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Michael Anania was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on 5 August 1939. His mother, Dora, was born in Oldenburg, Germany, and his father, Angelo, who died when Anania was nine, was born in Omaha to parents from the southern Italian province of Calabria. Tuberculosis made it impossible for Angelo to hold a steady job, and Anania grew up in an Omaha housing project. Anania’s fascination with his father, who survived by odd jobs, card dealing, and street wisdom and who never left the house without a gun, is reflected in The Red Menace. Both the father and the gun make repeated appearances in Anania’s poetry, notably in “Temper” in The Color of Dust(1970) and “Reeving” in Riversongs (1978). “Reeving” depicts Angelo as “the dying gambler in black / coughing into his cards / or oiling the blue sheen / of his stub revolver.”
Dr. Haki R. Madhubuti, poet, author, publisher, and educator, is regarded as an architect of the Black Arts Movement and is founder and publisher of Chicago’s Third World Press. Third World Press celebrated its 55th anniversary in September of 2022.