AUSTIN STRAUS reads from THE LOVE PROJECT

The Love Project: A Marriage Made in Poetry (Red Hen Press)

There's plenty of love between Wanda Coleman and Austin Straus, but it has an edge: every kiss, every snuggle, every touch is political. How to make a marriage work under the unyielding pressures of racial bigotry and cultural bias? How to maintain their creativity and independence as poets and artists faced with the daily pressures of survival? For over three decades, Coleman and Straus have grappled with these questions--and with one another. Together, they have built a wall of desire, carnal and spiritual, to shield them from an often unwelcoming world. The Love Project sings their blood oath in an open and jazzy verse that holds nothing back, offering to the world some of the better that has flowered between them.

Austin Straus, poet and visual artist, makes beautiful unique books, now in many collections. He was married to Wanda Coleman for nearly 33 years.