Tired, jaded, and frustrated, Benz storms out of the bank and into the broad chest of Malachi. With no knowledge of Benz, or her situation, Malachi hands Benz enough money to pay her bills for the month and have some left over. The second time Benz saw Malachi it was after hearing shots fired in the Kroger parking lot – when he jumps into her car, points a gun to her head, and tells her to drive! When Malachi is accused of killing a cop, his only hope is to flee Memphis while his Lawyer pleads his case. Because he helped her out, Benz saw this as the perfect opportunity to return the favor. Food? Sure. Shelter? Fine. Go on the run with you? No – wait, okay. Okay? Benz can’t believe the hold Malachi has on her. She knows little to nothing about this man; yet she’s putting her life and freedom in jeopardy just to be with him. As if that isn’t a big enough burden to carry on their shoulders, they have to deal with lingering exes that won’t catch the hint that they’ve moved on. Landen and Porsha join forces to find Malachi and Benz before the police do. Will Malachi and Benz make it to Cuba and live happily ever after? Will they be found by the police and face prison time or even death? Or, will Landen and Porsha find them and lay claim to their hearts and break up their union before it really even starts? Read His Piece of Peace now to find out!

                         —from “The Return of Colored Only” Skin, Inc. is Thomas Sayers Ellis’s big, ambitious argument in sound and image for an America whose identity is in need of repair. In lyric sequences and with his own photographs, Ellis traverses the African American and American literary landscapes—along the way adding race fearlessness to past and present literary styles and themes, and perform-a-forming tributes for the Godfather of Soul, James Brown; the King of Pop, Michael Jackson; and the election of President Barack Obama. Part manifesto, part identity repair kit, part plea for poetic wholeness, this collection worries and self-defends, eulogizes and casts a vote, raises a fist and, often, an intimidating song. One sequence is written as a sonic/ visual diagram of pronouns and vowels; another quotes from editors’ rejections of his own poetry included in the book; another poem, “Race Change Operation,” begins: “When I awake I will be white, the color of law.” Skin, Inc. is the latest work by one of the most audacious and provocative poets now writing.

    Though it would help,it is not required that I give hima name first. Also, nothingsays he stops, then, or must turn.--from "The Figure, the Boundary, the Light"In the art of falconry, during training the tether between the gloved fist and the raptor's anklets is gradually lengthened and eventually unnecessary. In these new lyric poems, Carl Phillips considers the substance of connection -- between lover and beloved, mind and body, talon and perch -- and ts the cable of mutual trust between soaring figure and shadowed ground.Contemporary literature can perhaps claim no poetry more clearly allegorical than that of Carl Phillips, whose four collections have turned frequently to nature, myth, and history for illustration; still, readers know the primary attributes of his work to be its physicality, grace, and disarming honesty about desire and faith. In The Tether, his fifth book, Phillips's characteristically cascading poetic line is leaner and more dramatic than ever."

    Along for the ride was her best friend, Red. Their hopes of landing big modeling gigs are soon dashed as they realize that the city of dreams can also be the city of nightmares. Within the first six months, all of their savings are gone, and they find themselves struggling to get by, so they snatch up jobs as maids.They meet Gee and Yazz, brothers from Haiti who are in desperate need of citizenship, when they are assigned to clean Gee’s luxurious penthouse. Determined to fulfill their dream of bringing affordable health foods to the U.S., the brothers make the marriage proposal of a lifetime to Diamond and Red.Although both marriages are business deals, feelings get involved and the ladies find out the real price of loving a boss.

    Charles Bernstein here proves them alive and well in poems elegiac, defiant, and resilient to the point of approaching song. Heir to the democratic and poetic sensibilities of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, Bernstein has always crafted verse that responds to its historical moment, but no previous collection of his poems so specifically addresses the events of its time as Girly Man, whichfeatures works written on the evening of September 11, 2001, and in response to the war in Iraq. Here, Bernstein speaks out, combining self-deprecating humor with incisive philosophical and political thinking. Composed of works of very different forms and moods—etchings from moments of acute crisis, comic excursions, formal excavations, confrontations with the cultural illogics of contemporary political consciousness—the poems work as an ensemble, each part contributing something necessary to an unrealizable and unrepresentable whole. Indeed, representation—and related claims to truth and moral certainty—is an active concern throughout the book. The poems of Girly Man may be oblique, satiric, or elusive, but their sense is emphatic. Indeed, Bernstein’s poetry performsits ideas so that they can be experienced as well as understood. A passionate defense of contingency, resistance, and multiplicity, Girly Man is a provocative and aesthetically challenging collection of radical verse from one of America’s most controversial poets.

