[Get] next to Black Judgement …, a book of poems by the sister from Cincinnati that's one more fast number. (p. 83)

Enjoy the guts of [Giovanni] on her journey into "Adulthood," a poem that acts like a fifth of iodine on an open wound with its raw power….

Giovanni can be remarkably warm as in "For Theresa," or she might make a drill of her love, as in "For A Poet I Know," and strike the oil of life that only those who are prepared to die more than once might experience. This book is cuttin' up more than her first volume, "Black Feeling Black Talk," which wasn't jivin', and we can expect her to lay new tracks every time she comes round because she's married to honesty and fertile enough to get it all down. (p. 84)

David Llorens, "'Black Judgement'," in Negro Digest (reprinted by permission of Negro...