Etheridge Knight often introduced himself at poetry readings by saying, "I died in Korea from a shrapnel wound and narcotics resurrected me. I died in 1960 from a prison sentence and poetry brought me back to life." He was a black man born in Corinth, Mississippi, in 1931 - a Korean War veteran, a junkie, an ex-con, a con man, a bluesman, a great poet and teacher. While Knight was incarcerated at the Indiana State Prison from 1960-1968, his writing drew the mentorship of Gwendolyn Brooks and resulted in the publication of his first collection, "Poems from Prison," in 1968 by Dudley Randall's heralded Broadside Press. Knight published three more books of poems, "Belly Song," "Born of a Woman," and "The Essential Etheridge Knight," for which he won an American Book Award. Etheridge Knight also received the Shelley Award form the Poetry Society of America, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He died in 1991 in Indianapolis. -- back cover.