Poetry can be, by nature, elusive; perhaps therein lies its particular beauty. As an illustrator I have always found this form of literature appealing, for it affords the artist the freedom to indulge in the unconditional use of poetic license. This particular collection of poems is no exception: their highly personal nature calls out for equally personal and interpretative images. By emphasizing the symbolic elements inherent in the poems, rather than the literal, I have sought to celebrate the mysterious, lyrical quality that pervades this collection.


Thematically, I, Too, Sing America: Three Centuries of African American Poetry is the natural outgrowth of a large body of work I’ve done within the context of the African American experience, ranging from the trials and tribulations of 19th century America, to the life and times of Langston Hughes. Both technically and stylistically, however, this volume represents a departure for me. Whereby my previous work revolving around such themes is characterized by the dramatic use of one and two-color relief-block prints, as well as by the austere use of tone in the form of monochromatic paintings, this volume instead embraces the realm of lush color - a fitting home for the vivid imaginations celebrated throughout these pages. Most importantly, the images are permeated with a sense of shimmering luminosity that, by design, softens the contours of even the most monumental forms.

Just as the words of these poems were designed to resonate and to transcend their inherent economy of means - so too is my use of color in these images. In the case of verse, two words often serve to evoke a third word. Likewise, in the world of color, when two colors are placed judiciously side by side, they can serve to suggest a third vibrant hue, if only in the eye of the beholder. To accomplish this, colors, like words, require room in which to breathe. This resonance can best be achieved by allowing an almost imperceptible zone of “neutral” space to exist between areas, indeed dots - of color, an effect similar to that which is produced by the presence of pregnant pauses between words in a poem.

As if to compliment this symbolic use of color, my impassioned collaborator Catherine Clinton has cast a revealing beam of light onto the poets and their words, thus gracing this book with a sense of balanced symmetry, at the center of which lie the poems themselves.

Stephen Alcorn
Cambridge, New York

© The Alcorn Studio & Gallery