Some poets spend their lives within the cloistered walls of colleges and universities.Gary E. Moore has spent his life dedicated to education-but not behind cloisteredwalls. In over fi ve decades on Earth, he's been educated by the streets of Chicago'ssouth side, by a system designed to deal out law and order disproportionately, andby a culture which rejects the idea of the nurturing, gentle black man. In his poeticdebut, Moore draws on his experience as an inner city schoolteacher, as a father, and as a former child himself to paint an emotional landscape which is alternatelypoignant, shocking, witty, and furious.

In "Songs for the Cleveland Avenue Warrior," Moore breaks the strangling troupeof the angry black man with the vulnerability of his message, the melody of hislanguage, and the passion for nurturing which is woven throughout the work.Written in three sections, in honor of ancestral gemetric wisdom, "Songs" is a timemachine, a critique on the present, and a piercing ray of hope which illuminates ourcollective humanity.