The Word Movement / Kevin Powell -- Are Black People Cooler than White People? / Donnell Alexander -- GWTW / Hilton Als -- Race Natters - The Chattering Classes Convene on Martha's Vineyard / Angela Ards -- In Search of Alice Walker / Valerie Boyd -- Mama's Girl / Veronica Chambers -- The Visible Man / Trey Ellis -- Return to the Planet of the Apes / Ekow Eshun -- The Sports Taboo: Why blacks are like boys and whites are like girls / Malcolm Gladwell -- Are We Tiger Woods Yet? / Lisa Jones -- On the Disappearance of Joe Wood Jr. / Robin D. G. Kelley -- She and I / Bruce Morrow -- White Girl? / Lonnae O'Neal Parker -- What Happens When Your 'Hood Is the Last Stop on the White Flight Express? / Taigi Smith -- Texaco / Natasha Tarpley -- Speaking in Tongues / Toure -- Your Friendly Neighborhood Jungle / Daniel J. Wideman -- Hip-Hop Hi-Tech / Harry Allen -- Homophobia: Hip-Hop's Black Eye / Farai Chideya -- The Death of Rock n' Roll / Cheo Hodari Coker -- Confessions of a Hip-Hop Critic / Dream Hampton -- hip-hop feminist / Joan Morgan -- This Is Not a Puff Piece / Scott Poulson-Bryant -- Live from Death Row / Kevin Powell -- Hit 'Em Up: On the Life and Death of Tupac Shakur / Danyel Smith -- Angles of Vision / Jabari Asim -- The Soul of Black Talk / Erin Aubry -- Do Books Matter? / Kevin Baldeosingh -- The Other Side of Paradise - Feminist Pedagogy, Toni Morrison Iconography, and Oprah's Book Club Phenomenon / Daphine A. Brooks -- She's Gotta Have It / Debra Dickerson -- No Entry / Lynell George -- What About Black Romance? / Esther Iverem -- "It be's that way sometimes 'cause I can't control the rhyme." - Notes from the Post-Soul Intelligentsia / Mark Anthony Neal -- Facing Unknown Possibilities: Lance Jeffers and the Black Aesthetic / Howard Rambsy II -- The White Boy Shuffle / Paul Beatty -- Interpolation: Peace to My Nine / Ricardo Cortez Cruz -- Epilogue: Women Like Us / Edwidge Danticat -- The Sun, the Moon, the Stars / Junot Diaz -- Prologue, 1963 / Tananarive Due -- The Emperor's Babe / Bernardine Evaristo -- the missionary position / Christopher John Farley -- My Son, My Heart, My Life / John R. Keene -- The Last Integrationist / Jake Lamar -- slave / Victor D. LaValle -- The Famished Road / Ben Okri -- Stigmata / Phyllis Alesia Perry -- The Pagoda / Patricia Powell -- face / Danzy Senna -- The Peculiar Second Marriage of Archie Jones / Zadie Smith -- Baker / Lisa Teasley -- Rika / Jervey Tervalon -- Butterfly Burning / Yvonne Vera -- The Intuitionist / Colson Whitehead -- Safari / Toyin Adewale -- The Rumor / Jane Alberdeston-Coralin -- Fugue / Elizabeth Alexander -- The Clearing / Jeffery Renard Allen -- I Dream of Jesus / Charlie Braxton -- personal / Shonda Buchanan -- Tat Tvam Asi (You Are the One) / Paul Calderon -- One Irony of the Caribbean / Adrian Castro -- Legba, Landed / Wayde Compton -- Excursion to Port Royal / Kwame Dawes -- Dear Mr. Ellison / Jarvis Q. DeBerry -- Assam / Nikky Finney -- Church Y'all / Ruth Forman -- The Yellow Forms of Paradise / Danielle Legros Georges -- swampy river / Brian Gilmore -- from "Awakening" / Duriel E. Harris -- Sleep / Yona Harvey -- When the Neighbors Fight / Terrance Hayes -- You Are Chic Now, Che / Ogaga Ifowodo -- Visitation: Grenada, 1978 / Allison Joseph -- 100 Times / Arnold J. Kemp -- Discubriendo una Fotografia de mi Madre / Shara McCallum -- sometime in the summer there's october / Tony Medina -- The Outcome / Jessica Care Moore -- Toi Derricotte at Quail Ridge Books / Lenard D. Moore -- Nairobi Streetlights / Samwiri Mukuru -- 3 movements / Letta Neely -- The Night when Mukoma Told the Devil to Go to Hell / Mukoma Wa Ngugi -- Autobiography of a Black Man / G. E. Patterson -- Spotlight at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe / Willie Perdomo -- Blue / Carl Phillips -- Patrimony / Rohan Preston -- Intermission in three acts in service of PLOT / Claudia Rankine -- Calypso the outside woman / Vanessa Richards -- The Woman / Kristina Rungano -- Woman / Tijan Sallah -- Sunday / Angela Shannon -- Purple Impala / Renee Simms -- Windows of Exile / Patrick Sylvain -- gin and juice / Imani Tolliver -- Collection Day / Natasha Tretheway -- Insomnia / Marco Villalobos -- Shrine outside Basquiat's Studio, September 1988 / Kevin Young -- Black Youth Black Art Black Face - An Address / Ras Baraka -- leaving a feminist organization: a personal/poetics / Stefani Barber -- we are trying to (have me) conceive / Tisa Bryant -- if we've gotta live underground and everybody's got cancer/will poetry be enuf? - A Letter to Ntozake Shange / Eisa Davis -- Binga - Diary Entry / Cege Githiora -- The Six-Hour Difference: A Dutch Perspective on the New World / Scotty Gravenberch -- Just Beneath the Surface - An Email / Sarah Jones -- By Invitation - An Open Letter to the President of South Africa / Itumeleng oa Mahabane -- What Happened to Your Generation's Promise of "Love and Revolution"? - A Letter to Angela Davis / Eisa Nefertari Ulen -- An Atlantic Away: A Letter from Africa / Teresa N. Washington