Poets Across the Generations: Afaa M. Weaver & Talisman

Women and their significant place in the life of poet and playwright Afaa M. Weaver is the terrain of Talisman, his new book of poems from Tia Chucha Press, the publishing wing of the Guild Complex.

Talisman attempts to understand Black male/female relationships and recover the love that was there and which will always remain in a spiritual sense, long after the doors have slammed shut. Formerly Michael S. Weaver, Afaa received a NEA fellowship while working in factories in his native Baltimore. He is a recipient of the Playwrights Discovery/Development Initiative (PDI) Award from Eta Creative Arts Foundation, and is an inaugural faculty member of Cave Canem, the first workshop retreat for African American poets. He is editor of first workshop retreat for African American poets. He is editor of Obsidian II, a review of Black Literature, and teaches at Rutgers and Simmons College.

Jazz Bassist Fred Hopkins, born and raised in Chicago, has returned home after 20 years in New York. His family of nine brothers and sisters, several of whom studied music, influenced his desire to perform. He has performed with such Chicago jazz greats as Von Freeman and Gene Ammons as well as the Duke Ellington Band, Elvin Jones, David Murray, Lester Bowie, Henry Threadgill, poet and playwright ntozake Shange, and others. Mr. Hopkins has recorded more than 130 records and CDs, and his awards include Jazz Man of the Chicago Jazz Festival.