Dear John, Dear Coltrane

"Harper's is a poetry of classically unadorned statement, a direct, unflinching record of a man alive in his time. When he is at his best, in both his public and his private voice, he creates a language humming with emotion and ennobled by a deeply felt human dignity." -- Virginia Quarterly Review ". . . one of the finest poets of our time." -- San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle Stephen Henderson Award, African American Literature and Culture Society (AALCS), 2013. Author is recipient of the Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement, Poetry Society of America, 2008.