Welcome to the Saint Heron Community Library; a growing media center dedicated to students, practicing artists and designers, musicians and general literature enthusiasts. We believe our community is deserving of access to the stylistically expansive range of Black and Brown voices in poetry, visual art, critical thought and design. The library’s focus is education, knowledge production, creative inspiration and skill development through works by artists, designers, historians, and activists from around the world. Offered seasonally with selections by guest curators, this collection of rare, author-inscribed and out-of-print literary works can be borrowed up to 45-days, for free to our U.S. based community. Special thanks to our partners
00-01
A Daughter's Geography
Ntozake Shange
Poetry

00-02
Adrian Piper: Reflections 1967-1987
Adrian Piper
Exhibition Catalogue

00-03
American Negro Art
Cedric Dover
Art Catalogue

00-04
An Ordinary Woman
Lucille Clifton
Poetry

00-05
Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North
Arthur Huff Fauset
Non-Fiction / History

00-06
Cap Wigington: An Architectural Legacy in Ice and Stone
David Vassar Taylor & Paul Clifford Larson
Monograph

00-07
Chase-Riboud
Barbara Chase-Riboud
Exhibition Catalogue

00-08
Children Coming Home
Gwendolyn Brooks
Poetry

00-09
Civil Wars
June Jordan
Anthology

00-10
Clay's Ark
Octavia Butler
Science Fiction

00-11
Coal
Audre Lorde
Poetry

00-12
Earthquakes and Sun Rise Missions: Poetry and Essays of Black Renewal
Haki R Mahubuti
Poetry / Essay

00-13
Fifth Sunday
Rita Dove
Poetry / Fiction

00-14
Forty Years of Printmaking: A Retrospective, 1948-1988
Warrington Colescott
Exhibition Catalogue

00-15
Gary Simmons: Ghost House
Gary Simmons, Avery F. Gordon & Louis Grachos
Installation Art / Essay

00-16
Judith Jamison: Aspects of a Dancer
Olga Maynard
Biography

00-17
LA TETE
Julianna Free
Prose Poetry / Illustration / Photography

00-18
Mad at Miles: A Black Woman's Guide to Truth
Pearl Cleage
Non-Fiction

00-19
Martin Puryear: Public and Personal
Martin Puryear
Exhibition Catalogue

00-20
Meteor In A Black Hat
Bob Thompson
Exhibition Catalogue

00-21
My One Good Nerve
Ruby Dee
Short Stories / Essays

00-22
Of Tulips and Shadows: The Visual Metaphors of Dewey Crumpler
Dewey Crumpler
Exhibition Catalogue

