[Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item and related links to our attention.] The 2021 National Book Award longlist for poetry includes What Noise against the Cane (Yale University Press) by Desiree C. Bailey and Floaters (W.W. Norton & Company) by Martín Espada. Here are excerpts from The National Book Foundation site.

The National Book Foundation announced the Longlist for the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry. The Finalists in all five categories will be revealed on October 5.

[. . .] Three works examine the intersection of historical events, politics, and the personal. In Floaters, Martín Espada celebrates his late activist father, condemns government inaction in the aftermath of Hurricane María, and pays tribute to the migrants who drowned while attempting to cross the Rio Grande. In Sho, Douglas Kearney plays with Black vernacular and performance to investigate race, masculinity, and current events. Desiree C. Bailey’s What Noise Against the Cane, winner of the 2020 Yale Younger Poets Prize, honors ancestors of the Haitian Revolution and mines the complexities of home for a Black woman in contemporary America. [. . .]

For more information, see:

https://www.nationalbook.org/2021-national-book-awards-longlist-for-poetry
https://www.nationalbook.org/books/what-noise-against-the-cane
https://www.nationalbook.org/books/floaters