Poem

Gladys Casely-Hayford, read by Newgatenovelist (LibriVox)

“Poem” asks why Black poets sing grief touched with gladness, and answers that God shaped the soul of the race in a moment of sadness, with hope as his tool. Published in The Crisis in October 1927, under her pen name Aquah Laluah. Gladys Casely-Hayford (1904–1950) was a poet whose mother was a Krio educator from Freetown. She taught at the Girls' Vocational School in Freetown and wrote some of her poems in Krio. This reading is by a LibriVox volunteer.