This is the first complete collection of Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Harlem Renaissance poems, which invites readers to absorb the true breadth and depth of Fauset’s insightful and relevant poetry. Her beautiful and accessible poems are as profound and moving today as they were a hundred years ago.

Fauset's novels and short stories addressed themes of racial identity, gender restraints, class conflicts, and institutional racism. Her fiction opens a door to her inner self. Through her poetry, she brings us even closer to her heart with more intimate expressions of beauty, love, anger, pain, and playfulness. “La Vie C’est La Vie” expresses unrequited love. “Oriflamme” is a powerful and personal indictment of slavery. Fauset contributed many fun and adventurous poems for children to The Brownies’ Book.

Jessie Fauset was published more than any other African American woman of the Harlem Renaissance. Her poetry appeared consistently in anthologies and periodicals. And yet her accomplishments as a literary artist have been largely overlooked. Today, Fauset’s writing is being reexamined and applauded.

As the Literary Editor of The Crisis, the largest African American periodical of the era, Fauset discovered and cultivated writers, including Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. Fauset was the Literary Editor of The Brownies’ Book, the first magazine dedicated to entertaining and empowering African American children. For more than two decades, Fauset shared influential articles, essays, and reviews, and worked tirelessly as an activist for race and gender equality.

Includes an Introduction with Fauset's biography and insights into her poetry.