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| Foreword | |
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| Introduction | |
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| Invocation | |
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| We Have Been Believers | |
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| A Poet Is Not a Juke Box | |
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| Nommo | |
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| No Jive | |
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| failure of an invention | |
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| Building | |
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| The Disdirected | |
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| Blood I Say, Study Our Story, Sing This Song | |
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| The Way We Move | |
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| ... And the Saga Continues | |
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| Bad Times | |
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| How to Do | |
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| Like a Dog | |
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| Lonely Women | |
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| On the Other Side | |
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| N | |
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| Her Scream Has Been Stolen | |
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| Crater Face | |
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| susu | |
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| An Asian Am Anthem | |
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| Scout | |
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| This Old Man | |
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| Afternoon Train | |
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| Beginning at the End: Capital/Capitol Punishment | |
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| Open Your Mouth--and Smile | |
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| A Chinese Man in Smyma | |
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| 450 Years of Selective Memory (Smile) | |
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| the n-word | |
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| an open letter to the entertainment industry | |
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| Metropolitan Metaphysics | |
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| America Eats Its Young | |
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| laughin at cha | |
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| Rosa's Beauty | |
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| Overworked | |
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| Nintendo | |
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| Stealth-Pirates of Cyberia | |
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| The Death of Poetry | |
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| Last Visit to Chestnut Middle School | |
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| Learning to Drive at 32 | |
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| Mr. BOOM BOOM Man | |
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| Road to the Presidency | |
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| For What It's Worth | |
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| Every Word Must Conjure | |
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| It's Called Kings | |
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| Billy | |
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| To Become Unconscious | |
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| Letter to an Unconceived Son | |
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| The Usual Suspects | |
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| Blooming Death ... Blossoms | |
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| What the Oracle Said | |
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| The U.S.A. Court of No Appeal | |
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| on the state-sanctioned murder of shaka sankofa | |
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| An Epistle to the Revolutionary Bible | |
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| Warrior Womb | |
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| Cowboynomics | |
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| Demockery | |
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| Executive Privilege | |
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| Question | |
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| georgia avenue, washington d.c. | |
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| A Palace of Mourners | |
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| Palestine | |
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| The Road from Khartoum | |
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| A Modern Love Poem | |
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| In Praise of the Seattle Coalition | |
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| Blood Is the Argument | |
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| Drums Drown Out the Sorrow | |
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| Amadou Diallo from Guinea to the Bronx Dead on Arrival | |
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| Another Scream | |
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| A Well-Bred Woman | |
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| Amadou | |
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| BLS | |
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| after diana died | |
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| Dudley Randall (1914-2000) | |
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| Hoodoo Whisper | |
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| Sammy Davis, Jr. | |
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| Glad All Over | |
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| Dancing after Sanchez | |
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| The 13th Letter | |
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| In Black Churches | |
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| For Gwendolyn Brooks | |
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| tonal embryology | |
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| Zizwe | |
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| All, Bomaye | |
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| Phyllis | |
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| Timbalero | |
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| Puente | |
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| Somalia | |
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| epitaph for Etheridge Knight | |
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| Farewell Queen Mother Moore | |
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| Palenque Queen by Habana's Shores | |
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| When the Definition of Madness Is Love | |
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| January Hangover | |
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| the hardest part about love | |
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| Lies We Tell Ourselves | |
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| 8 ways of looking at pussy | |
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| Temporary Insanity | |
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| alone in belize | |
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| footprints | |
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| Big World Look Out | |
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| Bullet Hole Man: A Love Poem | |
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| Dreadlocks | |
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| Roots | |
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| Six Minutes Writing | |
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| Diner | |
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| Fullness | |
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| Wet Dream | |
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| foursomes | |
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| Wishing You | |
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| Shunning an Imperative | |
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| January 8, 1996 | |
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| A Poem for You | |
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| Throbs for the Instructress | |
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| At the Frenchman's | |
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| Mata Hari Blues or Why I Will Never Be a Spy | |
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| Yellah | |
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| Extremes Ain't My Thing As Salaam Alaikum | |
