Alvin Aubert's work as a poet, editor, and publisher places him at the center of creative activity among Afro-Americans during the last three decades. He stands as a chronicler of the black literary experience. Since 1975, as publisher and editor of Obsidian: Black Literature in Review, Aubert has provided an outlet for many Afro-American scholars and creative writers. His own poetry is often elliptical and curiously dispassionate, as if he wants only to capture objectively the occasion that provided the emotional impetus for writing the poem and to leave the evaluation of that moment's meaning to the reader. His poetry is distinguished by its uniqueness within the historical period in which it was written: while many of the black poets who published during the late 1960s and early 1970s wrote angry, didactic poems, he wrote somewhat allusive poems that always suggest more than they directly convey.

Alvin Bernard Aubert...