Includes index.

Accompanying CD: "Featuring performances on CD by Ruby Dee, Novella Nelson, Nikki Giovanni, Elizabeth Alexander, Sonia Sanchez, Robert Hayden, Marilyn Nelson, and many more friends ..."

Dedication: The Aunt / Mari Evans -- For my people / Margaret Walker -- Leroy / Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) -- Ars poetica: Nov 7, 2008 / L. Lamar Wilson -- Ka'ba / Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) -- When you have forgotten Sunday: the love story ; The sermon on the warpland ; We real cool / Gwendolyn Brooks -- Jazz baby is it in you / Antoine Harris -- I fade into the night / Adam Daniel -- Old Lem / Sterling A. Brown -- I am accused of tending to the past / Lucille Clifton -- I am a black woman ; Who can be born black? / Mari Evans -- Nikki-Rosa ; Knoxville, Tennessee / Nikki Giovanni -- The dry spell / Kevin Young -- Those winter Sundays ; Frederick Douglass / Robert Hayden -- The Negro speaks of rivers / Langston Hughes -- Choosing the blues / Angela Jackson -- My father's love letters / Yusef Komunyakaa -- The creation / James Weldon Johnson -- A Negro love song / Paul Laurence Dunbar -- Lift every voice and sing ; Go down death / James Weldon Johnson -- Between ourselves / Audre Lorde -- The union of two / Haki R Madhubuti -- Ballad of Birmingham / Dudley Randall -- A poem to complement other poems / Haki R Madhubuti -- No images / Waring Cuney -- Between the world and me / Richard Wright -- Theme for English B ; Harlem Suite ; Easy boogie ; Dream boogie ; Dream boogie (variation) ; Harlem ; Good morning ; Same in blues ; Island / Langston Hughes -- The blue Terrance / Terrance Hayes -- The mother ; A Bronzeville mother loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi mother burns bacon ; The last quatrain of the ballad of Emmett Till ; A sunset of the city / Gwendolyn Brooks -- Things I carried coming into the world ; Topography / Remica L. Bingham -- Beneath me ; Autobiography / Jericho Brown -- Parable of the sower / Pamela Sneed -- Heritage ; Yet do I marvel ; Incident / Countee Cullen -- We wear the mask / Paul Laurence Dunbar -- Trifle ; The heart of a woman / Georgia Douglas Johnson -- Woman with flower / Naomi Long Madgett -- The idea of ancestry / Etheridge Knight -- Don't say goodbye to the porkpie hat / Larry Neal -- Cleaning / Camille T. Dungy -- Boston year / Elizabeth Alexander -- She wears red / Jackie Warren-Moore -- Commercial break: road-runner, uneasy / Tim Seibles -- Before making love / Toi Derricotte -- Be-bop / Sterling Plumpp -- Personal letter no. 3 ; Poem at thirty ; A poem for Sterling Brown / Sonia Sanchez -- Marchers headed for Washington, Baltimore, 1963 / Remica L Bingham -- And yeah: this is a love poem / Nikki Giovanni -- The carousel / Gloria C. Oden -- Only everything I own / Patricia Smith -- Lot's daughter dreams of her mother / Opal Moore -- The girlfriend's train / Nikky Finney -- Back from the arms of big mama / Afaa Michael Weaver -- Mama's promise / Marilyn Nelson -- Bop: a whistling woman / Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon -- Homage to my hips / Lucille Clifton -- Train ride / Kwame Dawes -- Train rides / Nikki Giovanni -- A great granddaddy speaks / Lamont B. Steptoe -- Eddie Priest's barbershop & notary / Kevin Young -- View of the Library of Congress from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School / Thomas Sayers Ellis -- Drapery factory, Gulfport, Mississippi, 1956 / Natasha Trethewey -- Some kind of crazy / Major Jackson -- From / A. Van Jordan -- Freedom candy / E. Ethelbert Miller -- The Supremes / Cornelius Eady -- Jazz Suite: Nikki save me / Michele Scott -- Nikki, if you were a song / Kwame Alexander -- Haiku / DJ Renegade -- Untitled / Nadir Lasana Bomani -- I wish I could've seen it / Leodis McCray -- That and some mo' / DJ Renegade -- Sometime in the summer there's October / Tony Medina -- Dancing naked on the floor / Kwame Alexander -- Harriet Tubman's email 2 master / Truth Thomas -- A river that flows forever ; The rose that grew from concrete / Tupac Shakur -- Rochelle / Reuben Jackson -- All their stanzas look alike / Thomas Sayers Ellis -- From the center 2 the edge ; The subtle art of breathing / Asha Bandele -- Southern University, 1962 / Kevin Young -- Poetry should ride the bus / Ruth Forman -- Blues for spring / Colleen J. McElroy -- The bicycle wizard / Sharan Strange -- Bicycles / Nikki Giovanni -- A clean slate / Fred D'Aguiar -- Song through the wall / Akua Lezli Hope -- A seat saved / Shana Yarborough -- Sunday greens / Rita Dove -- The untitled superhero poem / Tonya Maria Matthews -- Mercy killing / Remica L. Bingham -- If you saw a Negro lady / June Jordan -- Ego tripping (there may be a reason why) / Nikki Giovanni.

