{"id":51,"date":"2019-10-24T16:15:10","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T16:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/?page_id=51"},"modified":"2020-04-21T18:31:28","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T18:31:28","slug":"for-my-people","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/home\/for-my-people\/","title":{"rendered":"For My People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>[UD_EXHIBITION_ITEM]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>For My People<\/em>\u00a0is the collection that put Walker on the map. \u00a0Composed of sonnets, ballads, and lyrical portraits, it demonstrates her mastery of form. \u00a0More importantly, it established her as a poet of the culture, cadences and legends of the African American culture of the South. \u00a0Poet Stephen Vincent Ben\u00e9t appreciated this fact in his forward to the book. \u00a0Walker would eventually learn that Ben\u00e9t had to exert great pressure for her to be awarded the Yale Series of Younger Poets award for\u00a0<em>For My People<\/em>. \u00a0This was no doubt due to her race and gender. The overall tone of\u00a0<em>For My People<\/em>\u00a0is one of cultural and racial affirmation.\u00a0 At the same time, certain poems bear witness to African Americans\u2019 struggle for survival, and the suffering born of oppression:<br>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><strong>Memory<\/strong><br>I can remember wind-swept streets of cities<br>on cold and bluster nights, on rainy days:<br>heads under shabby felts and parasols<br>and shoulders hunched against a sharp concern:<br>seeing hurt bewilderment on poor faces,<br>smiling a deep and sinister unrest<br>these brooding people cautiously caress;<br>hearing ghostly marching on pavement stones<br>and closing fast around their squares of hate.<br>I can remember seeing them alone,<br>at work, and in their tenements at home.<br>I can remember hearing all they said:<br>their muttering protests, their whispered oaths,<br>and all that spells their living in distress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[UD_EXHIBITION_ITEM] For My People\u00a0is the collection that put Walker on the map. \u00a0Composed of sonnets, ballads, and lyrical portraits, it demonstrates her mastery of form. \u00a0More importantly, it established her as a poet of the culture, cadences and legends of the African American culture of the South. \u00a0Poet Stephen Vincent Ben\u00e9t appreciated this fact in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":47,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-exhibition.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-51","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87,"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51\/revisions\/87"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhibitions.lib.udel.edu\/margaret-walker-centenary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}