4 Books Published by White Pine Press on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

“She has given us a world where music and brains are allowed to co-exist with instinct, where the lyric and the literal may dwell without eyeing the other with suspicion.”—Cornelius Eady

From “The Perfect Lipstick”:

It is why I appreciate my favorite shade of lipstick:
Sherry Velour.
Sounds like the name of a drag queen from the early seventies.
One of those strapping Black men who had enough of playing macho,
put their feet in five-inch heels and made saints of Dinah Washington,
Rita Hayworth and a very young Nina Simone.
So, on goes this lipstick. Pretty for parties.
Fatal for festivals.
Sherry Velour and her hot discoveries:
light above the fog,
a toy ship.
Black men in sequined dresses and the click of new words
in the new world where the most dangerous of dreams
come true.

“Only a poet with an innocent heart can exorcise so much pain with so much beauty.”—Isabel AllendeA reprint of Sonia Sanchez’s award-winning collection, which contains some of her seminal work. Winner of the American Book Award.Sonia Sanchez is a poet, activist, and scholar and one of the most important writers of the Black Arts Movement. She is the author of sixteen books and lives in Philadelphia.

Milton Rogovin traveled to Cuba twice in the mid-1980s to photograph those he calls “the forgotten ones.” He encountered renowned poet Nancy Morejon, who, upon seeing his images, decided to write new poems and select poems from her work that resonated with the photographs. The result is a spectacular collaboration between poet and artist that creates a multi-dimensional portrait of the landscape and people of a place that has been all but invisible to us since the embargo of Cuba more than 40 years ago. Translators Pamela Carmell and David Frye retain the voice and feel of the original poems.Nancy Morejon is one of Cuba’s most important contemporary poets.Milton Rogovin is a world-renowned documentary photographer with works in many major collections.

Third winner of the annual White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Selected by renowned Native American poet Maurice Kenny.