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February 27, 2022

Exodus

Effie Lee Newsome

Rank fennel and broom
Grown wanly beside
The cottage and room
We once occupied,
But sold for the snows!

The dahoon berry weeps in blood,
I know,
Watched by the crow—
I’ve seen both grow
In those weird wastes of Dixie!

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 27, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“Exodus” appeared in the Crisis XXIX, no. 3 (January, 1925).

Effie Lee Newsome, born Mary Effie Lee on January 19, 1885, in Philadelphia, was a poet from the Harlem Renaissance movement. She is the author of Gladiola Garden: Poems of Outdoors and Indoors for Second Grade Readers (The Associated Publishers, 1940), and published numerous poems in the Crisis, Opportunity, and other leading journals from the Harlem Renaissance. She died in 1979.

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Thanks to John Murillo, author of Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way Books, 2020), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Listen to a Q&A about Murillo’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

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Poem-a-Day - "Exodus" by Effie Lee Newsome

Exodus

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