In Eyes with Winged Thoughts, the forty-four photographs and fifty-eight poems, reflecting on his long and extraordinary life, offer a rare glimpse of his thoughts and feelings about everything from romantic love to the Iraq war and the passing of Pope John Paul II. He has done it all. Gordon Parks's life was an astonishing litany of firsts: in the 1940s he was the first African American photographer to work for the Farm Security Administration and for Vogue and Life magazines; in the 1960s he would become the first African American director of a major motion picture. A dominating figure in contemporary American culture, he was an artist of uncompromising vision and creativity. In 2002 Parks received the Jackie Robinson Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame, just a few in a series of honors that began when he received a prestigious Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in 1941 and which now includes an Emmy, a National Medal of the Arts, and over fifty honorary doctorates. In his nineties, he revealed the luminous photographs on display in Eyes with Winged Thoughts and the poems—some meditative and lyrical, some raw with emotion about the war in Iraq and the tragedy of the tsunami—show that he is still a true American Renaissance man.

Fifty-eight new photographs and more than 40 new poems from the acclaimed photographer, composer, filmmaker, painter, novelist, and journalist are included in this volume.

This historical middle grade novel written in free verse, set against the backdrop of the desegregation battles that took place in Houston, Texas, in 1972, is about a young boy and his family dealing with loss and the revelation of dark family secrets. Ten-year-old Paulie Sanders hates his name because it also belonged to his daddy-his daddy who killed a fellow white man and then crashed his car. With his mama unable to cope, Paulie and his sister, Charlie, move in with their Aunt Bee and attend a new elementary school. But it's 1972, and this new school puts them right in the middle of the Houston School District's war on desegregation. Paulie soon begins to question everything. He hears his daddy's crime was a race-related one; he killed a white man defending a black man, and when Paulie starts picking fights with a black boy at school, he must face his reasons for doing so. When dark family secrets are revealed, the way forward for everyone will change the way Paulie thinks about family forever. The Colors of the Rain is an authentic, heartbreaking portrait of loss and human connection during an era fraught with racial tension set in verse from debut author R. L. Toalson.

Serena, a royal member of the Mabara winged fae, has one goal in mind. Stop an impending marriage with a dark fae. As the fae are known to do, she stirs up trouble that she hopes will make her point and get her off the hook. Only nothing goes as she plans. Niall, a royal member of the Denkar, aka the dark fae, is visiting South Padre Island when he catches a winged fae painting graffiti on a wall on the island claimed by his people. He is at once fascinated with the lovely girl and intrigued by her audacity, but as one of the Denkar, he must take her to task. Yet she's armed with a sleeping potion that makes his life intolerable. Between freeing her from his people's dungeon, her own tower, and fighting a knight in her honor, he wonders if he's lost his mind over one beautiful winged fae--when she's betrothed to his cousin!

The Beautiful, Winged Madness is a state both inspired and mad where one discovers sublime truths and terrifying illusions. It is the domain of Guy, a poet and a painter, and Anna, a performance artist who often wears personas--metaphorical costumes. In present-day Los Angeles, the two artists confront love and pain, beauty and terror, visions and madness, death and rebirth, and the raptures of flesh and spirit in a unique story that takes the reader on an extraordinary odyssey.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

Acclaimed photographer, filmmaker, composer, and author Gordon Parks reflects on his life achievements and the social and political events he has witnessed.

Under the control of the Dark Lord, the Winged Ones capture the Sleepers and try to force them to join air raids of the Desert People. The Sleepers' only hope: to free these flying men from the Dark Lord's evil power.