BIBR's Sixth Annual Poetry Issue.

Five years ago, Black Issues Book Review was a brand-new magazine. We had, by God's grace, managed to publish our debut issue. Thousands of subscription cards and checks poured into our business office. Booklovers, authors and folks from the publishing industry packed our launch party. Then The American Library Journal named us one of the ten best new magazines, from more than 1100 new start-ups!

It was an incredibly exciting time, but the warm reception of our maiden effort was also scary. What would we do for our next issue? So founding editor Susan McHenry reminded our BIBR team that April is National Poetry Month. That was the beginning of what has become a BIBR tradition: While we discuss and review poetry in almost every issue of BIBR, the second issue of every year is where we give our bards center stage.

When, in that first special issue in 1999, our cover featured Saul Williams--poet, performance artist and star of the 1998 award-winning film Slam--spoken-word poetry was still in the process of being credentialed. Why would a magazine dedicated to serious readers exalt a spoken form? What would all those booklovers, authors, folks from the publishing industry and librarians say if we put a hip hop poet on the cover of our newborn magazine?

Our decision to feature Williams then is consistent with our perspective now on the Def Poetry Jam crew, who are on our Sixth Annual Poetry Issue cover because they conquered the world's toughest stage--Broadway. Appearing on a printed page is not what makes words poetry. Poetry is in both the eye and ear of the beholder.

Some of you will recall that in 2000 our March/April issue featured the multigenerational grouping of the eminent Sonia Sanchez, a veteran of the Black Arts Movement, with rapper Mos Def. The next year (2001), our cover subject was high priestess of popular verse Maya Angelou. Next (2002), we celebrated Haki Madhubuti, the '60s revolutionary poet formerly known as Don L. Lee. While he is known today as a preeminent black independent publisher, he continues to write and carry the legacy of his mentor, Gwendolyn Brooks. And just last year, we featured Alice Walker (2003), whose first slim volume of poems, Revolutionary Petunias, still seems fresh after so many years and the publication of so much more of her celebrated prose and poetry.

In this issue, we continue our focus on the era of the spoken word artist through the Def Jam generation, in feature articles and an expanded poetry review section. Quraysh Ali Lansana, our poetry editor and one of our new regional editors (see page 4), leads off with an essay examining the divide between literary poets and spoken-word/performance artists. He and his collaborators also share a collection of comments from scholars and practitioners from each camp. Tara Betts has pulled together a guide to popular poetry slam venues. And we explore the old tradition of "blues poetry" as it is practiced in the twenty-first century.

However you like your verse--rapped, recited or read silently from a bound volume--I trust You will find much in our sixth annual poetry issue to your taste.