A collection of poems by a contemporary writer.

Sam Cornish's fourth collection of poems spans the time from the Depression through the early 1960s in cities across America. It was a period when segregation was the law and was accepted by virtually all whites and some blacks. The book is a political portrait presenting the voices of the African-American community. Some, like Paul Robeson, confused and shocked their peers by looking toward communism and socialism, others upheld a middle-class system rooted in the values of church and community. The subjects of the poems include James Baldwin, Joe Louis, the Scottsboro Boys, the early bus boycotts, and tensions between neighborhoods and families that erupted into sudden violence. The tone is one of hope and optimism as well as tragedy and turmoil. The underlying theme of political identity focuses on an awakening that changed urban areas across the country when America was still struggling with the presence of a subculture that it was unwilling to accept as part of its social fabric.

A youngster expresses his special feelings about his grandmother and the family pictures she shares with him.

Poems in the voices of the African-American community examining political and social identities in a culture dominated by whites. Subjects range from Martin Luther King, Jr., the Scottsboro Boys, jazz and blues, the bus boycotts, and family and neighborhood tensions. All are presented with a harsh honesty and gentle humanity.

Starting with Allen Ginsberg and ending with Charlie Parker, Sam Cornish takes us on a whirlwind tour of some of the livelier segments of 1950s and early '60s American culture. With non-stop energy, syncopated rhythms, and a fast pace that keeps you humming as you turn the pages, Cornish visits a wide array of writers, musicians, and films, stopping along the way to visit local poetry scenes and pay tribute to the homeless and poor. Calling on Jack Kerouac, Langston Hughes, Marlon Brando, Miles Davis and a host of others, Cornish makes us feel the excitement of those times, even as he and his companions absorb the complex and often disturbing history of what he aptly calls My Young America. - Martha Collins

A lonely boy thinks no one notices the poems he whispers or leaves lying around.