Anthologies of African American Writing

Life Notes: Personal Writings by Contemporary Black Women

"Life Notes: Personal Writings by Contemporary Black Women" . Ed. Patricia Bell-Scott. New York: Norton, 1994. 429 pp.

• Marcia Ann Gillespie / Foreword
• Black Women
• Writing Lives:
• Patricia Bell-Scott / Introduction

Part one
Reflecting Girlhood
• Gwendolyn J. Dungy / In Her Womb
• Evelyn C. Roster / Chocolate Tears and Dreams
• Deborah E. McDowell / Fire and Snow
• Tinuke Oluyomi / Myself
• Quo Vadis Gex-Breaux / Weeds
• Al / Arrival

Part two
Breaching for Self
• Toi Derricotte / At an Artist’s Colony
• Dakota Wells / The Sins of Our Fathers
• Carole Stewart McDonnell / Oreo Blues
• Paulette M. Caldwell / A Hair Piece

Part three
Meaning and Work
• Bell Hooks / Black Woman Artist Becoming
• Rita Dove / The House That Jill Built
• Carroll Parrott Blue / Sometimes a Poem is Twenty Years of Memory
• Barbara Smith / At Yaddo

Part four
Living Love
• Vicki Rodden / Not Letting Go of My Anchor
• Ann Lynn / Breaking the Tires That Bind Me
• Yin Guilter / Setting Relationship Limits
• Quo Vadis Gex-Breaux / Golden Boy
• Dawn B. Bennett-Alexander / Three Daughters

Part five
Naming Violation and Betrayal
• Sapphire / Reflections of Breaking Glass
• Ama R. Saran / Love in the Time of AIDS
• R. H. Douglas / Writing, Screaming, and Healing
• Belvie Rooks / Holding On and Remembering
• Patricia Bell-Scott / Flashbacks and Wounded Children

Part six
Fighting Back
• Audre Lorde / The Cancer Journals
• Elaine Shelly / The Years In Between
• Jamaica Kincaid / A Small Place
• Rise Collins / And Still Rise
• Barbara Smith / The Boston Murders
• Quo Vadis Gex-Breaux / Milwaukee Uncle

Part seven
Claiming a New Self
• Miriam Decosta-Willis / Starting Over
• Judy Scales-Trent / On Turning Fifty
• Lois Florence Lyles / Going Through My Changes
• Pearl Cleage / Live Talk and Random Thoughts
• Quo Vadis Gex-Breaux / Looking
• Deborah E. McDowell / On “Going Home”
• Melina Brown / Natural Monuments

Part eight
Writing From a Different Place
• Alice Walker / Ubud, Bali
• Faith Adiele / Standing Alone with Myself
• Tijuana Murray / Differences and Blurred Vision
• Sonia Sanchez / Bullet Holes of Resistance
• Eleanor Smith / Beautiful Ugly
• Audre Lorde / Showing Our True Colors
• Glenda P. Simms / Afterword

• Contributors

• Credits

• n/a

not in Kinnamon 1997]

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