Mungin, Horace (editor-in-chief). Black Forum [Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter 1977)]

Bronx, NY: Black Forum, 1977. Very good. 10” x 7”. Stapled pictorial wrappers. Pp. 48. Very good: front wrap lightly spotted with moderate coffee stain to side, corner dogear and small bite to bottom edge, all extending to first few leaves; several leaves with faint stains at edges.

This is a heavily illustrated issue of an uncommon African American poetry and literary journal, Black Forum (BF).

BF was founded in the mid-1970s by Horace Lee Mungin, a poet, artist and activist known for his contributions to the Black Arts Movement and a decades-long literary career. Mungin wrote several books, including one inspired by his observations (truncated) as a 20-year New York City subway driver, and his writing has appeared in Essence, The New York Times and poetry anthologies. The magazine forms part of the permanent exhibitions at the National Museum for African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

This issue ran an illustrated interview with noted Harlem artist G. Falcon Beazer, as well as profiles on three leading contemporary Black creators: a poet, a painter and a dancer. There is a center photographic spread introducing the BF staff, including Julia Coaxum, the new Managing (and “only female”) Editor, which also noted that Mungin would be ceding his position as Editor-in-Chief to published poet and New York City social worker Revish Windham. Mungin contributed a short story to the issue, along with an opinion on literary “Style and Content,” while Coaxum wrote the introduction to Ron Hill's “Notes of a Black Revolutionary.” Hill, a leader and organizer with the New York Black Panther Party and Black/Puerto Rican community, was incarcerated for seven years and, “through poetry and essay style notes . . . imparts his ideology of universal freedom for blacks.” Importantly, the issue holds two poems by Nikki Grimes, a Harlem-born, prolific poet, writer and artist of children's books. Grimes has earned numerous prestigious honors, including the Coretta Scott King Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal and, in 2012, the NAACP Image Award for Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope. There are several other poems, as well as compelling artwork and photographic images, a crossword puzzle and a subscription form for “Black Forum's Second Year.”

A scarce and important publication of African American arts and poetry. OCLC locates this issue at eight institutions. Danky Hady 857. (Inventory #: 8371)