queercomicsconnection: Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958) Playwright, journalist, teacher, and
queercomicsconnection:Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958)Playwright, journalist, teacher, and poet from a young age, Grimké is best known for her work Rachel, A Play of Protest - perhaps the first play by an African-American woman to ever run in a public theater, and one that examined the devastating impact of a lynching on a black family. Her biracial identity (and her high profile family), her romantic love for women (which she could not make public while living), and her disability (forcing an early retirement after serious back injury) all informed her political and person writings alike. She was admired by Harlem Renaissance writers such as Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, and her poems, plays, short stories, and essays all ring clear and true today with pain, longing, and love. You can read more of her poetry here, and a selection focusing on romance here, and learn more about her life here and here! YouI love your throat, so fragrant, fair,The little pulses beating there; Your eye-brows’ shy and questioning air; I love your shadowed hair. I love your flame-touched ivory skin;Your little fingers frail and thin;Your dimple creeping out and in;I love your pointed chin. I love the way you move, you rise;Your fluttering gestures, just-caught cries; I am not sane, I am not wise, God! how I love your eyes! The Black FingerI have just seen a beautiful thing Slim and still, Against a gold, gold sky, A straight cypress, Sensitive Exquisite, A black finger Pointing upwards. Why, beautiful, still finger are you black? And why are you pointing upwards? Brown GirlIn the hot gold sunlight, Brown girl, brown girl,You smile; And in your great eyes,Very gold, very bright,I see little bells,Shaking so lazily,(Oh! small they are)I hear the bells.But at fawn dusk Brown girl, brown girl,I see no smile,I hear no bells. Your great eyes Are quiet pools; They have been drinking, drinking,All the day, The hot gold of sunlight. Your eyes spill sunlightOver the dusk Close your eyes,I hear nothing but the beating of my heart. -- source link
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