Black, White & Shades of Poetry is a beautiful collection of poems that will absolutely touch the hearts of many readers. The author expresses, through her poetry, a great sense of humor and wit as she reflects on family, relationships and the miracle we call life.

A dazzling collection from across the African continent and diaspora here SHORT STORY DAY AFRICA has assembled the best nineteen stories from their 2013 competition. Food is at the centre of stories from authors emerging and established, blending the secular, the supernatural, the old and the new in a spectacular celebration of short fiction. Civil wars, evictions, vacations, feasts and romances the stories we bring to our tables that bring us together and tear us apart.

Photographs and poetic text celebrate the beauty and diversity of African American children. On board pages.

Includes a reader's guide and an author's note.

"As the twentieth century draws to a close, Maria is at the start of a life she never thought possible. She and Khalil, her college sweetheart, are planning their wedding. They are the perfect couple, 'King and Queen of the Racially Nebulous Prom.' Their skin is the same shade of beige. They live together in a black bohemian enclave in Brooklyn, where Khalil is riding the wave of the first dot-com boom and Maria is plugging away at her dissertation on the Jonestown massacre ... Everything Maria knows she should want lies before her--yet she can't stop daydreaming about another man, a poet she barely knows"--Back cover.

In this revised edition of his poetry collection, A Pale Shade of Blue, Tommy Melis explores topics ranging from feminism and equality to religious oppression and existential freedom. For this revision, he has added new poems written between 2011 and 2012 and included previously unreleased poetry written between 1999 and 2008, representing his earliest work. Like most Cuban Americans, he grew up in a family that celebrated their rich cultural history as both Cuban exiles and first-generation Americans. The characters represented in his poems have overcome mental illness and found healing in identifying common societal themes between the blurred lines of justice and freedom. Having to find their way to the light, they speak out of the darkness they have seen, and their relentless emotional trappings they each seek to be free from. The stories are of perseverance and often speak of things normally swept under rugs. The poems in this collection are divided into five distinct books: Book One: The Tree Growing represents rebirth and belief; Book Two: Stems considers embracing and releasing the darkness; Book Three: Branches speaks to oppression and cultural moldings; Book Four: Fire covers lessons learned; and Book Five: Roots looks at the connection between the poet and his reader. A Pale Shade of Blue opens up the world of a vibrant culture and the emotions associated with overcoming personal challenges for all to consider.

Winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, Ethiopian American Mahtem Shiferraw's Fuchsia examines conceptions of the displaced, disassembled, and nomadic self. Embedded in her poems are colors, elements, and sensations that evoke painful memories related to deep-seated remnants of trauma, war, and diaspora. Yet rooted in these losses and dangers also lie opportunities for mending and reflecting, evoking a distinct sense of hope. Elegant and traditional, the poems in Fuchsia examine what it means to both recall the past and continue onward with a richer understanding.