#Black American Literature

[attallahblog]

Can’t nothing heal without pain.

[sivavakkiyar]

Chapter title and entirety of Chapter 15 from Vincent O. Carter’s The Bern Book

[sableacademy]

🌟 Celebrating Nikki Giovanni! 🌟

Celebrating the powerful words of Nikki Giovanni, one of the key figures of the Black Arts Movement. In this poem "Woman," Giovanni explores themes of identity, self-empowerment, independence, and unfulfilled relationships. The poem captures a woman seeking to define herself on her own terms and yearning for mutual understanding and support in her relationship. However, when the man in her life fails to reciprocate, she ultimately embraces her individuality and self-reliance. Her evocative language and poignant insights make this poem a must-read for poetry lovers and fans of her work.

[mysharona1987]

[readersmagnet]

American't: The Corporate Plantation by King Bell

King Bell’s powerful book, “American’t,” delves deep into the challenges of six Black men in The Corporate Plantation. Through their eyes, you will gain a unique perspective on the struggles of being Black in a country that seems to be against you. This novel will make you question your American citizenship in a way that is both funny and moving.

Learn about what it’s like to be Black in America. Grab a copy at www.americant.theauthorkingbell.com.

[mimi-0007]

[sbrown82]

“I remember an incident from my own childhood, when a very close friend of mine and I, we were walking down the street. We were discussing whether God existed. And she said he did not. And I said he did. But then she said she had proof. She said, ‘I had been praying for two years for blue eyes, and he never gave me any.’ So, I just remember turning around and looking at her. She was very, very Black. And she was very, very, very, very beautiful. How painful. Can you imagine that kind of pain? About that, about color? So, I wanted to say you know, this kind of racism hurts. This is not lynchings, and murders, and drownings. This is interior pain. So deep. For an 11 year-old girl to believe that if she only had some characteristic of the white world, she would be okay. [Black girls] surrendered completely to the master narrative. I mean the whole notion of what is ugliness, what is worthlessness. She got it from her family, she got it from school, she got it from the movies — she got it everywhere; it’s white male life. The master narrative is whatever ideological script that is being imposed by the people in authority on everybody else. The master fiction, history, it has a certain point of view. So, when these little girls see that the most prized gift that they can get at Christmastime is this little white doll, that’s the master narrative speaking: “This is beautiful. This is lovely, and you’re not it.”

Toni Morrison on what inspired her to write her first novel, The Bluest Eye.

[cleopatragirlie]

❀ 𝐉𝐨𝐚𝐧 𝐃𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐧 ❀

[thefugitivesaint]

Dorothy Lake Gregory (1893-1975), ''Early Candlelight Stories'' by Stella C. Shetter, 1922 Source

[spoiledbratblog]

[attallahblog]

Me and you we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.

[newvision]

— Danez Smith, iv. not an ode for John Crawford (a bop) from Black Movie

[chaoticsoft]

Toni Morrison, 1974.

Photographer: Waring Abbott

[ceyflap]

Annabel Lee

How beautifully Poe told his love. And also his loss.

Poor Annabel Lee, got cold and sick and then she died. She was buried somewhere by the sea. Poe went her side, her grave everyday.. he spent nights there, he spent days there.. such a love!

Poe makes another point about his love, they were so in love with each other that even the angels in the heaven was jealous of them.. it's a love of inconceivable magnitude. And that's why, God were jealous of this love and separated them.

It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me- Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea.