“Jack McAdoo wished he didn’t know

His landlord

His landlord’s wife

And daughters”

The first stanza from the poem “Jack McAdoo” in Bronzeville at Night: 1949 (Awst Press, 2017) by Vida Cross ’88, writer, academic, and community organizer

Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Bronzeville at Night is Cross’s debut poetry collection. Her work references her ancestry as a third-generation Chicagoan and a Bronzeville resident, the artwork of Archibald J. Motley Jr., and the poetic research of Langston Hughes.