It's the Brian Air Show on WNYC.

Good morning again everyone.

February is Black History Month

and the official theme of Black History Month

in the United States this year is African Americans and the arts.

And to that end we are thrilled to welcome Kwame Alexander today in his role as editor of a

new book called This is the Honey, an anthology of contemporary black poets.

And we're going to ask them to read a few selections.

And you may know the massively creative Quami Alexander as a poet or an educator or a publisher or an Emmy-winning

TV producer or the author of around 40 books including for children and, some of them bestsellers.

You may know his book released last year called

Why Fathers Cry at Night, a memoir in Love Poems, Letters,

Recipes, and remembrances.

His best known book and TV series might be the middle school

targeted the crossover.

You know that book?

It came out in 2014. It's been awarded the American Library Association's Newberry Medal for Literature for Children and a Coretta Scott King Award, which is also for youth-oriented writing.

And some of your parents out there probably

know the TV series version of the crossover,

which ran just last year on Disney Plus

and won the 2023 Emmy just recently for Outstanding Young Teen Series and was

produced by Kwame Alexander with LeBron James Production Company and yes it's partly about kids involved with basketball.

...