Bringing the Shovel Down

Notes and Acknowledgments

63 Notes and Acknowledgments Thank you to the editors of the following journals in which some of these poems first appeared, sometimes in slightly different form: Alehouse, American Poetry Review, Coal Hill Review, Cortland Review, Ecotone, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Lumina, Margie, Nightsun, Ploughshares , Salt Hill, Sou’wester, Washington Square, and Whiskey and Fox (whiskeyandfox.blogspot.com). “Poem to My Child, If Ever You Shall Be,” also appears in Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, edited by Camille Dungy. Many of these poems appear on From the Fishouse: an online audio archive of emerging poets. The epigraph to this book comes from Audre Lorde’s essay, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury.” The last line of “Sorrow Is Not My Name,” is an adaptation of the last line of Gwendolyn Brooks’s “To the Young Who Want to Die.” I wish to express gratitude to the friends and organizations who have helped me, in various ways, in the making of this manuscript: Curtis Bauer, Don Belton, DeLana Dameron, Jeff Friedman, Maggie Graber, Francine Harris, Elizabeth Hoover, Ruth Ellen Kocher, Bryce Martin, Chris Mattingly, Jessica Mott, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ira Sadoff, Steve Scafidi, Elaine Sexton, Abdel Shakur, Gerald Stern, Dave Torneo, David Watters, Arisa White, Simone White, and Crystal Williams; to gay pages-2.indd 63 10/18/10 11:20 AM 64 Stephanie Smith, for bigger questions; to Aracelis Girmay and Patrick Rosal, without whose friendship this book would not exist; to Cave Canem, for the good, steady work; to Boxcar Books, for being Boxcar Books; to the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, for an individual artist ’s grant; thanks to Ed Ochester and the good people who have helped this book at University of Pittsburgh Press. And, of course, to my Dear Ol’ Ma. gay pages-2.indd 64 10/18/10 11:20 AM ...