Printer's Fist: Poems: Vanderbilt University Literary Prize
Autor Melissa Range Cuvânt înainte de Major Jacksonen Limba Engleză Paperback – 15 mar 2026
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780826500090
ISBN-10: 0826500099
Pagini: 190
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 mm
Editura: Vanderbilt University Press
Colecția Vanderbilt University Press
Seria Vanderbilt University Literary Prize
ISBN-10: 0826500099
Pagini: 190
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 mm
Editura: Vanderbilt University Press
Colecția Vanderbilt University Press
Seria Vanderbilt University Literary Prize
Recenzii
“Melissa Range’s Printer’s Fist flies squarely in the face of exclusionary American history to counter efforts to privilege a particular perspective. Part of the play and, ironically, joy of this book is the way Range uses the archive as poetic form. This is probably what I find most astonishing about this collection, that while it remains fervently committed to its ethical assertions, the play of this poet’s mind across its subject matter points us toward further discovery and reflection.”
—Gregory Pardlo, Vanderbilt University Literary Prize jurist
—Gregory Pardlo, Vanderbilt University Literary Prize jurist
Notă biografică
Melissa Range is the author of Scriptorium, winner of the 2015 National Poetry Series competition, and Horse and Rider, a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Prize. Her recent poems have appeared in Ecotone, The Hopkins Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Nation, and Ploughshares. Range has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the American Antiquarian Society, the Fine Arts Work Center, and MacDowell. Originally from East Tennessee, she teaches creative writing and American literature at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.
Extras
To the Public.
In a lecture in 1847, William Wells Brown famously said, “Slavery has never been represented; slavery never can be represented.” Reader, neither is my object to represent, but rather to call us back to our forebears, to our shared history. I did not grow up learning much of anything at all about this history, and maybe neither did you, but when I went looking for it, it was there. It has always been there, and despite attempts to erase it, it will always be there.
In the pages of newspapers from another century, in the lines of poems written by poets long dead, in the chapters of freedom narratives, in the folded leaves of tracts, in the notes of songs and hymns, in the petitions of activist organizations and the minutes of racial justice conventions and the scrawl of letters, I followed the threads of a story, not of a single person but of a larger movement—operating across geographies, sometimes in concert and often in conflict—for emancipation and abolition. There are more stories than can be contained in any physical archive; this, like any history, is a partial history.
The efforts of countless journalists, historians, archivists, activists, and librarians made this book possible. I approached my work as I imagine they do. Like a journalist, I sought to report; like a historian, I sought to understand; like an archivist, I sought to preserve; like an activist, I sought to agitate; like a librarian, I sought to share.
Reader, if you find yourself asking, “Well, but why did you want to write this book?” you would not be the first to pose that question. Why does anyone make anything without a rage for something to exist—something like true, lasting justice—that doesn’t yet? In 1859, Frances Ellen Watkins wrote to fellow abolitionist William Still, “I have a right to do my share of the work. If there is any rough common work to be done, call on me.” This is my share of the work of our shared history. It is rough and it is common. Any errors are my own.
Juno
far from Dorchester, South Carolina, 1733
Not two weeks after arriving on the Speaker
from Cabinda—salt and caulk,
acute horizon—she abolished
the transaction her enslaver
thought secure, emancipated
herself from that plantation.
You can read about it
in the South Carolina Gazette—
a handsome reward offered
for Juno, Juno named by whom?
Thought to be fourteen or fifteen.
Described as new, strait-limbed,
with a large scar on her right knee,
whereabouts unknown.
The captain, the trader, the enslaver—
their names not hard to find
in the primary sources.
Swamp map, primary source of the river
she plotted. (Their names not hard for her to forget—
captain, trader, enslaver—
their whereabouts unknown to her,
unregarded as a scar one has carried long.)
Needle grass, cypress knees, palmetto limbs—
she was fourteen, or fifteen, or sixteen, or twelve.
Juno not her name; her name, she knew.
She handed herself forward,
her body moving west from the Gazette ad
she had no need to read.
Her home not that plantation.
Her name emancipator. Though
the enslaver’s next transaction was secure—
headed to London, then Cabinda,
salt and caulk, horizonless—
the Speaker leaving port not two weeks later.
In a lecture in 1847, William Wells Brown famously said, “Slavery has never been represented; slavery never can be represented.” Reader, neither is my object to represent, but rather to call us back to our forebears, to our shared history. I did not grow up learning much of anything at all about this history, and maybe neither did you, but when I went looking for it, it was there. It has always been there, and despite attempts to erase it, it will always be there.
