05/18/2022
The Black Finger
BY ANGELINA WELD GRIMKร
I have just seen a most beautiful thing
โโโโโโSlim and still
Against a gold, gold sky,
A straight black cypress,
โโโโโโSensitive,
โโโโโโExquisite,
โโโโโโA black finger
โโโโโโPointing upwards.
Why, beautiful still finger, are you black?
And why arc you pointing upwards?
{Born in Boston, poet and playwright Angelina Weld Grimkรฉ was named after her great-aunt, the abolitionist and suffragist Angelina Grimkรฉ Weld. Grimkรฉ earned a degree from the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics in physical education. She is the author of important poems on love and race, including โEl Beso,โ โDawn,โ โBeware Lest He Awakes,โ and โThe Black Finger.โ Her poems have been anthologized in Negro Poets and Their Poems (1923), The Poetry of the Negro (1949, edited by Langston Hughes), and Caroling Dusk (1927, edited by Countee Cullen).
After graduation, Grimkรฉ taught physical education and English at high schools in Washington, DC. When her father died in 1930, she moved to New York City, where she lived until her death.} -author bio from Poetry Foundation