Salas (English, Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa) has a hypothesis that African American authors are often viewed as spokespersons for expected themes rather than as individuals who are part of the Western tradition and happen to be African American. She thus reads Pulitzer Prize-winning Kamunyakaa's poetry, e.g., his collection of 132 poems in Talking Dirty to the Gods (2000), for its formal properties as much as for its themes that transcend but do not deny the roles of race, gender, and class. Distributed by Associated University Presses. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)