Callaloo: A Reading List Across the Decades

To accompany our podcast interview with Callaloo executive editor Kyla Kupferstein Torres, we took a survey to collect some of the memorable entries Callaloo has published over the years. 

Callaloo, the premier journal of literature, art, and culture of the African Diaspora, publishes original work by and about writers and visual artists of African descent worldwide. Recently ranked 13th in Every Writer's Resource's Top 50 Literary Magazines, Callaloo offers an engaging mixture of fiction, poetry, critical articles, interviews, drama, and visual art. Frequent annotated bibliographies, special issues dedicated to major writers and literary, social, and cultural themes, and full-color, original artwork and photography are some of the features of this highly acclaimed international showcase of arts and letters.

All articles are available at Project MUSE unless otherwise noted. 

Poetry

Motherhood
Rita Dove
Callaloo, Volume 24, Number 3, Summer 2001

A Poem for My Father
Sonia Sanchez
Callaloo, Volume 24, Number 3, Summer 2001

Black, for Butter
Aracelis Girmay
Callaloo, Volume 29, Number 3, Summer 2006

The Once and Future King Of Ohio
Rowan Ricardo Phillips
Callaloo, Volume 37, Number 2, Spring 2014

Lifting Daddy Floating
R. Erica Doyle
Callaloo, Volume 22, Number 4, Fall 1999

Visual Art

Percival Everett: American Visual Artist
Percival L. Everett
Callaloo, Volume 28, Number 2, Spring 2005

Prose

On This I Stand: Notes from the Editor
Charles Henry Rowell
Callaloo, Volume 24, Number 1, Winter 2001

Of Generators and Survival: Hugo Letter (JSTOR)
Audre Lorde
Callaloo, Volume 14, Number 1 (Winter, 1991)

The Sexxx Lives of Famous Black People
Greg Tate
Callaloo, Volume 35, Number 3, Summer 2012

Jazz Prosodies: Orality and Textuality
Meta DuEwa Jones
Callaloo, Volume 25, Number 1, Winter 2002

Kaepernick's Kneel: Performance, Protest, and the National Football League
Brett Carr
Callaloo, Volume 41, Number 3, Summer 2018

Bill T. Jones, Tupac Shakur and the (Queer) Art of Death
Sharon P. Holland
Callaloo, Volume 23, Number 1, Winter 2000

June Jordan: July 9, 1936-June 14, 2002
Jewelle Gomez
Callaloo, Volume 25, Number 3, Summer 2002

Everything 'Cept Eat Us": The Antebellum Black Body Portrayed as Edible Body
Kyla Wazana Tompkins
Callaloo, Volume 30, Number 1, Winter 2007

Elsie
Edwidge Danticat
Callaloo, Volume 29, Number1, Winter 2006

The Store of a Million Items
Michelle Cliff
Callaloo, Volume 23, Number 1, Winter 2000

from Phallos!
Samuel R. Delany
Callaloo, Volume 20, Number 1, Winter 1997

Interviews

Above the Wind: An Interview with Audre Lorde
Charles Henry Rowell
Callaloo, Volume 23, Number 1, Winter 2000

Negrocity: An Interview with Greg Tate
Camille Goodison
Callaloo, Volume 35, Number 3, Summer 2012

Singular Beast: A Conversation with Jamaica Kincaid
Brittnay Buckner
Callaloo, Volume 31, Number 2, Spring 2008

Lucille Clifton and Sonia Sanchez: A Conversation
Eisa Davis
Callaloo, Volume 25, Number 4, Fall 2002

What Saves Us: An Interview with Wanda Coleman
Priscilla Ann Brown
Callaloo, Volume 26, Number 3, Summer 2003

"Words Don't Go There": An Interview with Fred Moten
Charles Henry Rowell
Callaloo, Volume 27, Number 4, Fall 2004

"If It Hasn't Been One of Color": An Interview With Roy DeCarava (JSTOR)
Ivor Miller
Callaloo, Volume 13, Number 4, Autumn, 1990

FREE ISSUE

Volume 42, Number 1, Winter 2024

Special Issue: Black Appalachia, Part I: Creative and Personal Perspectives

Guest Edited by Crystal Wilkinson