    They throw us off rooftops and say we slipped. They shoot my father and say he was crazy. They put a bullet in my head and say they found me that way."Blending images of street life, drugs, and AIDS against hope and determination, Willie Perdomo is a cutting-edge bard who speaks to the soul of his generation.

    "With this fine new collection," says Library Journal, Martín Espada "joins the top ranks of poets anywhere"; in the words of Earl Shorris, he is "well on his way to becoming the Latino poet of his generation."

    The idea of falling in love is inconceivable. The Phoenix Aldridge walks into his fire station. Phoenix has always gone after what she wants, and from the moment she meets Noah, she knows he'll be hers. Can she tear down the walls he's built up and show him what real love can feel like?

    She employs her dirty ways—even faking a pregnancy with her boyfriend—to win a closet full of Gucci bags, a deluxe condominium full of baby accessories, a new car, and a book deal. But when one of Red's scams backfires and she winds up truly pregnant by her inmate ex-boyfriend, Bacon, she finds herself in more trouble than she's ever known. The drama truly unravels when Red's picture-perfect cons fall apart due to the power of—surprisingly—love. Still DirtyIn Still Dirty, Red is again caught in a web of murder, theft, and deceit. We find her and her boyfriend Q running for a plane to Mexico after a violent fight with her ex-boyfriend Bacon, a released convict. Bacon is on their heels and determined not to let Red get away alive. Will Q come to her rescue once again? Or will he tire of cleaning up after Red's dirty deeds? Dirtier Than EverBacon returns from prison and suddenly Q is left for dead. With Q out of the picture, Bacon now has Red to himself. His sights are set on being the top hustler with Red by his side. He believes Red has finally changed when she reveals the truth about her past. But all comes to a head when the snooping detective, Thomas, suspects Red’s involvement in Q’s getting shot and the murder of Zeke, Q’s best friend. With two murders, a tumultuous love affair, and money on her mind, Red must make a decision . . . does she turn over a new leaf or revisit her dirty ways of old?

    In an effort to understand desire, beauty, and love as transient anodynes to metaphysical loneliness, he invokes Constantine Cavafy, Pablo Neruda, Anna Akhmatova, and Dante Rossetti.from “Jewel-Tongued”   The stillness of a lover’s mouth   assaulted me. I never wearied of anecdotes   on the Commons, gesturing until I scattered   myself into a luminance, shining over a city   of women. Was I less human or more? I hear still   my breathing echoing off their pillows. So many   eyes like crushed flowers. Our fingers splayed   over a bed’s edge. We were blown away.

    West covers the main events in superstar Kanye West's life while also following the poet on her year spent researching, writing, and pregnant. The book explores how we are drawn to celebrities--to their portrayal in the media--and how we sometimes find great private meaning in another person's public story, even across lines of gender and race. Blake's aesthetics take her work from prose poems to lineated free verse to tightly wound lyrics to improbably successful sestinas. The poems fully engage pop culture as a strange, complicated presence that is revealing of America itself. This is a daring debut collection and a groundbreaking work. An online reader's companion will be available at http: //sarahblake.site.wesleyan.edu.

    0-935906-00-2$5.00 / Javan Press

    This is a short collection of poetry from the pen and mind of Nyles Adams, most of which originally appeared in other Alexandria House works.Read, absorb and snap your fingers if you are so inclined.

    A retired professional baseball player, he returns to his home in Detroit to purchase a major league franchise. Rion has to tackle government corruption and systematic racism in his quest. He didn’t realize that one person held the key to all of his dreams until she knocks him off his feet. Rion becomes completely mesmerized by hazel eyes along with a no nonsense attitude and tough city girl exterior. Tauri Patterson is the city Prosecutor and her job is to fight for the citizens of Detroit. Her strength and intelligence have made her one of the top litigators. Little did she know that when she received Rion Shaw’s case on her desk, her life would never be the same. The six-foot four decadent chocolate dream walks into her office and changes her life. She’s swept off her feet by the confident warrior who knows who he is and what he wants. Together they must overcome the threats against them in order to achieve the task before them. Rion and Tauri find that love and family can overcome every barrier.

    The resulting pairs cover such subjects as "Scruples/Saints," "Hypocrisy/Precision," and "Anger/Generosity." The wisdom and startling turns we've come to expect from Dunn are everywhere in the ninety miniatures (forty-five pairs) that comprise this volume.