Award-winning poet and essayist Cheryl Clarke’s illustrious career has spanned more than four decades and culminates in Archive of Style: New and Selected Poems, a long-awaited retrospective of the indelible work of a Black feminist, community and LGBTQ activist, and educator. This collection features carefully curated poems from Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (1982), Living as a Lesbian (1986), The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry 1980-2005 (2006), By My Precise Haircut (2016), and Targets (2019). Together these works show a brilliant thinker who has profoundly impacted generations of writers and activists. Clarke’s poetry and essays, centered around the Black, lesbian, feminist experience, have attracted an audience around the world. Her essays, “Lesbianism: an Act of Resistance” and “The Failure to Transform: Homophobia in the Black Community” revolutionized the thinking about lesbians of color and the struggle against homophobia. Her poetry and non-fiction have been reprinted in numerous anthologies and assigned in women and sexuality courses globally. Having published since 1977, Clarke and her work have become a foundational part of LGBTQ literature and activism. Archive of Style is a celebration and homage to one of American literature’s Black Women literary warriors.

Table of Contents:
Targets 2019 History On Their Way to Life Targets Emergency Surgery depth in a two dimensional space What It Take Brief Interval / Legacy/Legends Nephew 2016 lipstick corn What Does It Mean? Woman Ends Her Life: Elegy Tercet Reckless Domesticity Living as a lesbian in the archive of style Juanita’ (for D.C.) By My Precise Haircut 2016 Mandela: 12-15-2013 A Capital Car Chase Women of Letters Oh, Memory Fatal and Fateful A Sister’s Lament . . . Songs of Longing the empire A Child Die The Days of Good Looks: Prose And Poetry 1980-2000 (2005) Living as a lesbian underground, fin de siÈcle Billie Holiday Dreams of South Africa
 james dean longing Experimental Love (1993) War Crazy Men Greta Garbo Movement passing All Souls’ Day Flowers of Puerto Rico Buttons An Epitaph Rondeau Make-up Remember the Voyage Arroyo Querida Hard Living as a Lesbian at 45 Najeeb (1974-1989) Veronica Ashley Wood, My Niece Hanging Tough in the Persian Gulf: Elegy an old woman muses from her basement A Poet’s Death Humid Pitch (1989) Bulletin The Day Sam Cooke Died Sisters Part party pants (from Epic of Song) Frances Michael Erol Ilona of Hickory No Place Living As a Lesbian (1986) 14th Street wearing my cap backwards The woman who raised me living as a lesbian on the make journal entry: sisters for my mother, 1979 palm leaf of Mary Magdalene I come to the city freedom flesh Indira no more encomiums Intimacy no luxury Vicki and Daphne Fall journal entry: 1983 nothing sexual preference Miami: 1980 living as a lesbian underground a futuristic fantasy an exile I have loved sister of famous artist brother Pueblo Bonito jazz poem for Morristown, N.J. Intimacy no luxury marimba Kittatinny living as a lesbian at 35 Narratives: poems in the tradition of black women 1982 hair: a narrative Mavis writes in her journal The Older American Fathers April 4, 1968: Washington, D.C. The moon in cancer Gail the johnny cake Of Althea and Flaxie NEW POEMS Foreword to New Poems Grade Schooler Scholar Jo’burg, 2016 Never Any Proof Entry Back seat Juggernaut Betty Carter (1929-1998) The message Cost Signs of the Times Sandy Bland Sonnet for the Last Night Spring 2022 journal entry Emanuel 9 2015: their influence was wide Acknowledgements