In the pages of newspapers from another century, in the lines of poems written by poets long dead, in the chapters of freedom narratives, in the folded leaves of tracts, in the notes of songs and hymns, in the petitions of activist organizations and the minutes of racial justice conventions and the scrawl of letters, I followed the threads of a story, not of a single person but of a larger movement—operating across geographies, sometimes in concert and often in conflict—for emancipation and abolition. There are more stories than can be contained in any physical archive; this, like any history, is a partial history.
The efforts of countless journalists, historians, archivists, activists, and librarians made this book possible. I approached my work as I imagine they do. Like a journalist, I sought to report; like a historian, I sought to understand; like an archivist, I sought to preserve; like an activist, I sought to agitate; like a librarian, I sought to share.
Reader, if you find yourself asking, “Well, but why did you want to write this book?” you would not be the first to pose that question. Why does anyone make anything without a rage for something to exist—something like true, lasting justice—that doesn’t yet? In 1859, Frances Ellen Watkins wrote to fellow abolitionist William Still, “I have a right to do my share of the work. If there is any rough common work to be done, call on me.” This is my share of the work of our shared history. It is rough and it is common. Any errors are my own.
Juno
far from Dorchester, South Carolina, 1733
Not two weeks after arriving on the Speaker
from Cabinda—salt and caulk,
acute horizon—she abolished
the transaction her enslaver
thought secure, emancipated
herself from that plantation.
You can read about it
in the South Carolina Gazette—
a handsome reward offered
for Juno, Juno named by whom?
Thought to be fourteen or fifteen.
Described as new, strait-limbed,
with a large scar on her right knee,
whereabouts unknown.
The captain, the trader, the enslaver—
their names not hard to find
in the primary sources.
Swamp map, primary source of the river
she plotted. (Their names not hard for her to forget—
captain, trader, enslaver—
their whereabouts unknown to her,
unregarded as a scar one has carried long.)
Needle grass, cypress knees, palmetto limbs—
she was fourteen, or fifteen, or sixteen, or twelve.
Juno not her name; her name, she knew.
She handed herself forward,
her body moving west from the Gazette ad
she had no need to read.
Her home not that plantation.
Her name emancipator. Though
the enslaver’s next transaction was secure—
headed to London, then Cabinda,
salt and caulk, horizonless—
the Speaker leaving port not two weeks later.
Cuprins
To the Public
Juno
Righteousness Exalteth a Nation
In the Years Before the Antislavery Societies Formed
Fort Mose
From the Subscriber
Index: Gabriel’s Conspiracy
Thomas Branagan Sends His Poem The PenitentialTyrant to Thomas Jefferson
The Gradualists Wait
William Lloyd Garrison Apprentices as a Printer’s Devil at the Newburyport Herald
Winny v. Whitesides, Decided for the Plaintiff
At Denmark Vesey’s Church
Our Country Is the World—Our Countrymen Are All Mankind
Benjamin Lundy Relocates the Genius of Universal Emancipation
John B. Russwurm, Editor of Freedom’s Journal, Reverses his Position
David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World Goes South
Angelina Grimké Ruins Her Clothes
Another Southern Manumission Society Disbands
James Forten, Sailmaker, Sends William Lloyd Garrison Twenty-Seven Paid Subscriptions for the First Issue of the Liberator
Elizabeth Margaret Chandler Passes on Dessert
Garrison Issues the Call in the Liberator
Liberty is the Word for Me—Above All, Liberty
Noyes Academy
James G. Birney, Editor of the Philanthropist, is Fairly Egged Off the Ground
The Philadelphia Female Antislavery Society’s Third Annual Petition Drive
The House of Representatives Passes the “Gag Rule”
Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy, Editor of the Alton Observer
Sarah Louisa Forten Does Not Speak from the Archives
Abby Kelley Lectures Against Slavery in a One-Room Schoolhouse
The Grimké Sisters at Work on American Slavery As It Is
The American Antislavery Society Splits after Abby Kelley is Elected to the Business Committee
Right Is of No Sex—Truth Is of No Color
Come-Outers
After the Split, The National Antislavery Standard Publishes Its First Issue
Black Women Split Off
Julia Williams Garnet Collaborates with Reverend Henry Highland Garnet on an Address to the Slaves of the United States of America
The National Colored Convention Subcommittee Votes 19-18 Not to Endorse An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America
Frederick Douglass Publishes the First Issue of the North Star
Black and White Women Continue Working Together
Preparations for Another Antislavery Bazaar Continue
Minutes
Without Concealment, Without Compromise
Minty, Moses
William Wells Brown Performs from The Antislavery Harp
Cottonocracy
The Train from Macon
