MY DADDY IS A COOL DUDE

Twenty-seven everyday poems about the everyday people encountered in the homes and on the streets of an urban ghetto. Among them are big sister Sherry who wears an afro and calls her friends ""brother"" and ""sister,"" Jerry Lee's big brother who ""O-Deed"" and won't be around no more, Mr. Smith with a uni-ver-see-tee dee-gree who ""be down on the comer/ all the time/ jiving around with all the dudes who hang out there/ with him askin' for dimes,"" and--besides the cool daddy who always comes in from work and ""say 'Hey man gimme five' ""--there's a daddy who ""comes over/ and takes me riding"" and talks big about ""when he comes back home/ for good"" and another who promises the ""baddest bike/ on the block"" but first ""he's gotta buy me some shoes/ 'cause the ones I got now ain't no more good."" The verses aren't much more than broken lines of trim prose (the occasional rhyming ones are the weakest) but they all ring true and the shaded pencil drawings give them locus and personality.