In the Shadow of the Archive: The Big Smoke and Black American Persona Poetry

"In the Shadow of the Archive" asserts that the Archive's epistemology works to dehumanize black bodies and silence black voices in order to justify past and current micro- and macroaggressions as a means to demonstrate how the contemporary black historical persona poetry functions as a countermeasure. Anchored in Adrian Matejka's employment of heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson and Shadow in , this article explores how contemporary black American persona poets are taking on the voices of (in)famous folk figures in order to signify on the Archive and reimagine and expand archival and contemporary notions of blackness.