Heart, a Daughter’s Love: Poems for Us to Share
(2001), and Crowning Glory (2002).
Although several of her collections of poems
were written for children and young adults, for ex-
ample, Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea, Thomas’s
early poems, many of which first appeared in Yard-
bird Reader II, a journal edited by ISHMAEL REED,
with themes of love, the black church, and black
women, were clearly directed at a more adult audi-
ence. “Rain” is exemplary:
Rain
Background music
for a dream
in C minor
tap dancing
off beat, on beat
tiny drums
tickling
glass lookouts
spilling
wetted balls
in evanescent designs
on waiting
window panes. (Bittersweet, 16)Similarly, “Did You Know Tomorrow” echoes the
texture in Thomas’s language that, as Eugene Red-
mond describes, “economize[s] without displaying
abruptness or undecipherable code” (411).
Memories of preparation for going to church
on Sunday are celebrated in “Church Poem”:
The smell of sage
mingles with burnt hair
and mama prepares
Sunday dinner
on Saturday night.“Blessing” reveals the deep influence of Thom-
as’s fundamentalist Christian upbringing, par-
ticularly its central lessons of forgiveness and
compassion, as well as the bittersweet humor and
emphasis on the positive that pervades many of
her poems.
From 1982 to 2003, Thomas published almost
20 collections of stories and fiction for young
adults, including Marked by Fire (1982), Journey
(1988), I Have Heard of a Land (1998), and The
Gospel of Cinderella (2000). Thomas is the editor
of two anthologies: A Gathering of Flowers: Stories
about Being Young in America and Linda Brown,
You Are Not Alone: The Brown v. Board of Educa-
tion Decision (2003), a collection of stories, poems,
and personal reflections by prominent writers and
individuals, including Reed and QUINCY TROUPE,
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1954
landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v.
Board of Education, which tore down the walls of
legal segregation in American public schools in the
South. Curtis James beautifully illustrates the text.
Thomas also published adult fiction, including
House of Light: A Novel.
Thomas has received a plethora of awards and
recognition for her work. Her first novel, Marked
by Fire (1982), won the National Book Award, the
American Book Award, the Outstanding Book of
the Year from The New York Times, and Best Book
for Young Adults from the American Library As-
sociation. She has won several Coretta Scott King
Author Honor Book awards and the Notable Chil-
dren’s Book from the National Council of Teach-
ers of English. Thomas currently lives in Berkeley,
California.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Redmond, Eugene B. Drumvoices: The Mission of
Afro-American Poetry: A Critical Mission. Garden
City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1976.
Tomas, Joyce Carol. Bittersweet. San Jose, Calif.: Fire-
sign Press, 1973.
———. Blessing. Berkeley, Calif.: Jocato Press, 1975.
Wilfred D. SamuelsThomas, Lorenzo (1944–2005)
A native of the Republic of Panama, Thomas, the
son of Herbert Hamilton Thomas and Luzmilda
Gilling Thomas, grew up in New York City, to
which his parents migrated in 1948 when he was
four years of age. Thomas attended Queens Col-
lege. A music historian and veteran of the Vietnam
War, Thomas, during the height of the BLACK ARTS494 Thomas, Lorenzo