This small 1968 paperback is an anthology of poems on the subject of the "black experience" in the USA. As a college student, I was not a fan of poetry, but I was an advocate of racial justice and equality, a reason why this work caught my attention. I read it with much enjoyment, and my copy contains dog-eared pages marking poems that I found especially profound or meaningful. Among the poems represented are works by Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Leroi Jones, and many other poets. I am pleased to see that the work was republished in expanded form in the late 1990s; it deserves to be appreciated by new generations of readers. ( )

Nearly 30 years after poet and anthologist Adoff first published his classic core collection of black poetry, this new edition has been expanded to include 21 additional poets, 10 of them women. In a celebratory afterword, Adoff remembers how he collected those first poems into a book in 1968 so that he could present to his students, of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, "the complete vision of an American literature." Many of us can still remember the excitement of reading that original anthology, of discovering those distinct, powerful voices so long left out of the American canon. The arrangement here is still by theme, with the new poems echoing, arguing with, connecting, and extending the core. There are eloquent introductions by critic Rudine Sims Bishop and poet Nikki Giovanni and notes at the back on the poems as well as brief biographies of the poets. A must purchase. Category: Older Readers. 1997, Simon & Schuster, $16 and $4.99. Gr. 7 and up.

Hazel Rochman (Booklist, February 15, 1997 (Vol. 93, No. 12))