Other books that might interest you

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  The Day-Breakers

  Michael Fraser

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  Saturated with locutions lifted from the late 19th century, The Day-Breakers deeply conceives of what African Canadian soldiers experienced before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War.
  		 
  “It is not wise to waste the life / Against a stubborn will. / Yet would we die as some have done. / Beating a way for the rising sun” wrote Arna Bontemps. In The Day-Breakers, poet Michael Fraser imagines the selflessness of Black soldiers who fought for the Union during the American Civil War, of whom hundreds were African-Canadian, fighting for the freedom of their brethren and the dawning of a new day. Brilliantly capturing the rhythms of their voices and the era in which they lived and fought, Fraser’s The Day-Breakers is an homage to their sacrifice and an unforgettable act of reclamation: the restoration of a language, and a powerful new perspective on Black history and experience.

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  Bessie's Resurrection

  Kimberly A. Collins

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  Bessie's Resurrection gives voice to Richard Wright's fictional character Bessie Mears from his novel Native Son (1940). These poems offer Bessie room to articulte her experiences as an African American woman and how she suffes in her unenviable position, powerless and unseen. Here, Bessie's fictive character is self actualized by two historical African American trailblazers: Bessie Coleman and Bessie Smith who lived during the same time period when Bessie's story takes place. These poems, which reimagine their lives, are a microcosim of the lived experiences of African American women who face violence, limitations and challenges, Their voices and bodies are resurrected to articulate their ideas of worth to claim a space to speak not only for themselves but also for their sisters who are voiceless. Their lives become three songs which are analogous to the sections in Wright's novel: Fear, Flight and Fate. While Bessie Mears supplies the soundtrack to Bigger's story, it is Bessie Smith's blues sung by Colie Aziza which serve as the soundtrack for Bessie's Resurrection. This collection of poems, written for all three Bessie's, honors Black women as the necessary backbone to the fight against their voices and their bodies being buried alive.

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  Second Home (NHB Modern Plays)

  Charlotte Chimuanya

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  Second Home by Charlotte Chimuanya explores the experiences of growing up mixed-race in twenty-first century Ireland. Naomi is trying to mend her broken heart. But will tackling grief and racism in a place she calls home prove to be the final betrayal?
  Second Home was first staged at VAULT Festival, London, in 2020, and was selected for publication in Plays from VAULT 5, an anthology of five of the best plays from the festival, published by Nick Hern Books.

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  The Poetry of Adelaide Anne Procter

  Adelaide Anne Proctor

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  Adelaide Anne Procter was born on 30th October, 1825 at 25 Bedford Square in the Bloomsbury district of London.  Her literary career began whilst still a teenager.  Many of her poems were published by the great Charles Dickens in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round before being later published in book form. 
  A voracious reader, Procter was largely self-taught, though she did study at Queen's College in Harley Street in 1850.  Her interest in poetry grew from an early age.  
  By 1853 she was submitting pieces to Dickens's Household Words under her pseudonym Mary Berwick, electing that this way her work would be judged for its own worth rather than on the friendship between her father and Dickens.  Dickens didn’t learn of her true identity for over a year.  
  ‘Ministering Angels’ was to be the beginning of a long and mutually beneficial relationship of publishing in Dickens’ journals that would eventually reach 73 poems in House words together with a further 7 poems in All the Year Round, most of which were collected and later published into her first two volumes of poetry, both entitled Legends and Lyrics.   
  Procter was also the editor of the journal Victoria Regia, which became the showpiece of the Victoria Press, a venture hoping to promote the employment of women in all manner of trades and professions.  
  Procter’s health failed in 1862. Dickens and others suggested that this illness was due to her extensive and exhausting schedule of charity work.  
  An attempt to improve her health by taking a cure at Malvern failed.  
  Adelaide Anne Procter died on 3rd February 1864 of tuberculosis. She had been bed-ridden for almost a year. Procter was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.

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  Song (Coleridge version)

  Hartley Coleridge

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  LibriVox volunteers bring you 10 recordings of Song by Hartley Coleridge. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of November 16th, 2008.

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  55 Days

  Howard Brenton

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  A gripping historical drama that dramatises a crucial moment of English history. Premiered at Hampstead Theatre in October 2012.
  December 1648. The Army has occupied London. Parliament votes not to put the imprisoned king on trial, so the Army moves against Westminster in the first and only military coup in English history. What follows over the next fifty-five days, as Cromwell seeks to compromise with a king who will do no such thing, is nothing less than the forging of a new nation, an entirely new world.
  Howard Brenton's play depicts the dangerous and dramatic days when, in a country exhausted by Civil War, a few great men attempt to think the unthinkable: to create a country without a king.
  'A forgotten era of revolutionary British history is fascinatingly unlocked... electrifying.' Whatonstage.com
  '[A] confident and idea-packed piece... It could have been a dour history lesson. Instead it engages with the present, raising some pungent questions about the kind of democracy we have in Britain today.' Evening Standard

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