East St. Louis, IL: Black River Writers, 1975. Introduction by Eugene Redmond. Saddle-stapled in printed wraps, 8-1/2 x 5-1/2 in. 34pp. SIGNED and inscribed, at length, by Jefferson on the title-page. Poems hand-lettered, with reproduced black-and-white line drawings by Jefferson throughout. Light toning and soiling to wraps, bookstore sticker at base of rear cover. Near fine.
N.B. Though the copyright page gives a date of 1975, Redmond's introduction is dated to 1976, indicating that as the most likely year of publication.
According to the rear cover copy, Jefferson is a Kansas City native, who was living at the time of publication in California, where he worked as an apprentice teacher at the Sacramento Waldorf School, and was a member of the Henry Dumas Creative Writing Workshop of Sacramento. The Black River Writers Press was founded in 1967 by Eugene Redmond, a prominent member of the Black Arts Movement and winner in 1993 of the American Book Award for his poetry collection, The Eye in the Ceiling. Redmond has also served for decades as the literary executor of the Henry Dumas estate, and has been one of the principal forces in preserving Dumas' legacy, editing and in some cases even completing Dumas' unfinished works. $50
