“Baraka and Dorn were at the very heart of two of the most significant developments in American literature in the decades after World War II, the so-called New American Poetry and the Black Arts Movement. That fact alone makes this book one that will interest scholars and poets in many otherwise divergent communities. The letters commence near the beginnings of these two artists’ careers. We not only witness the poetic development of these two crucial figures, but we witness it against the background of the evolution of the Civil Rights Movement into the Black Power era. And both writers have much to say about the unfolding revolution in jazz that was taking place alongside the explosive social transformations of American society. The book is filled with significant surprises.”—Aldon Lynn Nielsen, author of Reading Race

“These two poets had to struggle to make a living. Baraka was making a transition during the years he corresponded with Dorn from the predominantly white New York avant-garde scene to the black nationalist politics of the mid and late 1960s. Through much of this period Baraka worked tirelessly on Dorn’s behalf just to get his manuscripts published. These letters give readers a sense of the generous collaboration of avant-garde poets in the 1960s.”—Robert 

von Hallberg, author of American Poetry and Culture, 1945–1980