Index to poetry by Black American women /

Chapman (Texas Southern) is the compiler of Index to Black Poetry (CH, Jun '75), which included poetry by blacks and poetry about blacks written by whites. Her new compilation is confined to poetry by black American women poets. Although her work indexes more than 4,000 poems by more than 400 poets, it cannot be considered comprehensive, since poets such as Ai (three published books), Rita Dove (six books), and Yvonne (poetry editor at Ms. and author of Iwilla, 1982, and Soil, 1985) are omitted. This volume is shorter than its forthcoming companion volume on black American men poets. Spirituals and other anonymous works are included. Some cross-references that would have been useful are missing: Alice Ruth Moore is Alice Dunbar Nelson; some poems about artists (e.g., Romare Bearden, Wilfredo Lam, and Henry O. Tanner) are not listed under ``Artists.'' But weighed against this index's contribution to scholarship, these are minor omissions. The book consists mostly of a title and first-line index (frequently requested by general readers), supplemented by indexes to authors and to 1,100 subjects. This otherwise creditable work was reproduced by offset from typescript, and contains typographical errors and misspellings that editorial attention would have eliminated; the foreword is a rehash of that from the earlier index and is filled with inconsistencies and typographical errors. Students and general readers.-B.K. Gubert, Schomburg Center, New York Public Library