Black Anima is an extraordinary long poem by a gifted young writer whose work has been highly praised by, among others, W. H. Auden and John Ashbery. It is an odyssey which takes the reader from the Alamac Hotel on upper Broadway through the underground of contemporary Europe to Queen Nefertiti's Egypt and back in search of black identity. A remarkable and delightful variety of poetic languages is displayed throughout the work: songs, hymns, invective, elegy, sermons, polemic, and prose poetry. It is rich in historical and literary associations and is at the same time accessible to all.
