Black Sister: Poetry by Black American Women, 1746-1980

Item

Title: Black Sister: Poetry by Black American Women, 1746-1980
This edition: "Black Sister: Poetry by Black American Women, 1746-1980" . Ed. Erlene Stetson. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1981. xxiv+312 pp.
Table of contents: Lucy Terry -- Phillis Wheatley -- Ada -- Charlotte Forten [Grimké] -- Sojourner Truth -- Frances E.W. Harper -- Henrietta Cordelia Ray -- Clara Ann Thompson -- Ann Plato -- Rosalie Jonas -- Lucy Ariel Wiliams -- Georgia Douglas Johnson -- Angelina Weld Grimké -- Jessie Redmon Fauset -- Alice Dunbar-Nelson -- Anne Spencer -- Gwendolyn B. Bennett -- Helene Johnson -- Carrie Williams Clifford -- Bessie Calhoun Bird -- Pauli Murray -- Mae V. Cowdery -- Margaret Walker -- Gwendolyn Brooks -- May Miller -- Margaret Goss Burroughs -- Gloria C. Oden -- Naomi Long Madgett -- Margaret Danner -- Kattie M. Cumbo -- Sarah Webster Fabio -- Mari Evans -- Alice S. Cobb -- June Jordan -- Jayne Cortez -- Della Burt -- Fareedah Allah -- Carolyn M. Rodgers -- Linda Piper -- Carole C. Gregory -- Jo Ann Hall-Evans -- Johari M. Kunjufu -- Irma McClaurin -- Audre Lorde -- Gayl Jones -- Alice Walker -- Pinkie Gordon Lane -- Nikki Giovanni -- Patricia Parker -- Sonia Sanchez -- Lucille Clifton -- Patricia Jones -- Sherley Anne Williams -- Maya Angelou -- Ntozake Shange -- Thadious M. Davis -- Melba Joyce Boyd -- Colleen J. McElroy.

