Love's Exquisite Freedom by Maya Angelou & Edward Burne-Jones

A few days ago when I visited the Strand Bookstore with my black studies travelers, I did not expect to buy any books. I was mainly going to peruse the books. After visiting the "black studies" section, I made my way to the Poetry section, that's where I discovered a work by Maya Angelou that was unfamiliar to me.

Love's Exquisite Freedom (2011) combines work by Angelou and Edward Burne-Jones (1833--1898). The book presents lines from Angelou's poem "love's exquisite freedom" as an accompaniment to art by Burne-Jones who was a leading British artist of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.  

The book stood out to me for a few reasons. For one, I was not expecting to come across an African American poet's work in the "over-sized book" portion of the Poetry section. In addition, I rarely encounter works that blend artwork and poetry, and the combination of European art with a poem by a black woman was even more unusual. Thus, I was drawn to this book and wanted to take a closer look.


Related: Black Studies, NYC, 2012