Our work grew out of a convergence of separate endeavors and we have first
of all to thank each other for the sustenance and joy we found in our collabo-
ration. A circle of friends helped the work to grow over a long period and we
thank each member of it. The assistance of Jean Phoenix Laurel and Phyllis
Guskin was crucial, as was the long-term support of Harriet McCombs, co-
editor of Sojourner: A Third World Women's Research Newsletter, Elizabeth
Kennedy, Barbara Halporn, Fritz Senn, Gayle Margherita, Mischa Senn,
Joan M. Zirker, Angelina Maccarone, Rob Fulk, Joanna G. Williams, Fatima
El-Tayeb and Fareedah Allah. We are grateful as well to Melanie Walder,
Virginia Munroe, Tom Karr, Geraldine White, Judith Rose Gettelfinger,
Sylvia Escher, Kathryn Crittenden, and Brigit Keller.

Our families helped us and we warmly thank Al David and Gerd
Knoblauch, La Nicerra Stetson, La Quetta Stetson, and Benjamin David.
Throughout the writing of this book we were paying tribute to the mem-
ory of our mothers, Rose Green Hawkins and Alma Louise Utz.

Thanks are due to Karl Kabelac, Manuscripts Librarian, and to Molly
Solazzo of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections,
University of Rochester Library, and to Laura V. Monti, Keeper of Rare
Books and Manuscripts and to R. Eugene Zepp, Reference Librarian in
the Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Boston Public Library.
We are especially grateful to Sue Presnell, Head of Reference Services and
to Heather Munro of the Manuscripts Department of the Lilly Library,
Indiana University. For helping us to eliminate a false lead we think Cathy
Cherbosque, Curator of Literary Manuscripts, and Karen Kearns,
Archivist, at The Henry Huntington Library. Much of our research origi-
nated under the expert guidance of the late Wilmer Baatz of the Indiana
University Black Culture Center Library; he was a learned and tireless
friend to scholarship.

Julie L. Loehr of the Michigan State University Press has consistently
supported the book. Kristine M. Blakeslee has been an ideal editor,
thoughtful, questioning, and ceaselessly encouraging. It is our great plea-
sure to see our book appear alongside MSU Press's Lotus Poetry Series.
Our collaboration really begin in a rare books library reading together the
poetry of Naomi Long Madgett.

Erlene Stetson, Berlin

Linda David, Bloomington

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