Denmark Vesey and Other Poems, including translations from the Yiddish [INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR TO EDITH SEGAL*]

Kramer, Aaron. Denmark Vesey and Other Poems, including translations from the Yiddish [INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR TO EDITH SEGAL*]. New York: Published by the author, 1952. First edition. Octavo. 48pp. Original printed wrappers. Title page inscribed and signed by the author to Edith Segal*. Aaron Kramer was a versatile American poet passionately engaged with everything from the Holocaust and the Spanish Civil War to his love for New York City and his wife. His “Denmark Vesey,” stands as one of the most ambitious poems about African American history ever written by a white American. In this twenty-six-poem sequence, Kramer imagines, explores, and makes clear the contemporary significance of the 1822 slave revolt planned but never carried out by the title figure, Denmark Vesey. Wrappers sunned along edges. Fore-edge of pages slightly creased. g to g+. Paperback.

* Edith Segal (1902-1997) was a Jewish-American choreographer, dancer, poet and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City to immigrant parents, Segal chose to pursue a professional career in dance against the wishes of her mother who called her a “bummarke” (Yiddish for bum). She soon became a dance student of the highly regarded Blanche Talmud, and later earned a scholarship with ballet dancer Michael Mordkin. An early supporter of the Soviet Union, in 1929 she formed a dance company known as the Red Dancers. Some of her first works were in tribute to Lenin and were performed at a memorial she organized for him. The next year, along with other American artists, she visited the Soviet Union and upon returning declared with the others that “Art is a weapon”. During this period she also studied with Martha Graham. In 1930 she created her best-known work, Black and White, which was one of the first interracial dance performances in the United States. Black And White has been noted as the signature work in American leftist dance. Other Segal choreographed works on race relations included Scottsboro, Third Degree and Southern Holiday. In addition to civil rights themes, Segal created many dances around Jewish cultural themes as well as worker’s rights, always sympathetic to communist causes. During the Red Scare in the 1950s she was called to testify before the New York state legislature investigating committee regarding her communist ties. (37876) $45