And, again, thanks to Pamela Espeland, my editor, my friend.
PUBLISHER’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Cynthia Williams, Chief Archivist at Tuskegee University; to Curtis Gregory and the George Washington Carver National Monument staff; to Al Zissler.
LIST OF POEMS
Arachis Hypogaea
Baby Carver
Bedside Reading
Cafeteria Food
Called
Cercospora
A Charmed Life
Chemistry 101
Chicken Talk
Clay
Coincidence
Curve-Breaker
Dawn Walk
The Dimensions of the Milky Way
Drifter
Driving Dr. Carver
Egyptian Blue
Eureka
Four a.m. in the Woods
Friends in the Klan
From an Alabama Farmer
“God’s Little Workshop”
Goliath
Green-Thumb Boy
House Ways and Means
How a Dream Dies
The Joy of Sewing
The Lace-Maker
The Last Rose of Summer
Last Talk with Jim Hardwick
Letter to Mrs. Hardwick
Lovingly Sons
Mineralogy
Moton Field
My Beloved Friend
My Dear Spiritual Boy
My People
The Nervous System of the Beetle
The New Rooster
1905
Odalisque
Old Settlers’ Reunion
Out of “Slave’s Ransom”
Out of the Fire
A Patriarch’s Blessing
The Penol Cures
The Perceiving Self
The Prayer of Miss Budd
Poultry Husbandry
Prayer of the Ivory-Handled Knife
Professor Carver’s Bible Class
Ruellia Noctiflora
A Ship Without a Rudder
The Sweet-Hearts
Veil-Raisers
Washboard Wizard
Watkins Laundry and Apothecary
The Wild Garden
The Year of the Sky-Smear
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS
Tuskegee University Archives
P. H. Polk portrait of Carver, p. 2; George & Jim Carver, p. 12; Carver as a young man, p. 16; Miss Budd’s art class, p.23; Carver at Iowa State, p. 25; Carver painting, p. 32; Carver at Tuskegee, p. 33; Laboratory at Tuskegee, p. 39; Carver working in a lab, p. 45; Carver in the field, p. 48; Moses Carver, p. 55; portrait of Carver, p. 67 Carver painting, p. 69; Carver in the field, p. 71; Carver as an old man, p. 82; Carver reading, p. 90; Carver and Curtis, p. 92.
National Park Service, Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site
Photos by Eric Long, Courtesy Museum Management Program, NPS
Slate (TUIN 863), p. 15; spectacles and case (TUIN 1519), p. 42; paint sample (TUIN 285), p. 50; sampler (section) (TUIN 409), p. 56; vasculum (specimen case) (TUIN 1528), p. 74; pocket watch (TUIN 1518) and Bible (TUIN 629), p. 75; peanut specimen (TUIN 1811), p. 89.
George Washington Carver National Monument
The Milholland family, p. 21
Iowa State University
The Faculty at Tuskegee, p. 35
National Archives
Jesup wagon, p. 47
Library of Congress
Booker T. Washington, p. 61; the KKK, p. 81
Al Zissler, Carver, and Jim Hardwick, p. 87, Al Zissler
Melvin Moton Nelson, p. 97, Marilyn Nelson
Commemorative Carver Stamps, p. 98, Sanford L. Byrd, ESPER
NOTES ON FIRST PUBLICATION
“Out of ‘Slave’s Ransom,’” “Prayer of the Ivory-Handled Knife,” “Watkins Laundry and Apothecary” first appeared in Teacup. “Drifter” first appeared in The Poetry Review. “The Perceiving Self” first appeared in The New Breadloaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, edited by Michael Collier and Stanley Plumley (Middlebury College Press, 1999). “Washboard Wizard” and “The Prayer of Miss Budd” first appeared in Beyond the Frontier, edited by E. Ethelbert Miller (Black Classics Press, 2000). “Four a.m. in the Woods” first appeared as a broadside published by the Aralia Press (1998). “Cafeteria Food,” “Curve-Breaker,” “My People,” and “Arachis Hypogaea” first appeared in The Gettysburg Review. “Green-Thumb Boy,” “Cercospora,” and “The Nervous System of the Beetle” first appeared in Gulfcoast. “A Charmed Life” first appeared in Literary Cavalcade. “Odalisque,” “Chemistry 101,” and “The Lace-Maker” first appeared in Poetrynet. “Bedside Reading” and “Coincidence” first appeared in Spirituality and Health. “The Wild Garden,” “Mineralogy,” “Poultry Husbandry,” “House Ways and Means,” and “‘God’s Little Workshop’” first appeared in New Letters. “Ruellia Noctiflora” first appeared in The Cortland Review. “Goliath” first appeared in The Frost Place Anthology (Cavankerry Press). “Veil-Raisers” first appeared in The Emily Dickinson Society Journal. “Old Settlers’ Reunion,” “A Ship Without a Rudder,” “From an Alabama Farmer,” “Clay,” “Egyptian Blue,” “Professor Carver’s Bible Class,” and “Friends in the Klan” first appeared in The Connecticut Review. The author is grateful to the editors of these publications.
MARILYN NELSON, poet laureate of the state of Connecticut (2002–2006), is a three-time National Book Award finalist and has won the Anisfield–Wolf Book Award and the Poets’ Prize. Dr. Nelson lives in East Haddam, Connecticut.
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