"Jones's great achievement is to reckon with both history and
interiority, and to collapse the boundary between them."--Anna Wiener,
The New Yorker
From the highly acclaimed author of Corregidora and The
Healing--two epic poems, the love songs of fugitive slaves, set in
17th-century Brazil; continuing the unforgettable journey told in Gayl
Jones's masterwork, Palmares (2021)
Gayl Jones, the novelist Toni Morrison discovered decades ago and Tayari
Jones recently called her favorite writer, offers 2 books in one with
this volume of poetry. Jones renders the saga of Palmares, a
foundational tale in the annals of colonial terrorism and Black
resistance, in verse, told in the voices of the characters in her epic
novel Palmares.
In the late 17th century, the fugitive slave enclave of Palmares was
destroyed by Portuguese colonists. Amid the flight and re-enslavement of
Palmares's inhabitants emerges the love story of Almeyda and Anninho. In
Song for Anninho, Almeyda moves between a dark present, in which she
is once again enslaved and abused by a terrible captor, and memories of
her lover, Anninho, whom she believes to have been killed. Song for
Almeyda, released now for the first time, is told in the voices of
Anninho and his fellow warriors.
Fans of Corregidora (one of the New Yorker's "Best Books We Read in
2020" picks), which tracked the legacy of enslavement, and Palmares
will especially appreciate these verses. Brimming with intimacy,
history, and revolution, the poems collected serve as a declaration of
decolonial love.
