page: A Def Poetry Jam was named a Best Book of 2002 by
The Washington Post�sBook World. His work has
recently been published in African American Literature
(Penguin Academics/Pearson Longman), edited by Keith Gilyard and
Anissa Wardi.
Medina, who has taught English and Creative
Writing at several colleges and universities for fifteen years,
has earned his MA and PhD in Poetry and American and African
American Literature from Binghamton University, SUNY. Associate
Professor of Creative Writing at Howard University in
Washington, DC, Medina is featured in Dr. Joanne V. Gabbin's
documentary film Furious Flower II: Regenerating the Black
Poetic Tradition: Roots & First Fruits/Cross-Pollination in the
Diaspora/Blooming in the Whirlwind (California Newsreel,
2005). Medina is featured in Poets Against the Killing Fields
(Trilingual Press, 2007) and he is an advisory editor for Nikki
Giovanni's anthology, Hip Hop Speaks to Children
(Sourcebooks, 2008). Featured in the Encyclopedia of Hip Hop
Literature edited by Tarsia L. Stanley (Greenwood Press,
2008) and Cited (under the category of �Hip Hop Literature�) in
the Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture by Yvonne
Bynoe (Greenwood Press, 2005), Medina's forthcoming children's
book is a biography in verse entitled, I and I, Bob Marley
(Lee & Low Books, 2009).
A frequent visiting author/speaker and
writer's workshop instructor for the New York-based non-profit
literacy organization, Behind the Book (that sends authors in
the schools to visit with at-risk youth and provides them with
free books of the author�s), Community School 21, in Brooklyn,
New York, honored Dr. Medina with two Tony Medina Days, during
the winter and spring of 2008. Medina has currently been invited
to participate in a forthcoming collective young adult novel for
Candlewick Press, featuring Walter Dean Myers, et al.
Born in the Jamaican countryside in 1945, Bob Marley
seemed special from birth. The curious, intuitive boy had an
extraordinary gift for absorbing and interpreting the world around
him.
Influenced by his biracial heritage, his island
home, and the injustices he observed in everyday life, Bob went on
to become a musician and messenger; a poet and prophet of reggae
culture. His music echoed from Jamaica all the way across the globe,
spreading his heartfelt message of peace, love, and equality to
everyone who heard his songs.
Brimming with imagination and insight,
I and I Bob Marley, is a multifaceted
tribute befitting this international musical legend. Soulful,
sun-drenched paintings transport readers to Bob Marley's Jamaica,
while uniquely perceptive poems bring to life his fascinating
journey from boy to icon.
Paperback: 150 pages
Publisher:
Third
World Press (January 1, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0883782472
ISBN-13: 978-0883782477
Emerging with a varied political sensibility, this
book explodes the bourgeois self-indulgence of American culture to
give a lambasting critique of its current global ultra-exploration
and political repression. Exploring pressing and complicated social
issues, the book incorporates humor, invective, and vigor while
analyzing life, beauty, and the defiance of denial and despair.
What is the role of today's emerging young artists in the current
struggle for equality and justice? How do the voices of the neXt generation
define the issues and politics of today?
Role Call is just that. It's a role call of a new generation of Black
writers and artists. It is an exploration of our current cultural landscape
in poetry, fiction, essays, visual arts and theater-on-the-page. This
groundbreaking anthology is the litmus test--and a call to arms--of a
generation grown fat on the limited freedoms won by the civil rights
struggle. Role Call takes on issues of race, sexuality, education,
nationalism, spirituality, AIDS, globalization, hip hop and the rise of the
prison industrial complex. Role Call is a journey through the tropics of
black rage, black love and black fire.
Format: Paperback, 320pp. ISBN: 0609808400 Publisher: Crown Publishing Group Pub. Date: October 2001 Edition Desc: 1 ED
�Here is a democratic
orchestration of voices and visions, poets of all ages, ethnicities, and
geographic locations coming together to create a dialogue and to jam�not
slam. This is our mouth on paper, our hearts on our sleeves, our refusal to
shut up and swallow our silence. These poems are tough, honest, astute,
perceptive, lyrical, blunt, sad, funny, heartbreaking, and true. They shout,
they curse, they whisper, and sing. But most of all, they tell it like it
is.� �Tony Medina
Catch
the Fire!!!:
A Cross-Generational Anthology of Contemporary
African-American Poetry
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ISBN: 1573226548
Format: Paperback, 288pp
Pub. Date: January 1998
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Edition Number: 1
"...Empathetic poems by Toi
Derricotte, Haile Gerima, and M. Eliza Hamilton stand out among many voices.
