Runagate

Auteur

Crystal Simone Smith is Instructor of the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University and author of Dark Testament: Blackout Poems.

Texte du rabat

Crystal Simone Smith’s new poetry collection, Runagate, reimagines the experiences of enslaved and formerly enslaved persons in a stark and chilling response to the archives of chattel slavery: bills of sale, interviews, stories, and fugitive runaway ads.

Contenu

Foreword / Ce Rosenow
Prefatory Note
Prologue. Runagate: What to the Slave Is the Semiquincentennial?
Freedom on the Move: Rediscovering the Stories of Self-Liberating People
Haiku Sequences
Henry & Maria
Jemmy
Lucy
Asko or Glasgow
Clinton
Jack (and Paul)
Peter
Dave
Grace (and Tom)
Mariah Frances
Peggy
John Bull
Austin
Ely or July
Robbin
Sam
Anderson
Emily
Harriett, Bella, Elsey, and Milly
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States, Part 1
Tanka
hard worked days
one pair of shoes
we spent nights
for breaking dishes
oh my brother’s
dead slave woman
the worst sales—
our mama cooked
Mistress Mary was kind
I was awakened
day the Yankees came
I had sixteen children
Smithfield slave market
allowed no pleasures
Master made me go
we worked winter
Christmas Eve
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States, Part 2
Tanka Sequences
Ain’t You My Child
After the Stars Fell
Confederate Lieutenant Robert Wals
Joe High
Sarah Anne Green
Essex Henry
Epilogue. For Ancestor Ernestine Turner (b. 1827)
Acknowledgments
Freedom on the Move: A Note