6 Books Published by Aquarius Press/Willow Books on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

Poetry collection by Jamaican-born poet, creative writer, visual artist, and media professional.

After graduating from Syracuse University (Newhouse and College of Arts and Science), Anderson began her career in television production at CBS News, where she worked as an associate producer for long-form documentaries like "A&E Biography." She went on to work as an associate producer for "NOW With Bill Moyers."

Her poetry and essays have appeared in a number of national literary magazines, journals, and anthologies.

“The volume itself and the poems chosen for its publication this year both reflect and enact that generosity in that Porter was given full license not only to write the introduction but also to choose the poems between its covers. Thus The Collected Poems begins and ends with poems that have never been seen publicly before: the first series, taken from Miller’s tenure as a student at Howard University and the last, written in the current racial climate, where another Howard alumnus, Ta-Nehisi Coates, has published a bestselling book that has made talk of reparations for slavery and a wholesale re-founding of the republic part of the national conversation.”—Albert Kapikian, Potomac Review

Poetry collection by E. Ethelbert Miller, writer and literary activist. The editor of Poet Lore, Miller served as Director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University. Awarded an honorary Doctor of Literature from Emory and Henry College, Miller has taught at UNLV, American University, George Mason University, and Emory and Henry College. A two-time Fulbright Senior Specialist Program Fellow and the founder of the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C., Miller has authored several collections of poetry and two memoirs. He is the host and producer of The Scholars, which airs on UDC-TV. A 2015 Washington, D.C. Hall of Fame Inductee, Miller is also a regular on National Public Radio.

The Things in Black Men’s Closets

on the top shelf
of the closet
is the hat my father
wears on special occasions
it rests next to the large jar
he saves pennies in

his head is always bare
when i see him walking
in the street

i once sat in his bedroom
watching him search
between sweaters and suits
looking for something missing
a tie perhaps

then he stopped
and slowly walked to the closet
took the hat from the shelf

i sat on the bed
studying his back
waiting for him to turn
and tell me who died

Poetry collection by Mahogany L. Browne, Cave Canem Fellow and Director of the Nuyorican Poets Café Poetry Program.

Poetry. African American Studies. BROKE ON ICE is a nonlinear narrative in verse in the voice of a homeless everyman named Broke, talking about his existence and life experiences through conversational poems, tall tales, anecdotes, episodes, and jokes, much like that of Langston Hughes’s Simple. Broke is also in the tradition of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp, as well as Nicanor Parra’s Christ of Elqui, Zbigniew Herbert’s Mr. Cogito and Richard Pryor’s Mudbone, where these everyman personas critique modern society through satire, humor, irony and pathos. As poet Kelly Norman Ellis puts it, "Broke is an unflinching well of humanity who reminds us of the wicked wink inside the blues."

“Poetry. African American Studies. For some years now, I have believed that Rachel Eliza Griffiths would be known as one of the most exquisite, powerful, and heartbreaking poets of her generation. Gracious and precise in its craft, unusually expansive in its emotional range, her new collection, Miracle Arrhythmia, is a simply stunning volume of poems. Rachel Eliza Griffiths writes a poetry of perfected clarity and profound courage. She is a poet we will be looking to—for the consolation and wisdom of her work—for many more years to come.”—David St. John.

Poetry. Foreword by Afaa Michael Weaver. ARC & HUE explores the paradoxes of life in America’s past and present through the eyes of a biracial woman pondering the complexities of the world. This collection is also rich in musicality, a chorus of strong voices such as Billie Holiday, Tina Turner, and Pablo Neruda. ARC & HUE was nominated for an American Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, an Anisfield-Wolf Award, and a Hurston Wright Legacy Award.