Five chapters cover street violence, families, "the complexity and
perplexity of love," bi/multiracial identity, and "various Black cultural
expressions such as dance, music, sport." Also included are editor Gilbert's
interviews Amiri Baraka, June Jordan, Abiodum Oyewole, Sonia Sanchez,
Ntozake Shange, and Quincy Troupe."
ISBN: 0863160999
Format: Paperback, 400pp
Pub. Date: March 1996
Publisher: Writers & Readers Publishing, Inc.
Editors: S. E. Anderson & Tony Medina
In 1982, the award-winning journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal
was convicted of killing a Philadephia police officer and was sentenced to
death. He was on death row for 13 years before a groundswell of public opinion
questioned the fairness of his trial and demanded a stay of execution. In August
1995, artists, activists, and concerned citizens met in New York City to demand
a new trial. This book documents their overwhelming outpouring of support.
ISBN: 1584300221
Format: Hardcover, 32pp, Pub. Date: April 2001
Publisher: Lee & Low Books, Inc., Edition Description: 1 ED
Author Tony Medina drew from his own experiences growing up in the
projects to create the story of DeShawn Williams. We meet DeShawn's
grandmother, who helps him with his homework, and his cousin Tiffany, who
shares in his laughter and adventures. We learn of his dreams � to be a rap
star � and of his nightmares, including one in which the graffiti in his
neighborhood comes alive. Beautifully illustrated by award-winning artist R.
Gregory Christie, this book and its diverse cast of characters will charm
readers of all backgrounds.
ISBN: 1584300418
Format: Hardcover, 40pp, Pub. Date: February 2002
Publisher: Lee & Low Books, Inc., Edition Description: 1ST
Fourteen poems offer young readers an exciting glimpse into the life of Langston
Hughes, one of America's most beloved poets. Each poem explores important themes
in Hughes's life � his lonely childhood, his love of language and travel, and
his dream of writing poetry. Color illustrations throughout and extensive notes
at the back of the book expand upon the poems, giving a broader picture of
Hughes's life and the time in which he lived.
Christmas Makes
Me Think
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Tony Medina, Chandra Cox (Illustrator)
ISBN: 1584300248
Format: Hardcover, 32pp, Pub. Date: November 2001
Publisher: Lee & Low Books, Inc., Edition Description: 1 ED
The young narrator of Christmas Makes Me Think is thrilled with the
holiday's prospects: the presents he's wishing for, the big tree he's hoping
to get, the cake he�ll bake with his grandmother. But he begins to wonder.
What about the people who don't get presents, or don't even have a place to
live? He soon realizes that he can make a difference by giving some of his
presents to kids who have none. Chandra Cox's bright collage art adds beauty
to Tony Medina's thoughtful message about community and caring.
Tough
Love: Cultural Criticism and Familial Observations on the Life and Death of
Tupac Shakur
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Amazon
Poetry
My Old Man Was Always On the Lam (Nightshade Press, 2009)
Poets Against the Killing Fields (Trilingual Press, 2008)
Committed to Breathing (Third World Press, 2003)
Sermons From the Smell of a Carcass Condemned to Begging (Long Shot Press, 1998)
No Noose Is Good Noose (Harlem River Press, 1996)
Emerge & See (Whirlwind Press, 1991)
Young Adult
Follow-up Letters to Santa From Kids Who Never Got a Response
(Just Us Books, 2003)
Children's Books
I and I, Bob Marley (Lee & Low Books, 2009)
Love to Langston (Lee & Low Books, 2002)
Christmas Makes Me Think (Lee & Low Books, 2002)
DeShawn Days (Lee & Low Books, 2001)
Anthologies
Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam (with Louis Reyes Rivera)
(Random House/Three
Rivers Press, 2001)
Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political
Black Literature & Art (with Samiya Bashir
and Q. Ali Lansana) (Third World Press, 2002)
In Defense of Mumia (with S.E. Anderson) (Writers and Readers,
Inc., 1996)
Advisory Editor
Hip Hop Speaks to Children edited by Nikki Giovanni
(Sourcebooks, 2008)
Catch a Fire: A Cross-Generational Anthology of Contemporary
African American Poetry (Riverhead Books,
1998 edited by Derrick I.M. Gilbert (Riverhead Books, 1998)
As Editor
The Subtle Art of Breathing by Asha Bandele (Moore Black Press,
2005)
Fast Cities & Objects That Burn by Sharrif Simmons (Moore Black
Press, 1999)
The Words Don't Fit in My Mouth by Jessica Care Moore (Moore
Black Press, 1997)
I
and I: Bob Marley
No Noose Is Good
Noose
In
Deshawn
Days
Love to
Langston
Christmas Makes
Me Think
Medina is also included on the Jazz Poetry Kafe:
The BlackWords Compilation CD
Also
by Tony Medina