Author: Ann Vandenberg

A white American and a Nigerian read Jean Toomer’s Cane 

(Updated December 2020 and March 2025)

I picked up Jean Toomer’s Cane (1923) to listen in on words from an old rural black Georgia that was still touched by slavery. What I found was an appreciation for black beauty.

The Norton Critical Reader edited by Rudolph P. Byrd and Henry Louis Gates Jr. informed me that Toomer was not an insider to old rural black Georgia culture. A mixed-race middle-class Washingtonian, Continue reading The last sweet scent of cane

Geoffrey Chaucer meets Atlanta parade artist Chantelle Rytter

(Updated March 2025)

If there was ever a time to speak of communion – with each other, with nature, with country – that time is now. Geoffrey Chaucer, one of the first poets to write in English (rather than the elite Latin or French), shows us a way to come together in community in Parliament of Fowls, his exquisite tribute to love and mating.

I was reminded of Parliament early one morning last year while driving through my neighborhood with the windows rolled down.  A raucous chorus of birds called out, and I turned to see a crowd of them gathered on a lawn as if holding an assembly of some kind. The fact that it was near Valentine’s Day made it all the more fitting.

Chaucer’s poem celebrates birds of all kinds who convene annually on Saint Valentine’s Day in the garden of the Goddess of Love’s temple to pick their mates.

Continue reading Parliament of [F]owls