"The Puppet-Player" by Angelina Weld Grimké

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July 26, 2020  

The Puppet-Player


Angelina Weld Grimké

Sometimes it seems as though some puppet-player,
   A clenched claw cupping a craggy chin
Sits just beyond the border of our seeing,
   Twitching the strings with slow, sardonic grin.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on July 26, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“The Puppet-Player” originally appeared in Negro Poets and Their Poems (Associated Publishers, 1923).

Angelina Weld Grimké was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1880. A journalist, playwright, teacher, author, and poet, she was a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance and one of the first African-American women to have one of her plays publicly performed. She died in New York City in 1958.

Negro Poets and Their Poems
(Associated Publishers, 1923)

Black Lives Matter Anthology

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but when they walk away
the names fall from our lips.”

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Thanks to Mahogany L. Browne, author of Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice (Roaring Brook Press, 2020), who curated Poem-a-Day for July 20-July 31. Read a Q&A about Browne’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year
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