David Kirkland

In this groundbreaking work, David Kirkland, an associate professor of English Education at New York University, explores a new approach to looking at the lives and literacies of young Black men, as well as the silence that defines their experiences. Kirkland follows a group of six young men over a number of years through their schooling and personal lives and immerses himself in their use of language, from the secret collection of poetry that one is writing to the creative facility with rap and rhyme that another possesses.