Black writers on black love

June 17, 1:50 PMBaltimore Books ExaminerA. Jarrell Hayes

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It's All Love edited by Marita Golden

There comes a time when you have to speak up for yourself and represent who you are, otherwise someone else will do it for you. Having grown tired of the negative stereotypes from the mass media of Black love -- broken homes, males who love 'em and leave 'em, and the unscrupulous women that allow them to do so -- Marita Golden, area author and co-founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation (an organization for emerging and established Black writers and students) did something about it. She compiled a collection of short stories, poetry, and essays from new and familiar Black authors, many of them are from the Maryland-D.C. area. The result is the anthology It's All Love.

The contributions to this anthology vary in subject, theme, and style. Tina McElroy Ansa's short story Chinaberry is a delightful ghost story about a workaholic who finds love from a free-spirited apparition. A Shared History, an essay from W. Ralph Eubanks, talks about his repetition of family history through his interracial marriage and the fact that, as Americans, we all share the same history and similar story regardless of race.

L.A. Banks, famous for her vampire novels, adds an essay on how adult modern children are becoming and what should be done to keep children's innocence in the essay Two Cents and a Question. Then there's new author, Reginald Dwayne Betts, who's touching essay Learning the Name Dad is a journey for understanding and forgiveness that takes him through prison and eventually into a relationship with the absentee father he is named after.

Classic poetry from Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikki Giovanni are thrown in with some other outstanding poems, including Jalal's After Midnight and Honoree Fanonne Jeffers' Why I Will Praise an Old Black Man.

One of the great things about this anthology is the mixture of authors and voices. Anthologies are great that way; especially when they introduce the reader to authors new to them. There is no one example of Black love; it is the collection of the experiences and thoughts of Black America. The authors in the collection don't speak with the same voice -- neither does the heart.

For more info: Visit the Hurston/Wright Foundation's website at www.hurston-wright.org. This anthology is also a fundraiser for the foundation.