Quraysh Ali Lansana

The Skin of Dreams is Quraysh Ali Lansana’s first collection of new and collected works. In it, he roadmaps small town Oklahoma to southside Chicago in compelling poems that question, surprise and dare. Lansana explores the complicated internal and external terrain of Blackness and history while grappling with the definition of home. These are poems that cry, sing, scream and see.

As a direct descendent of the Black Arts Movement and last student of Miss Gwendolyn Brooks, Lansana explores the complicated internal and external terrain of Blackness and history from a post-King, post-Kennedy childhood through the election of the first non-White president, while grappling with the definition of home.

Quraysh Ali Lansana is the author of eight poetry books, three textbooks, three children’s books and the editor of eight poetry anthologies. He is a humanities teacher at Holland Hall School and was recently named a Tulsa Artist Fellow.