Best African American Poems: Past and Present gives the history of excellent poems written by poets whose works have stood the test of time. Current poems highlighted by powerful poets also add richness to this historical work; which will whet intellectual and poetic appetites. The poems mentioned throughout the book are from the best that has been thought and written by great poets in our nation. Leonard A. Slade, Jr., is Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York Albany. He earned the Ph. D. degree in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He studied poetry with Pulitzer Prize winners Stephen Dunn (Bennington College) and Donald Justice (The Bread Loaf Writers Conference at Middlebury College, Vermont). He is SUNY Citizen Academic Laureate, Collins Fellow, Excellence in Teaching Awardee, Lifetime Poet Fellow of The Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and Poet Laureate of The Southern Conference on African American Studies. The author of twenty-two books of poetry, Slade has published his works in the United States, Canada, and The United Kingdom. His poetry has been praised by Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou, and Nikki Giovanni. In April 2023, he was made an Honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa Society.