The late great writer and poet, Henry Dumas, has been on my TBR for ages. However I didn’t have any of his books until last year when I purchased this short story collection from Coffee House Press. Note that his work isn’t easy to find these days.  His writing has been deemed brilliant and influential. Through his work he developed themes of the Black Aesthetic Movement which was eminent in the 1960s and early 1970s. He was also influenced by Moms Mabley, gospel, jazz, blues, and spirituals. Sadly Dumas was shot to death in 1968 by a New York City Transit Police officer, while waiting on a subway platform. It is believed that his death was a case of mistaken identity, although there is no proof of that. I can’t wait to get into this one!  Here is his brief and exceptional bibliography:

Poetry for My People (1970) (poetry)

Ark of Bones and Other Stories (1974) (short stories)

Play Ebony, Play Ivory (1974) (poetry)

Jonah and the Green Stone (1976) (novel)

Rope of Wind and Other Stories (1979) (short stories)

Goodbye, Sweetwater: New and Selected Stories (1988) (short stories)

Knees of a Natural Man: The Selected Poetry of Henry Dumas (1989) (poetry)

Echo Tree: The Collected Short Fiction of Henry Dumas (Coffee House Press, 2003) (short stories)

Quote: (Themes in this quote = slavery, freedom, capitalism, greed, america…)

“If an eagle be imprisoned
on the back of a coin,
and the coin tossed
into the sky,
the coin will spin,
the coin will flutter,
but the eagle will never fly.”
― Henry Dumas

Echo Tree The Collected Short Fiction of Henry Dumas – Henry Dumas, paperback, 381 pages (Coffee House Press)

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