Ruffled Feathers: African American Poetry and Prose

by Clara Lee

Below deck, the perilous journey aboard the ship from the African continent reeked with the smell of death. Chained inside the guts of the ship, the moaning and groaning for relief from the living torment ring out through the stale air. These cries can still be heard anchored on the wings of time. Another soul whose life has ended is pulled out and brought on deck to be thrown into the sea. A mountain of decomposed bones remains on the bottom of the world’s oceans from the coasts of Africa to the shores of the Americas. One hundred million perished in the middle passage.

Ruffled Feathers is a collection of poetry and prose revisiting the sorrow and terrifying experiences of a captured people and their plight. From Goree Island to slave markets in the Americas, these poems take you on a journey and recall stories, imagined and real of what took place for many Black men, women, boys, and girls. This collection also tells stories of the horrors of lynching, and the wholesale separation of Black people and their families. Events during the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s, present-day racist terrorism, police brutality and poems that reflect the author’s sentiment are presented in the book.

Kindle Edition

Published September 24, 2025