05/18/2022
The Black Finger
BY 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 arc you pointing upwards?
{Born in Boston, poet and playwright Angelina Weld Grimké was named after her great-aunt, the abolitionist and suffragist Angelina Grimké Weld. Grimké 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 “El Beso,” “Dawn,” “Beware Lest He Awakes,” and “The Black Finger.” 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, Grimké 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