[Contents in WorldCat]
Eighteenth and nineteenth-century poets. Bars fight, August 28, 1746 / Lucy Terry -- Selection for "liberty and peace, a poem" ; To a gentleman and lady on the death of the lady's brother and sister, and a child of the name Avis, aged one year ; To S.M. a young African painter, on seeing his work ; On imagination / Phillis Wheatley -- Lines, suggested on reading 'an appeal to Christian women of the south, ' by A.E. Grimké ; [Untitled] ; Lines ; To the memory of J. Horace Kimball / Ada -- A parting hymn ; Poem ; To W.L.G. on reading his 'chosen queen' / Charlotte Forten [Grimké] -- Ain't I a woman? / Sojourner Truth -- A double standard ; Vashti ; Learning to read ; An appeal to my countrywomen ; She's free! ; The crocuses ; The mission of the flowers / Frances E. W. Harper -- Robert G. Shaw ; Idyl: sunrise ; Idyl: sunset ; To my father ; Milton ; The dawn of love ; Antigone and Oedipus / Henrietta Cordelia Ray -- His answer ; Mrs. Johnson objects / Clara Ann Thompson -- The natives of America ; To the first of August ; Reflections, written on visiting the grave of a venerated friend / Ann Plato -- Twentieth-century poets. Ballade des belles milatraisses ; Brother baptis' on woman suffrage / Rosalie Jonas -- Northboun' / Lucy Ariel Williams -- I want to die while you love me ; The heart of a woman ; My little dreams ; Smothered fires / Georgia Douglas Johnson -- A Mona Lisa ; At April ; To keep the memory of Charlotte Forten Grimke ; For the candle light / Angelina Weld Grimké -- Touche ; Oriflamme / Jessie Redmon Fauset -- Sonnet ; I sit and sew ; Snow in October ; Music / Alice Dunbar-Nelson -- At the carnival ; Before the feast of Shushan ; Letter to my sister ; Substitution ; Lady, lady / Anne Spencer -- Fantasy ; Hatred ; Song ; Secret ; Advice ; To a dark girl ; To usward ; Heritage / Gwendolyn B. Bennett -- Bottled ; Magalu ; The road ; Trees at night ; Summer matures / Helene Johnson -- The black draftee from Dixie / Carrie Williams Clifford -- Proof / Bessie Calhoun Bird -- Dark testament ; Inquietude ; Song / Pauli Murray -- I sit and wait for beauty / Mae V. Cowdery -- Lineage ; Kissie Lee ; Molly Means ; Ballad of the hoppy-toad / Margaret Walker -- The mother ; The bean eaters ; The birth in a narrow room ; The anniad ; Appendix to the anniad / Gwendolyn Brooks -- Gift from Kenya ; Not that far / May Miller -- To soulfolk ; Black pride ; Only in this way ; Everybody but me / Margaret Goss Burroughs -- This child is the mother / Gloria C. Oden -- Deacon Morgan ; Exits and entrances ; Midway ; Nomen ; New day ; Black woman / Naomi Long Madgett -- A grandson is a hoticeberg ; The rhetoric of Langston Hughes ; At home in Dakar / Margaret Danner -- Nocturnal sounds ; Domestics ; Black sister ; The morning after ... love ; I'm a dreamer ; Ceremony / Kattie M. Cumbo -- Back into the garden ; To turn from love ; All day we've longed for night / Sarah Webster Fabio -- Daufuskie (four movements). Jake ; The people gather ; Janis ; How will you call me, brother ; ... And the old women gathered (the gospel singers) / Mari Evans -- The searching ; Angela Davis / Alice S. Cobb -- Poem for Nana / June Jordan -- Orisha ; Phraseology ; Orange chiffon ; Under the edge of February ; So many feathers ; In the morning ; Grinding vibrato / Jayne Cortez -- Spirit flowers ; A little girl's dream world ; On the death of Lisa Lyman / Della Burt -- Hush, honey ; Cinderella ; Funky football ; You made it rain ; The generation gap ; Lawd, dese colored chillum / Fareedah Allah -- Poem for some black women ; Masquerade ; Jesus was crucified or: it must be deep ; U name this one / Carolyn M. Rodgers -- Sweet Ethel ; Missionaries in the jungle / Linda Piper -- Love letter ; Revelation ; A freedom song for the black woman ; The greater friendship Baptist church / Carole C. Gregory -- Cape coast castle revisited ; Seduction / Jo Ann Hall-Evans -- Ceremony ; Return ; The promise / Johari M. Kunjufu -- The mask ; To a gone era ; I, woman / Irma McClaurin -- Coal ; Chain ; Summer oracle ; Harriet ; Naturally ; The woman thing / Audre Lorde -- 3-31-70 ; Tripart ; Satori ; Many die here / Gayl Jones -- Revolutionary petunias ; Once ; Early losses: a requiem / Alice Walker -- On being head of the English department ; When you read this poem ; Sexual privacy of women on welfare ; Migration ; Who is my brother? ; Nocturne / Pinkie Gordon Lane -- Nikki-Rosa ; Woman poem ; Mother's habits ; Knoxville, Tennesee / Nikki Giovani -- From the cavities of bones ; I followed a path ; There is a woman in this town / Patricia Parker -- Memorial ; Poem at thirty ; Summer words for a sister addict / Sonia Sanchez -- The lost baby poem ; My mama moved among the days ; Miss Rosie / Lucille Clifton -- I done got so thirsty that my mouth waters at the thought of rain ; Why I like movies / Patricia Jones -- The empress brand trim: Ruby reminisces ; Say hello to John ; The house of desire ; Driving wheel / Sherley Anne Williams -- Woman me ; Still I rise ; My Arkansas ; Sepia fashion show ; On diverse deviations / Maya Angelou -- Nappy edges (a cross country sojourn) ; Dark phrases ; No more love poems #1 ; Frank Albert & Viola Benzena Owens / Ntozake Shange -- It's all the same ; Remembering Fannie Lou Hamer ; Double take at relais de l'espadon ; "Honeysuckle was the saddest odor of all, I think." ; Asante sana, te te / Thadious M. Davis -- Sunflowers and Saturdays ; Why? ; Beer drops / Melba Joyce Boyd -- Ruth ; Caledonia ; Looking for a country under its original name ; A woman's song / Colleen J. McElroy.
Reviews and notices of anthology: • n/a
Commentary on anthology: • "Most anthologies of black American poetry include the work of women, but often, because of constraints of space, represent them with only one poem each. Here, the various talents of black American women are more fully displayed. Beginning with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century poets, we have four poems by Phillis Wheatley, seven each by Frances E. W. Harper and Henriette Cordelia Ray. The twentieth-century poets include Angelina Weld Grimké, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Helene Johnson, Margaret Walker, Mari Evans, and the great Gwendolyn Brooks; younger poets are Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, an Ntozake Shange. This is a collection of the highest quality. All the poets who appear here are well worth the time of the general reader" ("The Columbia Granger's Guide to Poetry Anthologies". Ed. William Katz, Linda Sternberg Katz, and Esther Crain. 2nd enlarged ed. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. 6).
• Selections form 58 African American women poets; "a good collection with an excellent bibliography and introductory material but, regrettably, no biographical notes" (Kinnamon 1997: 471).
Cited in: Kinnamon 1997: 471
• Indexed in "The Columbia Granger's Index to African-American Poetry" (1999)
Item Number: A0218

Item sets: Anthologies

Media: Front cover