A Brief Prelude to the Songs -- Is My Daddy Here? / Marcia Dyson -- Daddy, Saved in Snatches: The Quilting / Dorothy Perry Thompson -- Excerpt from In My Father's Garden / Lee May -- Excerpt from "Are You My Father?" / Thaddeus Goodavage -- An Open Letter to My Dad / Charlie R. Braxton -- S.W.A.K. / Katie Lee Crane -- May the Circle Be Unbroken / Rebecca Carroll -- A Little Bit of Soap / Cornelius Eady -- Poem for My Father / Toi Derricotte -- Excerpt from The Big Sea / Langston Hughes -- Excerpt from A Taste of Power / Elaine Brown -- Excerpt from Parallel Time / Brent Staple -- Excerpt from Fatheralong / John Wideman -- Excerpt from Laughing in the Dark / Patrice Gaines -- Neither Forgiving nor Distant / Mary Helen Washington -- Excerpt from Every Good-bye Ain't Gone / Itabari Njeri -- Estranged / Theodore Jennings -- Father, No Longer Daddy? / Opal Palmer Adisa -- My Father's Whistle / Noliwe Rooks -- On the Distinction of "Jr." / Houston A. Baker, Jr. -- Excerpt from Bourgeois Blues / Jake Lamar -- Excerpt from Wayward Child / Addison Gayle -- Excerpt from "My Father, Myself" / Scott Minerbrook -- Dancing on My Father's Shoes / Patricia Elam Ruff -- Excerpt from Poems to My Father / Pinkie Gordon Lane -- forgiving my father / Lucille Clifton -- Excerpt from Report from Part I / Gwendolyn Brooks -- Excerpt from Zami: A New Spelling of My Name / Audre Lorde -- The World According to Claude / Anthony Walton -- The King of the Duke's Mixtures: Memories at the Corners / Sandra Y. Govan -- A Seat at the Welcome Table / Flora Wilson Bridges -- Expressions of His Love / Gail Bowman -- A Master Craftsman of Love / Ellen Finch -- In My Father's House / Manning Marable -- A Father Scarce as Hen's Teeth / Cheryl Clarke -- When the Subject Is Fathers: Two Daughters Reflect / Dilla Buckner and Jennifer Hicks -- What about Humphrey Bogart? An Alleluia for Ike / Dolores Kendrick -- My Father's Ways / Lenard D. Moore -- Looking toward Arbutus / Miriam DeCosta-Willis -- Plaiting Now My Daddy's Hair / Georgene Bess -- Excerpt from Notes of a Native Son / James Baldwin -- Excerpt from A Fire in the Bones / Albert Raboteau -- God Didn't Live in Mississippi Then... / Bettye Parker Smith -- A Final Rite / Toni Vincent -- Daddy's Little Girl / Dolores Stephens -- Dear Daddy / Ntozake Shange -- Remembering Daddy: Strong Arms and Old Songs / Walter Fluker -- Excerpt from Sweet Summer / Bebe Moore Campbell -- The Black Man of Happiness / Peter J. Harris -- "Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning" / Alice Walker -- daddy / Pearl Cleage -- Snatched from Nothingness / Lionel Arnold -- Remembering, but Judging Not / Anthony Dorsey -- My Father's House / Don Belton -- A New Understanding / Kiini Salaam -- My Daddy, the Pregnant Warrior Woman, and Me / Tayari A. Jones -- Jacques Arnold Terborg, Sr.: Our Beacon / Rosalyn Terborg-Penn -- Gifts / Judy Scales-Trent -- My "Real" Daddy's Girl / Lurma M. Rackley -- Confessions: Remembering Walter P. / Beverly Guy-Shetfall -- A Line of Storytellers / devorah major -- For Our Fathers / Carolyn M. Rodgers.