Song for Anninho
(Book)

"This exquisite book-length poem is set in colonial Brazil, following the destruction of Palmares, the last of seven fugitive slave enclaves beset by the Portuguese. Amid the flight and reenslavement of its inhabitants emerges the love story of Anninho and Almeyda, former African slaves. Song for Anninho offers readers some of Gayl Jones's very best verse."--Back cover

"In seventeenth-century Brazil there were at least seven fugitive African slave enclaves. Palmares, a settlement of more than 20,000, was the longest to survive, but ultimately was destroyed by the Portuguese, who re-enslaved its inhabitants. This book-length poem is the haunting love story of a black man and woman set in the real Palmares." "Anninho, beloved of Almeyda, is an escaped African slave who settled in Palmares. After the final battle between Palmares and the Portuguese, Almeyda, her breasts cut off by a Portuguese soldier, relates her tale of love and escape to her rescuer, Zibatra, a mystic enchantress, biblical scholar, and medicine woman."--Jacket to hardcover (1999)

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