New York: Four Way Books, (2007.). First edition - Gay African-American poet's fourth book (preceded by a chapbook and 2 collections, the award-winning 'Call & Response' and 'Middle Ear'), poems which reflect the "tensions created by ethnic, religious and a host of other human differences" 58 pp. ISBN: 978-1884800757.

Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990. SIGNED - The third collection of poems. by this award winning writer. INSCRIBED on the title page "all best wishes" and signed as Marilyn Nelson and dated in 2006. National Book Award finalist. Illustrated with photographs. 54 pp. ISBN: 0-0871-1641-6.

Detroit: Lotus Press, 1985. First edition - The title poem is a long historical narrative poem set in Brazil in 1741, twenty years after the destruction of the second Palmares, one of the settlements founded in that country by escaped African slaves. 70 pp. Cover drawing by James Lewis. ISBN: 0-91641860X.

Chicago: Tia Chucha Press, (1996). First edition - The second collection by this award-winning poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. Among her many awards are the first Jackson poetry prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Lifetime Achievement Award in Poetry in 2010 and more. Cover praise from Adrienne Rich who called this "a work of uncommon skill, intelligence and beauty" while Garrett Hongo praised it for what "it reveals about a woman's two-fold apprenticship in black glamour and black grief. The result is a joy to read." Surprisingly uncommon in the first edition. 85 pp. ISBN: 1-882688120.

Boston: Beacon Press, (2021) dj. Hardcover first edition - A significant collection of the work of this activist, feminist, educator, recipient of many poetry awards, and one of the founders of the Black Arts movement, one which spans four decades of her literary career and includes selections from 15 previous books. Beginning with her earliest work, including poems from her first volume, "Homecoming" in 1969", through "Envoi: for Harriet Tubman" in 2019, this includes Sanchez's favorite work in many forms, from those that meld blues and jazz to haiku to excerpts from book-length narratives. Among her numerous awards are the Robert Frost medal, the Wallace Stevens award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for lifetime achievement. 403 pp. ISBN: 978-0807026526.

New York: Harper & Row, (1968.) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - Sixth collection of poetry by this Pulitzer prize winning author. The title of this book refers to a huge decaying apartment building in Chicago's ghetto - the setting for the long title poem. INSCRIBED on the half title page and signed "affectionately, Gwen." 54 pp.

Detroit: Lotus Press, (1983.). First edition - A collection of several narrative poems by this African American novelist - one, "The Machete Woman," tells the story of an African slave who takes refuge in a convent in 1637 after hacking to death her mistress. ISBN: 0-916418-43x.

Santa Fe: SFWP/ Santa Fe Writer's Project, (2021). SIGNED first edition - African American poet's third collection - "using characters doubled over with grief, fear, and desire, the love poems in 'Worn' mirror a photo album of legends, rumors, and memories exchanged over drinks in the early evening. Tenderness meets pain meets joy here, offering up the voices of Black folks fostering connection with their children, their lovers, and themselves." INSCRIBED on the title page. 69 pp plus notes. ISBN: 978-1951631093.

Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, (1997). First edition - Award-winning African American poet's third collection, inspired by Dante and Venice (Cassell spent 8 years living in Italy). Martin Espada these love poems "resonant, even haunting, born of an acute sensual awareness." 120 pp. ISBN: 1-556591241.

New York & Boston: Mariner Books / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, (2019). SIGNED - The first retrospective collection by this Pulitzer prize winning poet and former poet laureate. It "draws together verse that delineates the stories of working class African American women, a mixed-race prostitute, one of the first black Civil War regiments, mestizo and mulatto figures in Casta paintings, Gulf coast victims of Katrina. Through the collection, inlaid and inextricable, winds the poetÕs own family history of trauma and loss, resilience and love." (Marilyn Nelson) SIGNED on the title page. Notes. 189 pp. ISBN: 978-0358118237.

San Francisco: Julian Richardson Associates, (1969). First edition - First separate edition of this humorous poem - a narrative in dialect about a big bear, a small weasel, and a farmer, illustrated with drawings by Metego, a young African-American artist. Although the sub-title is 'The Young Master Asks for a Story', the first illustration depicts a young Black boy listening to the story. Introduction by Welvin Stroud. Very scarce. 28 pp.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. Hardcover first edition - The fifth collection of poems by this award-winning Black poet, one in which "he takes up a range of African American griefs and passages. [In] a series entitled 'Americana,' we encounter a clutch of mythical southern towns, such as East Jesus ('The South knows ruin & likes it / thatawaythe barns becoming / earth again, leaning in'). Young, more than ever before, is in a poetic space that is at once public and personal. In the marvelous 'Guernica,' Young's account of a journey through Spain blends with the news of an American lynching, embracing the contradictions of our 'Confederate' legacy and the troubled nation where that legacy still lingers." Notes. 156 pp. ISBN: 978-0307264350.

New York: Morrow, 1999. dj. Hardcover first edition - A collection of 52 new poems - "intimate, edgy and unapologetic" - by this award winning writer. 100 pp. ISBN: 0-688-156983.

Calgary, Alberta: Freehand Books, (2012). SIGNED first edition - The third - and perhaps the most popular - book by this award-winning Afro-Canadian author. "It is a collection of almost love poems where speakers attempt to connect across an increasingly alienating technological landscape. Williams challenges the line as the basic unit of poetry by creating rings or loops. The opening sonnet sequence, 'Rings,' which explores infertility, modifies the sonnet form from fourteen lines to thirteen (thereby falling short of the ideal) and ends in a ring, spiralling infinitely into indeterminacy." (wiki) SIGNED on the dedication page. Shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize (with a foil label on the front cover) and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award. 68 pp. ISBN: 978-1554811045.

