| Description |
xv, 95 pages ; 21 cm |
| Note |
"Originally published in 1970 and long unavailable, Dark Testament and Other Poems attests to Pauli Murray's fierce lyrical powers. At turns song, prayer, and lamentation, Murray's poems speak to the brutal history of slavery and Jim Crow and the dream of racial justice and equality"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Contents |
Dark testament -- "I am the American heartbreak." ; Color trouble ; To the oppressors ; Mulatto's dilemma ; Mr. Roosevelt regrets ; Harlem riot, 1943 ; The passing of F.D.R. ; Collect for Poplarville ; For Mack C. Parker ; Ruth ; Psalm of deliverance -- "I . . . am not contain'd between my hat and my boots." ; Youth to age ; Youth, 1933 ; The newer cry ; Hate ; Quarrel ; To poets who have rebelled ; Tongues ; The song of the highway ; Conscription--1940 ; War widow ; Woman and man ; Nazarene ; Death of a friend ; Conflict ; Prophecy -- No greener spring. Without name ; Tears ; Counsel ; Dinner for three ; Prelude to spring ; Love's more enduring uses ; Icarus ; Of death and doom ; Words ; Aloofness ; Empty of seed ; Paradox ; For Pan ; Anguish ; A presence ; Memo in bronze ; Returning spring ; Unconquerable dust ; The wanderer ; Conquest ; Love in wartime ; Redemption. |
| Summary |
For readers discovering the great civil rights activist Pauli Murray, here, at last returned to print, is Dark Testament and Other Poems, Murray's sole poetry collection and a revelatory work crucial to her identity as "rebel, instigator, survivor...opener-of-doors, and always a devout child of God and friend to mankind" (Patricia Bell-Scott). Prize-winning poet Elizabeth Alexander illuminated in her introduction how Murray's poems lay bare the brutal history of slavery and Jim Crow while holding up the dream of racial justice and human connection. "Poetry," she says, "was where [Murray] could imagine herself into other identities and experiences...Murray used poetry as a tool to slow down and experience, deeply, what is means to be among the most vulnerable and the most resilient...It seemed she understood poetry as a space for exploration and self-knowing, for crystallizing perception and disturbance into form, and thus, for a moment, subduing the roiling seas"--back cover. |
| Subject |
American poetry.
|
| Genre |
Poetry.
|
| Added Author |
Alexander, Elizabeth, 1962- writer of introduction.
|
| ISBN |
9781631494833 (paperback) |
|
163149483X (paperback) |
|
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