Run Toward Fear: New Poems and a Poet's Handbook.

Run Toward Fear: New Poems and a Poet's Handbook by Haki Madhubuti Third World Press, June 2004 $12.00, ISBN 0-883-78265-0

For nearly four decades, Haki Madhubuti has been a major force in African American poetry. Madhubuti emerged as one of the most widely known poets of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In addition, as publisher of Third World Press, he's ensured the publication of hundreds of African American writers.

Madhubuti's most recent volume, Run Toward Fear: New Poetas and a Poet's Handbook, complements and extends his legacy as a masterful word worker.

The black vernacular stylistics that distinguish Madhubuti's poetic career figure prominently. Throughout the book, he pays tribute to the hard and "heart" work of fellow poets and activists by acknowledging their deeds in poetic form. In poems dedicated to Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka and Lucille Clifton, as well as in memorials to the late Margaret Walker Alexander and Gwendolyn Brooks, Madhubuti writes of the meaningful influence of these black voices. They have, as he writes in a poem for Angelou, "dared to confront our fears." Ultimately, his tribute poems highlight the significance of both the praised and the appraiser.

Always the streetwise signifying verbalizer, Madhubuti offers biting and humorous critiques. He discusses the unfortunate circumstances of a man who spent the better part of his life "trying to convince / white people that / he was as good as they were." In another poem, Madhubuti wonders why several black spokespersons and leaders who "have never known employment / ... live so well." Finally, in a satirical and potentially controversial poem, he critiques one of the nation's leading African American academicians. Referring to the scholar as "dr. heavy loose greats,' Mad hubuti views the man "rising happily and comfortably against the dark / people who battle brain mismanagement hourly."

The book closes with a Poet's Handbook--a list of advice from Madhubuti to younger and aspiring poets.

Reviewed by Dr. Howard Rambsy II Dr. Howard Rambsy His a scholar and writer who lives in Carbondale, Illinois.