African American Women Poets from 1746 to the Harlem Renaissance

Race and gender have denied many their rightful place in the canon of humanity’s arts. In today’s world, in the blink of an electronic pulse, words can be transported across continents and peoples and all too easily lost in the ever-growing mass of disposable culture of ‘me-me-me’ and ‘more- more-more’. We can all be ‘woke’ be ‘politically correct’ be outraged at a transgression or even a slight. Everything means something to someone. But, once again, more modern times miss the reality of what others in previous generations suffered in the battle for equality and recognition. In America, to be black and a woman over the years this volume covers, was to be chattel, to be bartered, sold, trafficked and used for no more than the whims of others. It was a harsh reality, and yet…., and yet, these women produced verse that sears our souls with the ambition to tell others, to share with us all, what life was like, what was endured and the heartbreak of what their reality was. They could not be overcome; their voice sought to endure and not be smothered. Words are powerful weapons, they form ideas, they create movements and manifestos that can change the world. Many of the women in this volume added to those words, to that desire that the words of their Constitution would someday include themselves. The fight is not yet wholly won, prejudice and inequality still single them out but the flame of hope, of destiny continues to burn fiercely with their names. Their poetry is not solely of protest but rich in a range of subjects embracing tenderness, love, family and includes works by Alice Dunbar Nelson, Frances W Harper, Phyllis Wheatley, Zora Neale Hurston, Esther Popel, Clarissa Scott Delany and many others whose voice voices call to us through the years. 01 - African American Women Poets from 1746 to the Harlem Renaissance - An Introduction 02 - Bars Fight by Lucy Terry 03 - On Virtue by Phyllis Wheatley 04 - To a Lady and Her Children on the Death of Her Son and Their Brother by Phyllis Wheatley 05 - An Hymn to the Morning by Phyllis Wheatley 06 - An Hymn to the Evening by Phyllis Wheatley 07 - Bury Me in a Free Land by Frances E W Harper 08 - My Mother's Kiss by Frances E W Harper 09 - The Slave Trade Girl's Address to Her Mother by Sarah Louisa Forten 10 - Burial of Sarah by Frances E W Harper 11 - Reflections, Written On Visiting the Grave of a Venerated Friend by Ann Plato 12 - The Natives of America by Ann Plato 13 - The Angel's Visit by Charlotte L Forten Grimke 14 - Disappointment by May E Tucker 15 - Light In Darkness by Mary E Tucker 16 - Hope by Mary E Tucker 17 - Drifts That Bar My Door by Adah Isaacs Menken 18 - Infelix by Adah Isaacs Menken 19 - Aspiration by Adah Isaacs Menken 20 - The Coming Woman by Mary Weston Fordham 21 - In Memorium. Alphonse Campbell Fordham by Mary Weston Fordham 22 - Aspiration by Henrietta Cordelia Ray 23 - Life by Henrietta Cordelia Ray 24 - Scraps of Time by Charlotte E Linden 25 - Brave Man and Brave Woman by Charlotte E Linden 26 - What Constitutes A Negro by Eva Carter Buckner 27 - Thine Own by Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard 28 - The Black Sampson by Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard 29 - The Singer and the Song (To Paul Laurence Dunbar) by Carrie Williams Clifford 30 - The Widening Light by Carrie Williams Clifford 31 - The Door of Hope by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer 32 - Negro Heroines by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer 33 - The Voice of the Negro by Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer 34 - The Angel's Message by Clara Ann Thompson 35 - Not Dead, But Sleeping by Clara Ann Thompson