Revolutionary Petunias: And Other Poems
By Alice Walker
4/5
()
About this ebook
When Alice Walker published her second collection of poems in 1976, she had spent the previous decade deeply immersed in the civil rights movement. In these verses are her most visceral reactions to a moment in history that would shape the country, and that she herself influenced through words and advocacy. In hymns to ancestors, passionate polemics, and laments for lost possibilities, Walker addresses the problems of the past while keeping an eye on the possibilities of the future. Even in the midst of the call for change, these poems reveal a deep yearning for individual connection to others, as well as a deeply personal connection to nature.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Alice Walker including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.
Alice Walker
Alice Walker, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, is a canonical figure in American letters. She is the author of The Color Purple, The Temple of My Familiar, Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful, The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart, Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart, and many other works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Her writings have been translated into more than two dozen languages, and more than fifteen million copies of her books have been sold worldwide.
Read more from Alice Walker
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Third Life of Grange Copeland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Living by the Word: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker, 1965–2000 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Prose Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Once: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meridian Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indispensable Zinn: The Essential Writings of the "People's Historian" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World Will Follow Joy: Turning Madness into Flowers (New Poems) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Meridian and The Third Life of Grange Copeland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHorses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGeneral's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Howard Zinn's Southern Diary: Sit-ins, Civil Rights, and Black Women's Student Activism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cushion in the Road: Meditation and Wandering as the Whole World Awakens to Being in Harm's Way Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quilt Stories: A Collection of Short Stories, Poems and Plays Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5
Related to Revolutionary Petunias
Related ebooks
Once: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crossfire: A Litany for Survival Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Possessing the Secret of Joy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meridian Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Temple of My Familiar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlues: For All the Changes: New Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sweet Breath of Life: A Poetic Narrative of the African-American Family Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Next: New Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quilting: Poems 1987-1990 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Plays: Lawing and Jawing; Forty Yards; Woofing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsthe terrible stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51919 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-AmericanFeminist Thought Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Meridian and The Third Life of Grange Copeland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tradition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (ReadOn Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet (Rediscovered Books): With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related categories
Reviews for Revolutionary Petunias
33 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While this collection of poems is not as developed as her later poems, many of the themes of family and church, particularly in the first section, resonated with me. Walker's form uses short lines and short poems.
Book preview
Revolutionary Petunias - Alice Walker
EARLY BIRD BOOKS
FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY
LOVE TO READ?
LOVE GREAT SALES?
GET FANTASTIC DEALS ON BESTSELLING EBOOKS DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX EVERY DAY!
signupRevolutionary Petunias and Other Poems
Alice Walker
Humbly for George Jackson, who could still smile sometimes.…
Whose eyes warmed to life until the end; whose face was determined, unconquered, and sweet.
And for my heroes, heroines, and friends of early SNCC whose courage and beauty burned me forever.
And for the Mississippi Delta legend of Bob Moses.
And for Winson Hudson and Fannie Lou Hamer whose strength and compassion I cherish.
And for my friend, Charles Merrill, the artist, who paints skies.
And for Mel, the Trouper’s father, who daily fights and daily loves, from a great heart.
Contents
Publisher’s Note
In These Dissenting Times … Surrounding Ground and Autobiography
In These Dissenting Times
I The Old Men Used to Sing
II Winking at a Funeral
III Women
IV Three Dollars Cash
V You Had to Go to Funerals
VI Uncles
VII They Take a Little Nip
VIII Sunday School, Circa 1950
Burial I-VI
For My Sister Molly Who in the Fifties
Eagle Rock
Baptism
J, My Good Friend (another foolish innocent)
View from Rosehill Cemetery: Vicksburg
Revolutionary Petunias …the Living Through
Revolutionary Petunias
Expect Nothing
Be Nobody’s Darling
Reassurance
Nothing Is Right
Crucifixions
Black Mail
Lonely Particular
Perfection
The Girl Who Died #1
Ending
Lost My Voice? Of Course / for Beanie
The Girl Who Died #2 / for d.p.
The Old Warrior Terror
Judge Every One with Perfect Calm
The QPP
He Said Come
Mysteries…the Living Beyond
Mysteries
I
II
III
IV
Gift
Clutter-Up People
Thief
Will
Rage
Storm
What the Finger Writes
Forbidden Things
No Fixed Place
New Face
The Nature of This Flower Is to Bloom
While Love Is Unfashionable
Beyond What
The Nature of This Flower Is to Bloom
A Biography of Alice Walker
Publisher’s Note
Long before they were ever written