John Edgar Tidwell and Steven C. Tracy have brought together for the first time a book-length collection of critical and theoretical writings about Sterling A. Brown that recovers and reasserts his continuing importance for a contemporary audience. Exploring new directions in the study of Brown's life and work, After Winter is structured around the following three features: (1) new and previously published essays that sum up contemporary approaches to the multifaceted works that Brown created in a variety of genres; (2) interviews with Brown's acquaitances and contemporaries that articulate his unique aesthetic vision and communicate his importance as a scholar, creative writer, and teacher; and (3) a discography of source material that innovatively extends the study and teaching of Brown's acclaimed poetry, especially his Southern Road, focusing on recordings of folk materials relevant to the subject matter, style, and meaning of individual poems from his oeuvre.

Table of Contents:
Part I. Revelations ; JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, INTRODUCTION TO SOUTHERN ROAD (1932) ; ALAIN LOCKE, "STERLING BROWN: THE NEW NEGRO FOLK-POET" ; STEPHEN E. HENDERSON, "THE HEAVY BLUES OF STERLING BROWN: A STUDY OF CRAFT AND TRADITION" ; HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., REVIEW OF THE COLLECTED POEMS ; Part II. "A Nachal Man": Formal and Vernacular Aesthetic Theories ; ROBERT STEPTO, "'WHEN DE SAINTS GO MA'CHIN' HOME': STERLING BROWN'S BLUEPRINT FOR A NEW NEGRO POETRY" ; JOHN EDGAR TIDWELL, "TWO WRITERS SHARING: STERLING A. BROWN, ROBERT FROST, AND 'IN DIVES' DIVE'" ; KIMBERLY W. BENSTON, "LISTEN BR'ER STERLING: THE CRITIC AS LIAR [A PRE(R)AMBLE TO ESSAYS ON STERLING BROWN]" ; JOHN EDGAR TIDWELL AND TED GENOWAYS (EDS.), "TWO LOST SONNETS BY STERLING A. BROWN" ; MICHAEL TOMASEK MANSON, "WORRYING THE LINES: VERSIFICATION IN STERLING BROWN'S SOUTHERN ROAD" ; Part III. Folk-Say and Living-People-Lore ; ROBERT G. O'MEALLY, "'GAME TO THE HEART': STERLING BROWN AND THE BADMAN" ; JOHN EDGAR TIDWELL, "SLIM GREER, STERLING A. BROWN, AND THE ART OF TALL TALE" ; JOHN S. WRIGHT, "THE NEW NEGRO POET AND THE NACHAL MAN: STERLING BROWN'S FOLK ODYSSEY" ; LORENZO THOMAS, "AUTHENTICITY AND ELEVATION: STERLING BROWN'S THEORY OF THE BLUES" ; Part IV. "Unhistoric History": American and African American Cultures ; MARK A. SANDERS, "STERLING A. BROWN AND THE AFRO-MODERN MOMENT" ; BEVERLY L. SKINNER, "STERLING BROWN: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ODYSSEY" ; DAVID ANDERSON, "STERLING BROWN'S SOUTHERN STRATEGY: POETRY AS CULTURAL EVOLUTION IN SOUTHERN ROAD" ; JOHN EDGAR TIDWELL, "IN DEFENSE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE: STERLING A. BROWN, GUNNAR MYRDAL, AND AN AMERICAN DILEMMA" ; Part V. "Running Space": Legacies and Continuities Robert G. O'Meally, "Sterling A. Brown's Literary Essays: The Black Reader in the Text" ; JOHN F. CALLAHAN, "'A BROWN STUDY': STERLING BROWN'S LEGACY OF COMPASSIONATE CONNECTIONS" ; EKWUEME MICHAEL THELWELL, "THE PROFESSOR AND THE ACTIVISTS: A MEMOIR OF STERLING BROWN" ; MICHAEL S. HARPER, "AN INTEGER IS A WHOLE NUMBER" ; Part VI. "Steady and Unaccusing": Interviews Charles H. Rowell, "'Let Me Be with Old Jazzbo': An Interview with Sterling A. Brown" ; DAVID L. SMITH, "A SYMPOSIUM ON THE LIFE AND WORK OF STERLING BROWN" ; JOHN EDGAR TIDWELL AND JOHN S. WRIGHT, "'STEADY AND UNACCUSING': AN INTERVIEW WITH STERLING A. BROWN" ; GRAHAM LOCK, "BR'ER STERLING AND THE BLUES: AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL S. HARPER" ; JOHN EDGAR TIDWELL, "CLARIFYING PHILOSOPHY: STERLING A. BROWN AND THE NONVIOLENT ACTION GROUP" ; STEVEN C. TRACY, "A CONVERSATION WITH JOHN H. BRACEY, ESTHER TERRY, AND MIKE THELWELL" ; Part VII. "On This I Stand": A Bibliography ; ROBERT G. O'MEALLY, "AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WORKS OF STERLING A. BROWN" ; Part VIII. "A Geography of Poetry and Song": A Discography ; STEVEN C. TRACY, "FEAR DID NOT CATCH HIS TONGUE AND THROTTLE HIS BREATH: A DISCOGRAPHY OF RECORDINGS BY AND RELATED TO STERLING A. BROWN"