Octavia: Guthrie and Beyond
$15.00
Naomi Long Madgett
Madgett’s eighth collection of poems won a Creative Achievement Award from the College Language Association and is the basis of a documentary film (Vander Films) which won a Gold Apple Award of Excellence from the National Educational Media Network. First published by Third World Press as part of Octavia and Other Poems, this is a reprint of the book-length title poem, illustrated with old photographs, an added foreword and updated family information appended. Readers are rewarded by the artistry of the poetry and their sense of participation in the lives of the Long family members during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Octavia and Other Poems was made required reading in all Detroit public high schools.
Haunted by a lifelong sense of identification with an aunt she never knew, Madgett has recreated in poetry the life and death of Octavia Cornelia Long after carefully researching family letters, studying old photographs, and visiting Guthrie, Oklahoma. This book is not just family history but poetry that reverberates with sensitivity, lyricism, understated emotion, and creative use of language.