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| 13 | |
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| rock candy | |
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| Love Jam | |
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| Cocaine Mad-Scream Article #33 LoveSong | |
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| We Whose Fathers Are Hidden | |
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| The Elders Are Gods | |
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| What the Dead Do | |
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| creation is a cycle | |
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| Birth | |
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| Daughter-to-Father Talk | |
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| Tattooing the Motherline | |
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| Our Fathers | |
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| Mama's Magic | |
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| Father's Day | |
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| Momma in Red | |
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| Wildlife | |
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| Chicago on the Day Brother Increases His Chances of Reaching Age 21 | |
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| Lest We Forget | |
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| The African Burial Ground Called Tribeca | |
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| fatherless townships | |
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| Waiting for the Results of a Pregnancy Test | |
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| Sitting in the Doctor's Office the Next Day | |
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| Circa | |
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| Seed of Resistance | |
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| Cooking | |
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| Ben Hur | |
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| in 5th grade | |
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| Complected | |
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| Broken Ends Broken Promises | |
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| My Name's Not Rodriguez | |
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| Water from the Well | |
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| The Tragic Mulatto Is Neither | |
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| Beauty Is Moving Us Forward | |
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| I'm Sayin Though | |
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| beauty rituals 2000 | |
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| Medusa | |
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| Stariette | |
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| exceptions | |
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| What the deal, son? | |
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| Plain Ole Brother Blues | |
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| Why I Be a Goddess | |
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| I'm the Man | |
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| Dare to Be Different | |
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| Thoughts from a Bar Stool | |
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| A Blue Black Pearl | |
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| runnin | |
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| conversations in the struggle | |
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| Harvest: A Line Drawing | |
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| joseph speaks to gericault in the studio | |
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| Entrancielo | |
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| New York Seizures | |
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| Hey Yo / Yo Soy! | |
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| Flying over America | |
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| It Was the Music That Made Us | |
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| I'm a Hip Hop Cheerleader | |
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| kill the dj | |
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| Ms. Cousins' Rap | |
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| all up in there | |
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| Doin' | |
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| The Trash Talker | |
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| Owed to Eminem | |
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| A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop | |
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| rapid transit | |
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| hold it steady | |
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| Conversation with Duke Ellington and Louis (Pops) Armstrong | |
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| For Lady and Prez | |
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| breath | |
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| The Flow | |
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| Bebop Trumpet | |
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| conjugation of the verb: to blow | |
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| The Creed of a Graffiti Writer | |
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| Sonido Ink(quieto) | |
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| because I am it's a race thing trip | |
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| Grasshopper | |
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| Grace | |
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| The Low End | |
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| rep/resent | |
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| 2G (Another Millennium Poem) | |
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| enter(f*#@ckin)tained | |
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| Children of the Word | |
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| Motherseed | |
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| Wake Up, My Little Pretties | |
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| nommo: how we come to speak | |
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| spaNglisH | |
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| New Boogaloo | |
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| Mi Negrito | |
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| News of the World | |
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| Much of Your Poetry Is Beautiful | |
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| Ginsberg | |
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| In Bed with James Tate | |
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| soulgroovin ditty #7 | |
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| Sundays | |
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| To Aretha Franklin from Sparkle | |
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| Lumumba Blues | |
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| All the shoes are shined and the cotton is picked | |
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| In this day age | |
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| The Trouble I've Seen | |
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| Having Lost My Son, I Confront the Wreckage | |
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| Bensonhurst | |
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| For Michael Griffith, Murdered Dec. 21, 1986, Howard Beach, NY | |
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| Lift Every Fist and Swing | |
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| TV Dinner | |
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| Bluesman | |
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| We're Not Well Here | |
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| Nickel Wine and Deep Kisses | |
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| The Coward | |
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| Strip | |
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| Sex | |
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| enemies | |
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| American Poetry | |
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| So Many Books, So Little Time | |
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| How to Be a Street Poet | |
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| The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash | |
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| X | |
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| The Tradition | |
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| There It Is | |
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| Contributors | |
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| Permissions | |