Public Opinion Shifts After the Passing of the Fugitive Slave Law
Clementine Averill Writes to Senator Jeremiah Clemens
Harriet Beecher Stowe Writes Chapter Nine of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Mary Ann Shadd Advocates Emigration in Notes of Canada West
Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison Officially Split
No Union with Slaveholders
William Still, General Vigilance Committee Secretary, Takes Notes
Martin R. Delany Writes in to Frederick Douglass’ Paper about Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Fourth of July with the Massachusetts Antislavery Society
Colporteur
Frances Ellen Watkins Lodges Two Weeks with Mary Brown
To the Slave Power
Enter the Wide-Awakes
“Written by Herself” (I)
Devoted to the Rights of All Mankind
John Greenleaf Whittier Argues with Himself about the Use of Force
First South
Harriet Jacobs Writes in to the Liberator about the Condition of the Freed People
Special Edition: Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation
Black Teachers Mobilize, All Parts South
Quartermaster Sergeant James H. Payne, 27th U.S.C.T., Ohio, Writes in to the Christian Recorder
George Moses Horton, Poet
Levy Done Places an “Information Wanted” Ad in the Colored Tennessean
“Written by Herself” (II)
For the Abolitionist Dead
Notes
Juno
Righteousness Exalteth a Nation
In the Years Before the Antislavery Societies Formed
Fort Mose
From the Subscriber
Index: Gabriel’s Conspiracy
Thomas Branagan Sends His Poem The PenitentialTyrant to Thomas Jefferson
The Gradualists Wait
William Lloyd Garrison Apprentices as a Printer’s Devil at the Newburyport Herald
Winny v. Whitesides, Decided for the Plaintiff
At Denmark Vesey’s Church
Our Country Is the World—Our Countrymen Are All Mankind
Benjamin Lundy Relocates the Genius of Universal Emancipation
John B. Russwurm, Editor of Freedom’s Journal, Reverses his Position
David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World Goes South
Angelina Grimké Ruins Her Clothes
Another Southern Manumission Society Disbands
James Forten, Sailmaker, Sends William Lloyd Garrison Twenty-Seven Paid Subscriptions for the First Issue of the Liberator
Elizabeth Margaret Chandler Passes on Dessert
Garrison Issues the Call in the Liberator
Liberty is the Word for Me—Above All, Liberty
Noyes Academy
James G. Birney, Editor of the Philanthropist, is Fairly Egged Off the Ground
The Philadelphia Female Antislavery Society’s Third Annual Petition Drive
The House of Representatives Passes the “Gag Rule”
Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy, Editor of the Alton Observer
Sarah Louisa Forten Does Not Speak from the Archives
Abby Kelley Lectures Against Slavery in a One-Room Schoolhouse
The Grimké Sisters at Work on American Slavery As It Is
The American Antislavery Society Splits after Abby Kelley is Elected to the Business Committee
Right Is of No Sex—Truth Is of No Color
Come-Outers
After the Split, The National Antislavery Standard Publishes Its First Issue
Black Women Split Off
Julia Williams Garnet Collaborates with Reverend Henry Highland Garnet on an Address to the Slaves of the United States of America
The National Colored Convention Subcommittee Votes 19-18 Not to Endorse An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America
Frederick Douglass Publishes the First Issue of the North Star
Black and White Women Continue Working Together
Preparations for Another Antislavery Bazaar Continue
Minutes
Without Concealment, Without Compromise
Minty, Moses
William Wells Brown Performs from The Antislavery Harp
Cottonocracy
The Train from Macon
Public Opinion Shifts After the Passing of the Fugitive Slave Law
Clementine Averill Writes to Senator Jeremiah Clemens
Harriet Beecher Stowe Writes Chapter Nine of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Mary Ann Shadd Advocates Emigration in Notes of Canada West
Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison Officially Split
No Union with Slaveholders
William Still, General Vigilance Committee Secretary, Takes Notes
Martin R. Delany Writes in to Frederick Douglass’ Paper about Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Fourth of July with the Massachusetts Antislavery Society
Colporteur
Frances Ellen Watkins Lodges Two Weeks with Mary Brown
To the Slave Power
Enter the Wide-Awakes
“Written by Herself” (I)
Devoted to the Rights of All Mankind
John Greenleaf Whittier Argues with Himself about the Use of Force
First South
Harriet Jacobs Writes in to the Liberator about the Condition of the Freed People
Special Edition: Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation
Black Teachers Mobilize, All Parts South
Quartermaster Sergeant James H. Payne, 27th U.S.C.T., Ohio, Writes in to the Christian Recorder
George Moses Horton, Poet
Levy Done Places an “Information Wanted” Ad in the Colored Tennessean
“Written by Herself” (II)
For the Abolitionist Dead
Notes
Descriere
An archivally driven poetry collection that tells the story of the antislavery movement in the United States with a particular focus on its print culture