Dedicated to his mother, Slade’s “Black Ma-
donna” combines the various themes found in his
poems: deep love for his humble but Christian
southern roots, parents, family, God, and nature,
as well as the influence of the British romantic
poets:
She crawled on her knees
until the sun bowed
to her. Eight children
planted beneath the stars
The earth felt good to her. (Black Voice, 47)Reliance on God provides balm in Gilead and
strength to continue. However, Slade does not ro-
mantically embrace all memories of his past, as in
the clearly indicting “For My Forefathers”:
For my forefathers
Whose fingers pierced cotton bolls
Beneath the sun roasting human flesh
And darkness told master
To rape black women
for labor and profit.The titles of Slade’s works (for example, Black
Voice: A Different Drummer) suggest that he sets
out to offer a different agenda and perspective from
that of the poets of the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, for
whom revolution, as MALCOLM X promoted, “by
any means necessary” was an alternative. In “We
Love” Slade’s speaker lucidly presents his agenda:
I
teach
love
first self
then
burn
the universe—our inner selves
cleansed
unashamed of blackness. Redeemed. We
learn
love. (Beauty of Blackness, 7)Throughout his work Slade remains hopeful.
He makes his quintessential dream clear in “My
Dream,” in which each stanza defines each quality
of his dream: “My dream is real.. ., My dream is
romantic.. ., My dream is sacred.. ., My dream is
aesthetic.” The poem ends: “My dream continues.”
A writer-in-residence at Bennington College,
Vermont; at The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference,
Middlebury College, Vermont; and at The Rag-
dale Artists’ Colony, Lake Forest, Illinois, Slade
has published his work in ESSENCE magazine, The
COLLEGE LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION JOURNAL, The
American Poetry Review, The Zora Neale Hurston
Forum, The Journal of Southern History, The Black
Scholar, and The Griot: Journal of the Southern
Conference on Afro-American Studies, to name a
few. He is also the author of two books of literary
criticism, including Symbolism in Herman Mel-
ville’s Moby Dick: From the Satanic to the Divine
(1998). He has received several teaching awards,
grants, and fellowships, including the Kentucky
Humanities Grant, the Northeast Modern Lan-
guage Association Fellowship, and the Ford
Foundation Fellowship. In May 1989 Elizabeth
City State University awarded Leonard a doctor
of humane letters degree. Slade is professor of Af-
ricana studies, adjunct professor of English, chair
of the department of Africana studies, interim
director of the Humanistic Studies Program, and
director of the Master of Arts in the Liberal Stud-
ies Program at the State University of New York
at Albany.BIBLIOGRAPHY
“Poetry Flows from the Heart of Black Experi-
ence.” University at Albany, State University of
New York. Available online. URL: http://www.
albany.edu/feature97/slade/. Accessed October
26, 2006.
Slade, Leonard A., Jr. The Beauty of Blackness. Nash-
ville, Tenn.: Winston-Derek Publishers, Inc.,
1988.
———. Black Voice: A Different Drummer. Nashville,
Tenn.: Winston-Derek Publishers, 1988.
———. “The Days before Brown.” Available online.
URL: http://www.hoover.org/publications/ed-
next/3260641.html. Accessed October 26, 2006.Wilfred D. Samuels468 Slade, Leonard, Jr.