Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race
A poetry Anthology edited by Al Black and Len Lawson
$15 from Muddy Ford Press.
Description
In this poetry collection, curated by S.C. poets , fellow poets speak to the role of race both in their 21st century worlds and the worlds they inherited from the past. Beautiful and profane, these words and the images they evoke allow the reader the opportunity to assess where we are as a culture, how far we’ve come, and how far we need to go.
Poets in the Book
Dasan Ahanu, Marcus Amaker, Jennifer Bartell, Al Black, Bernard Block, Kim Blum-Hyclak, Roger Bonair-Agard, Fran Cardwell, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Tiana Clark, Julia Dawson, Kenneth Denk, Worthy Evans, Nancy Fierstein, Keith Flynn, Matthew Foley, Nikky Gray, Yuriy Grigoryants, Ashley Harris, Rashida James-Saadiya, Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, Ashley M. Jones, Fayaz Kabani, Len Lawson, Scott Murray, Kathleen Nalley, Jerlean Noble, Donald Pardlow, Pasckie Pascua, Michele Reese, Jonathan K. Rice, King Shakur, Charlene Spearen, Tammaka Staley, Cassie Premo Steele, Amoja Sumler, Cedric Tillman, Arthur Turfa, Majory Wentworth
Editor Bios
Al Black
A Hoosier in the land of cotton, Al Black was born and raised in Lafayette, IN. He has been married 44 years to Carol Agnew Black; they have four grown children and six grandchildren. He was drafted and served as a Conscientious Objector during the Vietnam era, everything he needed for life he learned at Edgelea Elementary School (high school, Lafayette Jefferson and college, Ball State & Purdue are just the wrapper on the candy bar) and he is a member of the Baha’i Faith.
By day he has worked in various management positions and has been a business owner; by night he has been an athlete, coach, community and social activist. He organizes and host various arts events; three of which are regular events: Mind Gravy Poetry (weekly), Songversation (monthly) & Magnify Magnolias (monthly). In May of 2015, he co-founded the Poets Respond to Race Initiative with his friend and poet, Len Lawson. He has a book of poetry, ‘I Only Left For Tea’ by Muddy Ford Press, is published in various periodicals and journals and frequently travels the Southeast doing readings and co-hosting Poets Respond to Race events.
Al began writing verse at age nine, but kept his poems strictly to himself. In late 2008, he moved to South Carolina, so his wife could accept a job as a professor of sociology; unemployed for the first time and free from family and community expectations, he first publicly shared his poetry 6 1/2 years ago. Al considers himself a northern born southern poet because it was here in the South that he felt free to blossom.
Len Lawson
Len Lawson is the author of the upcoming chapbook Before the Night Wakes You (Finishing Line Press) and co-editor of the upcoming anthologyHand in Hand (Muddy Ford Press, 2017). He has been accepted to the Ph.D. in English Literature and Criticism program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He won the 2016 Jasper Magazine Artist of the Year Award in Literary Arts. Len is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a three-time nominee for the Best of the Net Anthology. He has received a fellowship from Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and a residency from Vermont Studio Center. Len is a Poetry Reader & Book Reviewer for Up the Staircase Quarterly and currently teaches literature and writing at Central Carolina Technical College.
