| | Dedication: The Aunt | p. xxi |
| | Track 1 | |
| | For My People | p. 1 |
| | Margaret Walker | |
| | Leroy | p. 3 |
| | Ars Poetica: Nov. 7, 2008 | p. 4 |
| | Ka'Ba | p. 8 |
| | When You Have Forgotten Sunday: The Love Story | p. 9 |
| | Gwendolyn Brooks | |
| | The Sermon on the Warpland | p. 11 |
| | Gwendolyn Brooks | p. 12 |
| | Gwendolyn Brooks | |
| | Jazz Baby Is It In You | p. 13 |
| | "I Fade Into the Night" | p. 14 |
| | Old Lem | p. 15 |
| | Sterling A. Brown | |
| | I Am Accuse of Tending to the Past | p. 17 |
| | Lucille Clifton | |
| | I Am A Black Woman | p. 18 |
| | Mari Evans | |
| | Who Can Be Born Black? | p. 20 |
| | Mari Evans | |
| | Nikka-Rosa | p. 21 |
| | Nikki Giovanni | |
| | Knoxville, Tennessee | p. 23 |
| | Nikki Giovanni | |
| | The Dry Spell | p. 24 |
| | Kevin Young | |
| | Those Winter Sundays | p. 26 |
| | Robert Hayden | |
| | Frederic Douglass | p. 27 |
| | The Negro Speaks of Rivers | p. 28 |
| | Langston Hughes | |
| | Choosing the Blues | p. 29 |
| | My Father's Love Letters | p. 30 |
| | The Creation | p. 32 |
| | James Weldon Johnson | |
| | A Negro Love Song | p. 36 |
| | Lift Every Voice and Sing | p. 37 |
| | Go Down Death | p. 39 |
| | Between Ourselves | p. 42 |
| | The Union of Two | p. 45 |
| | Ballad of Birmingham | p. 46 |
| | A Poem to Complement Other Poems | p. 48 |
| | No Images | p. 51 |
| | Between the World and Me | p. 52 |
| | Theme for English B | p. 54 |
| | Â Harlem Suite | p. 56 |