I SHALL NOT BE MOVED

New York: Random House, 1990. FIRST EDITION. 220 x 130 mm. (8 5/8 x 5 1/4"). x, 48 pp., [1] leaf.
Publisher's purple paper boards, backed with navy blue buckram, cover and spine lettered in copper foil. In original dust jacket. INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR on the half title: "Pamela, Joy! Maya Angelou." Leaves faintly browned at edges because of paper stock, otherwise a fine copy in a fine jacket.

This is a well-preserved, joyfully inscribed copy of Maya Angelou's fifth collection of poems. With a title borrowed from a traditional Black spiritual, the verses here cover a variety of themes, particularly labor, love, and the specific Black American experience, as well as the universality of the human condition. We have unfortunately not been able to identify the Pamela to whom Angelou inscribed this copy, but the volume has a notable more recent poetic provenance. We bought the volume from the collection of Laure-Anne Bosselaar (b. 1943) and her husband Kurt Brown (1944-2013). Bosselaar is a Belgian-American poet, translator, and editor who has published numerous works of poetry in multiple languages, including five collections of her own works. She has received various prizes and recognitions (Pushcart, Isabella Gardner, Breadloaf) and was named Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara in 2019. Sometimes publishing jointly with Bosselaar, Brown was also a prolific poet and editor of anthologies, as well as the founder and first director of the Aspen Writer's Conference, playing a pivotal role in shaping its early vision and establishing Aspen as a literary center..