Collected Black Women's Poetry

These volumes present the works of eleven poets writing in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Volume 1 contains work by Mary E. Tucker Lambert and the notorious Adah Isaacs Menken. The other three volumes contain works by nine other poets. Surprisingly only one of them (Lizelia Moorer) protests at the treatment of her race during this period of social upheaval and injustice. The other poets treat the traditional themes - love nature death Christian idealism and morality family - in conventional forms and language. As interesting for the themes that they address as for those that they ignore these selections offer a sample of poetic voices that until now have gone largely unheard.