5 Books Published by Shamal Books on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

From the back cover: "Often compared to Arthur A. Schomberg and Ramon Emeterio Betances, Louis Reyes Rivera is viewed as many as a bridge between our Pan-American African and Latino communities. With this third book of poetry, he demonstrates why he is called "The Janitor of History." Here is testament on behalf of the disinherited, an oration against the distortions of history; poetry at its finest. Every stanza and line singes with sound, sense, rhythm and color, agony and celebration. These 46 poems span 21 years of searching through the rubble of our own contradiction. His is not a bitter voice, though deep his poems cut through pain and hope and human capacity. Their intention: to confront our refusal to admit what we do to one another. Their mission: to advance the clearest definition of ourselves. Their aim: accurate and compelling."