Songs of a Black Bird

Chicago: Third World Press, 1969. RARE - SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR at title page -"To Jason, Peace & love, These things I wish for you. Keep on pushing forward. Carolyn M. Rodgers." Near Fine, crease at top edge rear wrapper. First Edition, Second Printing 1969 stated. 39 pages in gray stapled wrappers. No other signed copies of any of her books found in commerce as of January, 2024. Carolyn M. Rodgers, (December 14, 1940 - April 2, 2010) grew up in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. She was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2012. "Her real writing education, though, was in the writing workshops of the arts collection the Organization of Black American Culture. Rodgers, a student of Gwendolyn Brooks, read many of her poems at coffeehouses that served as the heart of the Black Arts Movement. She featured the poet as an individual strident and feminist, and a society in conflict. She wrote of relationships between mother-daughter and black men and women, street life, identity, love, and over the course of her career explored shifting values that included a concern with religion. She experimented in form as well as theme. Following the success of Paper Soul, Rodgers received the first Conrad Kent Rivers Memorial Fund Award (1968); after the publication of Songs of a Blackbird, she was given the Poet Laureate Award from the Society of Midland Authors (1970; How I Got Ovah: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for the National Book Award (1976). Rodgers also received a National Endowment of the Arts award. She helped found Third World Press and began Eden Press with a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, and worked as a social worker." (Chicago Literary Hall of Fame). . SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR. Second Printing. Printed Wrappers. Near Fine/No Jacket, As Issued. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Presentation Copy.