CD contents: The Aunt / Mari Evans, read by Carolyn H. Dixon -- For my people / Margaret Walker, read by Val Gray Ward -- When you have forgotten Sunday: the love story / Gwendolyn Brooks, read by Ruby Dee -- We real cool / Gwendolyn Brooks, read by the poet -- We real cool / Gwendolyn Brooks, read by ensemble -- Old Lem / Sterling A. Brown, read by Joanne V. Gabbin -- I am accused of tending to the past / Lucille Clifton, read by Sue Ott Rowlands -- I am a black woman / Mari Evans, read by Val Gray Ward -- Who can be born black? / Mari Evans, read by Novella Nelson -- Nikki-Rosa / Nikki Giovanni, read by Linda Dixon -- Knoxville, Tennessee / Nikki Giovanni, read by the poet -- The dry spell / Kevin Young, read by Novella Nelson -- Those winter Sundays / Robert Hayden, read by Carolyn Rude -- Those winter Sundays / Robert Hayden, read by the poet -- The Negro speaks of rivers / Langston Hughes, read by Dr. Charles Steger -- The creation / James Weldon Johnson, read by Terry L. Papillon -- The mother / Gwendolyn Brooks, read by Rudy Dee -- A Bronzeville mother loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi mother burns bacon / Gwendolyn Brooks, read by Rudy Dee and Nikki Giovanni -- A sunset of the city / Gwendolyn Brooks, read by Rudy Dee -- Yet do I marvel / Countee Cullen, read by Kevin G. McDonald -- Incident / Countee Cullen, read by Gena E. Chandler -- We wear the mask / Paul Laurence Dunbar, read by Novella Nelson -- The heart of a woman / Georgia Douglas Johnson, read by Ethel Morgan Smith -- Boston year / Elizabeth Alexander, read by the poet -- Personal letter no. 3 / Sonia Sanchez, read by the poet -- Poem at thirty / Sonia Sanchez, read by the poet -- A poem for Sterling Brown / Sonia Sanchez, read by the poet -- Lot's daughter dreams of her mother / Opal Moore, read by Ethel Morgan Smith -- Mama's promise / Marilyn Nelson, read by the poet -- Homage to my hips / Lucille Clifton, read by Ennis McCrery -- Train rides / Nikki Giovanni, read by Virginia C. Fowler -- Drapery factory, Gulfport, Mississippi, 1956 / Natasha Trethewey, read by Joanne V. Gabbin -- Nikki, if you were a song / Kwame Alexander, read by Novella Nelson -- A river that flows forever, and The rose that grew from concrete / Tupac Shakur, read by Novella Nelson -- Mercy killing / Remica L. Bingham, read by Novella Nelson -- Ego tripping (there may be a reason why) / Nikki Giovanni, read by the poet.