Disclaimer: I received a copy from the publisher via a Netgalley giveaway.
Prior to reading this collection, I read Dunbar before, his “Frederick Douglass” for instance. I hadn’t realized, however, how absolutely lovely and brilliant his nature poetry is. Or how snarky he can be.
Or how he even wrote a power about passion, love, and respect – “Passion and Love”, which is a somewhat strange read – sounding like forerunner for the #MeToo but contradictory to a degree considering his beating his wife nearly to death.
This collection is the complete poems. I hadn’t heard of Mint Editions before, but they are a no frills publisher of classics. So a no-frills edition – no introduction or footnotes. This edition is good, the copy is clean. There is a table of contents, but I do wish there was index. To be fair, this lack of an index seems to happen in various affordable imprints.
Dunbar is known for his use colloquial dialect. While this might make reading some of his poems difficult/harder. It is well worth it for the representation of a life that was.
His poems outside of the ones about nature or love, also deal with issues such as the Terror that occurred during Reconstruction, or about daily life (including eating possum). There are also several charming poems about plays and novels, in particular the connection of the two and the reader/viewer. His poems on love, and, in particular the cost of love are good as well.
But the nature poetry. He wrote a poem about a sparrow. A really good poem about sparrows.
There is also a poem that makes me think of an M. R. James story.
Then there is the poem about apples that works in Eden and Troy.
Dunbar should be more widely read, and this complete collection is an excellent and affordable place to start.
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