LibGuides: African American Women Writers: Sherley Anne Williams

Sherley Anne Williams (1944-1999), American poet, critic and novelist, came to prominence with the publication of her second book, The Peacock Poems, in 1975. Her body of work, especially her poetry, is concerned with the language of power relationships between people of different races, economic classes and genders. Thematically and formally, her work is influenced by oral traditions, blues music, black women's struggles and triumphs, and the legacies of economic oppression, including slavery.

Genre: Historical fiction; Relationship fiction

More about Sherley Anne Williams at ProQuest One Literature

By Sherley Anne Williams

The Peacock Poems by Sherley Anne Williams
The Peacock Poems, Sherley Anne Williams' first book of poetry, was nominated for a National Book Award.

About Sherley Anne Williams

Black Sister: poetry by black American women, 1746-1980 by Erlene Stetson (Editor)
Introductory essays are followed by selections from the works of 58 African-American women poets dating back to the eighteenth century.
Black Women Writers at Work by Claudia Tate (Editor)
A collection of interviews with Black women authors: Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis Deveaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, Sherley Anne Williams
Down from the Mountaintop by Melissa Walker
Since the peak of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, African-American women have produced many significant novels that grapple with the struggle for social justice. Melissa Walker offers fresh readings of 18 of these novels examining how they relate to the movement and to its failure to achieve educational, economic and social equality.