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"The Black Finger" by Angelina Weld Grimké

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October 29, 2021 

The Black Finger
Angelina Weld Grimké

  I have just seen a most beautiful thing,
                     Slim and still,
              Against a gold, gold sky,
              A straight black cypress,
                     Sensitive,
                     Exquisite,
                     A black finger
                     Pointing upwards.
Why, beautiful still finger, are you black?
And why are you pointing upwards?

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 29, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“The Black Finger” appeared in The New Negro: An Interpretation (Albert & Charles Boni, Inc., 1925). 

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 among the first African-American women to have one of her plays publicly performed. She died in New York City in 1958.
The New Negro: An Interpretation
(Albert & Charles Boni, Inc., 1925)

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Thanks to Safiya Sinclair, author of Cannibal (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Listen to a Q&A about Sinclair’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year. 
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