Jazz after Dinner

Poems of celebration and endurance.

From "I Am a Black Man"

I am a Black man
my history written with blood
some sweet songs of sorrow
are composed for my soul
and I
can be seen plowing in the fields
Can be heard
humming
in the night

In these poems of celebration and endurance, Leonard A. Slade Jr. addresses the human need to be connected not only to the physical "now," but also to the other lives and other music we pass through during our lives. Slade's unique voice exposes the sweetness, the sorrow, and the humor of life's celebrations and struggles, but above all is the importance of love and the reliance on God and in faith for transcendence. These are poems to help us to endure, to grow, and to triumph.

Leonard A. Slade Jr. is Professor and Chair of the Department of Africana Studies, Director of the Doctor of Arts in Humanistic Studies Program, and Director of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He has published in many journals and magazines and is the author of fifteen books, including eleven books of poetry: Another Black Voice: A Different Drummer, The Beauty of Blackness, I Fly Like a Bird, The Whipping Song, Vintage, Fire Burning, Pure Light, Neglecting the Flowers, Lilacs in Spring, Elisabeth and Other Poems, and For the Love of Freedom.