Herbert Woodward Martin, poet in residence at the University of Dayton and Laureate Poet for Dayton, Ohio, is the author of six books of poetry, two opera libretti, and the text for a new Magnificat. He has given readings of Dunbar's poetry around the world for the past twenty years.Ronald Primeau is a professor of English and director of the Master of Arts in Humanities program at Central Michigan University. He has published widely on American and British literature, literary theory, composition and rhetoric, and the electronic media. His most recent book is Romance of the Road: The Literature of the American Highway.Gene Andrew Jarrett is an associate professor of English and African American studies at Boston University. He is the author of Deans and Truants: Race and Realism in African American Literature and editor or coeditor of The New Negro: Readings on Race, Representation, and African American Culture, 1892-1938, African American Literature beyond Race: An Alternative Reader, and The Complete Stories of Paul Laurence Dunbar.