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Acknowledgments Our work grew out of a convergence of separate endeavors and we have first ofall to thank each other for the sustenance and joy we found in our collaboration . A circle of friends helped the work to grow over a long period and we thank each member of it. The assistance ofJean Phoenix Laurel and Phyllis Guskin was crucial, as was the long-tenn support of Harriet McCombs, coeditor of Sojourner: A Third World Women's Research Newsletter, Elizabeth Kennedy, Barbara Halpom, Fritz Senn, Gayle Margherita, Mischa Senn, Joan M. Zirker, Angelina Maccarone, Rob Fulk, Joanna G. Williams, Fatima EI-Tayeb and Fareedah Allah. We are grateful as well to Melanie Walder, Vrrginia Munroe, Tom Karr, Geraldine White, Judith Rose Gettelfinger, Sylvia Escher, Kathryn Crittenden, and Brigit Keller. Our families helped us and we warmly thank Al David and Gerd Knoblauch, La Nicerra Stetson, La Quetta Stetson, and Benjamin David. Throughout the writing of this book we were paying tribute to the memory ofour mothers, Rose Green Hawkins and Alma Louise Utz. Thanks are due to Karl Kabelac, Manuscripts Librarian, and to Molly Solazzo of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester Library, and to Laura V. Monti, Keeper of Rare Books and Manuscripts and to R. Eugene Zepp, Reference Librarian in the Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Boston Public Library. We are especially grateful to Sue Presnell, Head of Reference Services and to Heather Munro of the Manuscripts Department of the Lilly Library, Indiana University. For helping us to eliminate a false lead we thank Cathy Cherbosque, Curator of Literary Manuscripts, and Karen Kearns, Archivist, at The Henry Huntington Library. Much of our research originated under the expert guidance of the late Wilmer Baatz of the Indiana University Black Culture Center Library; he was a learned and tireless friend to scholarship. Julie L. Loehr of the Michigan State University Press has consistently supported the book. Kristine M. Blakeslee has been an ideal editor, thoughtful, questioning, and ceaselessly encouraging. It is our great pleasure to see our book appear alongside MSU Press's Lotus Poetry Series. Our collaboration really began in a rare books library reading together the poetry of Naomi Long Madgett. Erlene Stetson, Berlin Linda David, Bloomington ...

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