The World Black, Beautiful, and Beast, Paperback

Inside, these poems will take you to a place, an edge, in the midst of the horrors of racial inequity, re George Floyd, and the ensuing attempts of disestablishing the strongholds of racial bias, discrimination, and injustice. C.I. Aki will take you there, show it to you, urge change for the world, then ask, "Is this the sole purpose of Black poetry?"

And, reminding you that he is also the multitudes of the "I am," we are given the complete picture of the poet, his job, and his work. Smattered about are poems of love, poems of hope, poems of questioning with some honest, innovative answers too, and we are forced to sit, and think, and listen to the inexorable genius unveiling itself within these words.

These poems are monuments, an unrelenting achievement for the modern Black poet's soul. The world is filled with beasts, but they cannot shroud entirely its beauty.