Anthologies of African American Writing

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

"Black Sister: Poetry by Black American Women, 1746-1980" . Ed. Erlene Stetson. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1981. xxiv+312 pp.

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. [Full contents in WorldCat]

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• "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).

Kinnamon 1997: 471
• Indexed in "The Columbia Granger's Index to African-American Poetry" (1999)

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