Maryland, and Baltimore in particular, has a rich history of small presses and Black poet-activists, some of whom are represented here. Chicory drew inspiration from the Black Arts Movement in promoting the work of Baltimore’s African American poets and artists. The November 1969 issue proclaimed that part of Chicory’s purpose was to "reflect the music of language in the inner city,” thereby giving voice to people not often represented in more traditional publications. Sam Cornish and Melvin E. Brown were perhaps the most famous Chicory editors. Cornish served as the first from 1966-1970 and he was later Boston’s first Poet Laureate, while Brown was Chicory’s longest-serving editor (1971-1980).
Left: Sam Cornish, People Beneath the Window. Sacco Publishers, 1965.
Right: Melvin E. Brown, In the First Place, Poems. [1st ed.]. Liberation House Press, 1974.
Cornish and Brown both published their first poetry collections with independent political print shops in Baltimore: Cornish’s People Beneath the Window was released by Sacco Publishers, an imprint of Baltimore’s Communist New Era Bookstore, and Brown’s In the First Place was published by Liberation House Press, which was created by Baltimore civil rights activist Walter Hall Lively.
E. Sharon Gomillion, Forty Acres and a Mule. Illustrated by Casey Czarnik, Diana Press, 1973.
Also featured here is E. Sharon Gomillion’s poetry chapbook Forty Acres and a Mule, which addressed the "experience of being [B]lack and a woman in today's world." This book was one of the first publications by Diana Press, a radical feminist/lesbian print shop established in Baltimore.
Lucille Clifton, “All of Us Are All of Us.” Broadside Series, No. 81. Broadside Press, 1974.
Lucille Clifton was the Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979-1985, and lived and worked in Baltimore from the late 1960s through mid-1980s. Her poem “All of Us Are All of Us” was published by the famed Broadside Press during this time, and lists the names of Black people, characters, and sites of resistance in an incantation of solidarity.
