Alfred B. Spellman has been hailed as one of the new black poets of the 1960s whom Gwendolyn Brooks describes as "prevailing stars of an early tomorrow" and whose themes she assesses as encompassing "passion, or a desperate comedy, an adult anger which may be intellectual or intestinal, or a wishful joy." According to Stephen Henderson, the poetry of these new black artists is motivated by "an interior dynamism which underlies much of the best of contemporary Black poetry." It is poetry which attempts "to speak directly to Black people about themselves in order to move them toward self-knowledge and collective freedom. It is therefore not 'protest' art but essentially an art of liberating vision."

Spellman was born on 7 August 1935, in Nixonton, North Carolina, to Alfred and Rosa Bailey Spellman, both schoolteachers. Young A.B. was influenced by his parents' academic background and by his father's avocational interest...