Detroit, MI: Broadside Press, (1973, c 1970). The third collection of poetry by this important African American writer - although she comments that "No one was much interested in a Black girl writing what was called 'militant' poetry" all three of her early books sold well - as evidenced by 4 printings of this title within 3 years. The poems in this collection are very personal, with many influenced by the Black Power movement of the 1960s and others written for and about Black women like Gwendolyn Brooks, Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin. 48 pp. ISBN: 0-910296448.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979. dj. Hardcover first edition - Author's second book of poetry, and the Lamont Poetry Selection for 1978 - poems which range across history and geography to give voice to many - from Trotsky in the title poem, to the Japanese writers Mishima and Kawabata to Marilyn Monroe. Ai described herself as half Japanese, Choctaw-Chickasaw, Black, Irish, Southern Cheyenne, and Comanche. 49 pp. ISBN: 0-395-275938.

Georgetown, Kentucky: Finishing Line Press, (2017). First edition - The author's first book, a slim chapbook of poems "set inside, around, and far outside the bounds of San Diego, California. Ilya Kaminsky commented that is "has some of the most beautiful love poems I have read this year, which is to say these are poems of heart-break and the knowledge that comes after, poems of play and the excitement that comes with, poems of surprise and the astonishment that stays.. . These poems bewitch. You might just fall in love." 34 pp. ISBN: 978-1635342260.

India: Authorspress. (2016). SIGNED first edition - His third full length collection of poems,awarded the Artists Embassy International Golden Seal Book Award, one which "presents the world as stage: the source for the myriad performances of a lifetime." In addition to publishing several chapbooks and poetry collections, Firth was co-editor and founder of Ekphrasis: A Poetry Journal, a monthly poetry columnist and a reviewer. INSCRIBED by the author on the first page :"to the joy of reading, to happiness". 142 pp. ISBN: 978-9352073047.

Philadelphia: American Poetry Review, (2007) dj. Hardcover first edition - African American author's first collection of poems, winner of the American Poetry Review / Honickman First Book Prize, and nominated for several others (his second collection, Digest, won the Pulitzer award in 2015) Introduction by Brenda Hillman. 87 pp. ISBN: 978-0977639526.

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, (2014). Award winning African American poet's fourth collection - a "montage of poems, wherein film serves as the setting for contemplative trances, memoir, and pure fantasy. At its center is a sonnet sequence that imagines the struggle of pioneer filmmaker Oscar Micheaux against D. W. Griffiths The Birth of a Nation, which Micheaux saw not only as racist but also as the start of a powerful new art form.. . an extended riff on Jordans life as a moviegoer and a brilliant exploration of film, poetry, race." Notes. 133 pp. ISBN: 978-0393348736.

New York: St Martin's, (1983) dj. Hardcover - A collection of poetry by this African American writer best known as the author of 'for colored girls who have considered suicide.' 74 pp,. ISBN: 0-312-18342-9.

Venusian Publishing, (2014). SIGNED first edition - A collection of poems rooted in music - jazz, blues and hip-hop - by a young Black woman. Foreword by Marjol Rush-Collet of the Langston Hughes Family Museum. INSCRIBED on the title page. 103 pp. ISBN: 978-1478247012.

New York: Penguin Poets, (1994). First edition - African American author's highly praised second collection of poetry (and last to date) Although he has found success as a novelist - with 'The Sellout' winning the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize - reading his poems makes you wish he had also continued to write them. Cover praise from Quincy Troupe, Jessica Hagedorn and Evelyn McDonnell writing in the Village Voice commented that "Beatty piles wordplay upon wordplay in a hyperstack of meaning making him one of the smartest young poets around." 108 pp. ISBN: 0-140587233.

New York: Penguin Poets, (1994). First edition - African American author's highly praised second collection of poetry (and last to date) Although he has found success as a novelist - with 'The Sellout' winning the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize - reading his poems makes you wish he had also continued to write them. Cover praise from Quincy Troupe, Jessica Hagedorn and Evelyn McDonnell writing in the Village Voice commented that "Beatty piles wordplay upon wordplay in a hyperstack of meaning making him one of the smartest young poets around." 108 pp. ISBN: 0-140587233.

New York: The Nuyorican Poets, (1991). The first book by this award-winning African American author, a book of poetry. In 1990, Beatty was the first Grand Poetry Slam Champion of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, which led to the publication of this book. He went on to win many awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Booker Prize for his 2016 novel 'The Sellout.' 74 pp. Scarce in all printings, and especially so in this condition.

New York: Perigee / Berkley, (1996). First edition - A romantic anthology of more than one hundred love letters and poems including contributions from Alice Walker, Derek Walcott, Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Ntozake Shange, Rita Dove, Ted Joans, Henry Dumas and many others. Originally published in hardcover in 1973, this edition is substantially revised. with a new foreword by Ruby Dee, introduction by the editor and more. . xxiii, 194 pp. ISBN: 0-399519823.

Detroit: Act Three Publishing, (2006). First edition - Poetry chapbook by this African American author - the cover says "Yelling Screaming Stumping Hollering - Potitical/Social Poetic Verse" and that sums it up well. 71 pp.

Act Three Publishing, (2009). First edition - Poetry chapbook by this African American author, many commenting on current issues from the stimulus program to drug abuse. 51 pp.

New York: William H. Morrow, 1982. First edition - African American writer's second collection of poems - the first section - Letters from a New England Negro - consists of epistolary poems set in 1867-1868 during Emancipation and the second section centers around blues singer Bessie Smith. 112 pp. . ISBN: 0-688-011772.

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, 1984. dj. Hardcover first edition - Walker's fourth book of poetry. 79 pp. ISBN: 0-151421692.