Love's Instruments

Scholar, novelist, and poet MELVIN DIXON penned, in addition to Love’s Instruments, the poetry collection Change of Territory and the novels Trouble the Water (1989), which won a Nilon Award for Excellence in Minority Fiction, and Vanishing Rooms (1991). Influenced by James Baldwin, Dixon wrote extensively about the complexities of being a gay black man. A recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he taught at Wesleyan University, the City University of New York, Fordham University, Columbia University, and Williams College. He died from complications related to AIDS at age 42 in 1992.

ELIZABETH ALEXANDER is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, the inaugural Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University, and a founding member of Cave Canem. Her poetry collections include The Venus Hottentot, Body of Life, Antebellum Dream Book, and Crave Radiance.