00-23
Otán Iyebiyé: Las Piedras Preciosas
Lydia Cabrera
Afro-Cuban Folklore

00-24
Shakespeare in Harlem
Langston Hughes
Poetry

00-25
The Art of Henry O. Tanner
Henry Ossawa Tanner
Exhibition Catalogue

00-26
The Black Unicorn
Audre Lorde
Poetry

00-27
The Clearing and Beyond
May Miller
Poetry

00-28
The Meeting Point
Austin Clarke
Psychological Fiction

00-29
The Soft Voice of the Serpent and Other Stories
Nadine Gordimer
Fiction

00-30
The Theme is Blackness: "The Corner" and Other Plays
Ed Bullins
Drama

Saint Heron is proud to present Season One, curated by Rosa Duffy, founder of the Atlanta-based boutique book shop and community space, For Keeps Books.
Available titles this season include "The Meeting Point" by Austin C. Clarke, "A Daughter's Geography" by Ntozake Shange, "Mad At Miles: A Blackwoman's Guide to Truth" by Pearl Cleage, "An Ordinary Woman" by Lucille Clifton, “My One Good Nerve Rhythms, Rhymes, Reasons” by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis (inscribed by the authors to Maya Angelou) and more. We hope that by encountering these works, our community is inspired to further explore and study the breadth of artistic expression and the impact of Blackness in creative innovation throughout history.
Upon completion of her final selects for this curation, Saint Heron caught up with Rosa Duffy to talk about the significance of these titles and how she hopes to impact the Saint Heron community through their encounters with these works.
Shantel Pass:
What would you say is the driving force leading your selections for the various curated collections you’ve been commissioned for?
Rosa Duffy:
I try to gauge where the reader is and what they're interested in, because when I first opened For Keeps, it had a lot to do with the things that I found super interesting and the things that I felt were missing from the general Black space. I felt like I was looking more towards my own practice, like art books and art curators that came out with their own sets of books pre-2000s, so I could find other artists that I had never heard of. Then it shifted because before I opened [For Keeps], I was moving into the different publishers and who was really publishing these young Black poets or writers before they were ultra popular and before they were in this space. Who were the people that they were spending time with? Who was in their cohort? Who never got the, I guess, shine that they deserved? So it started getting into that space, different publishers, Broadside, the different spaces like the Lower East Side or Detroit or Auburn Ave. As of recently, it's been a lot of Lotus Press, a lot of these queer writers that were never mentioned back in the day. But for this collection, I think, being in the space, I recognized where the general reader is and what they're interested in, and that has changed a lot over the past year . I think people are much more invested in their history and their lineage, so some of the things that people were like, "Oh, this is new and different," they're moving past that.
Shantel Pass:
I think that is one of the things that makes the Saint Heron Library so exceptional. This is all here for us. And though all of the literature from our history is significant, what books, zines, anthologies, etc., did you focus on as essentials for this library space?
Rosa Duffy:
For this Saint Heron Library collection, it was really focusing on the people that we know and love, but we might not know the details of what they do. So highlighting these artists, I think that's really important, because then you get to the different mediums and the different spaces that we can move throughout that we might not always be affirmed that we can move through. So, Martin Puryear is one that I put in the curation, because even to me, he's kind of new. I love Richard Hunt and I love all these people that work with wood and steel and all these things, but I haven't really looked into him that much. So every time I feel excited and new about something, I know that even though people are much more versed than I am in this stuff, I just know the kind of feeling that people are going to get when they see it.
That's what I wanted to focus on; both the classics and the popular stuff. This is the stuff that people were writing for us since the very beginning to help us get through day-to-day life, to help us get through times that we're facing right now. They did this for us, and the reason that they're such popular names is because they had such a strong voice. So that's what I wanted to cover. It varies day to day. There's so much. We are like a goldmine.
Shantel Pass:
Saint Heron believes the expansive range of our history's literary glory should be amplified and easily accessible, especially to our communities, which you very briefly touched on. So that aligns seamlessly with For Keeps' mission. What energy do you hope is conveyed to our community of borrowers through their encounters with these works in particular?
Rosa Duffy:
Great question. When people ask the purpose or mission of the space, it's true accessibility because all of this stuff has existed for all of these years, it didn't just pop up out of nowhere. But the truth is that it's either hoarded, or we just don't know much about it. The folks that know its value sometimes are the ones that are keeping it from the people that it's made for. I have this, Samella Lewis’s “Richmond” book. I've never come across it, and every time I see it, it's incredibly expensive. The library is so that these things that were meant to be in our hands are just in our hands in the same way that they were printed in the East Village, handed out for $1.50 by the droves. That's kind of what I'm trying to mimic or duplicate. “You're welcome to put your hands on it.”
And in these other spaces where I feel like this stuff is hoarded - and everybody has their intentions, so I'm not saying that these spaces are evil... But the truth is, if you're not invited into these spaces or you don't feel invited into these spaces - which Black folks are often not - you can feel like this stuff doesn't belong to you, like you're not allowed to put your hands on it, and it's behind closed doors. So you have to know what you're looking for. You might not necessarily know what you're looking for - not that people don't know these folks - but it's easier to be like, "Oh, I've never heard of this," when it's right in front of you on a table and you can just access it or right in front of you on a list and you can borrow it from somebody.
We're all trying to get liberated in our own ways, in our own space, and these things just help, right? They complete you, and they make you feel like, "Oh, other Black folks have gone through these feelings," whether sorrow or happiness or struggle or whatever. We've experienced all these things. We're not only writing about whatever is popularized. And for people to know that and for people to feel like their elders and their ancestors are still here with them and still helping them through a very specific time and that they've been through it and that they've made mistakes and you can come and you can edit, that's so important.
The more ways that we can do that with free literature between a community, that's the point. So
I just think this is so important, and to put the reasons why you want to read this book or why this person is important and just give people insight into their history is exciting. It's just important for us to know that we exist and we've always existed in these grand ways and that we're not alone. I think that's the key part, is the aloneness of it all. Like, “We've been doing this. Y'all are not the first to create this moment. You won't be the last, unfortunately, and there are people to give you little pieces and guidelines.” So I just love what you all are doing, and I think that whatever we can do to counter the hoarding, and the up-charging - because prices have also changed drastically since I opened. I think it's a revolutionary act to be like, "Y'all are trying to put these books online for this much money, and let's give them to each other for free."
When these people that are in these spaces, library spaces, oftentimes white, come into the store and they're like, "Oh my God, don't you want to put something on this? Don't you want to put a scanner?" I'm like, "No." There's not supposed to be barriers, and that's how things happen if little by little you put a wall up. So I'm trying to actively avoid that, and I think that's what you guys are doing, and I just think it's a beautiful thing. We need all the momentum we can get right now.
Shantel Pass:
Alongside those included in our collection, are there any classic titles, recent or vintage, that are of personal significance to you?
Rosa Duffy:
I love Native Son, so I tell people oftentimes that that's kind of what got me into reading in the space that I am. I actually read Notes of a Native Son, and then I read Native Son, and it's been kind of a thread throughout my life, weirdly enough. We screened one of the films here. I used to go to MoMA , and I saw one of the originals - 1951, I think it was, where Richard Wright plays Bigger. Tar Baby is one of my mom's favorite books, so I try to include it a lot in things. That one is great. Then I love From a Land Where People Live, just because of the Broadside Press of it all. That one has changed so much since the beginning when I opened. Now, it's this rarity that you can't come past. So I love having it right here because I'm like, "I can go through it." But those three, for sure, have significance...
But there are a few more. Chosen Poems is great. I think anything Audre Lorde is amazing, and Octavia Butler, I was really not reading a lot of speculative fiction when I opened or science fiction or anything like that, so being reintroduced to Octavia Butler has been really cool. I also love Gary Simmons because it's one of the first books that I had in here. Before I opened the store, I was working for Radcliffe Bailey for a little bit in his studio, and I remember seeing, he had a Gordon Parks photo on his wall, and I'm like, "I love Gordon!" Like, acting like I knew everything about him, right?
Shantel Pass:
As we do.
*both laughing*
Rosa Duffy:
So I love the Gordon Parks stuff because people oftentimes just think of him as a photographer and he was writing poetry. This one is photography and mixed media. But he does poetry. He was doing painting towards the end of his career. So just finding all of these cool things about the people we love most who have this one-dimensional stamp on them is really, really cool.
Shantel Pass:
Well, you mentioned Octavia Butler, and we have Clay’s Ark. It's really exciting to see sci-fi and other surrealist works in the collection because, until my introduction to the genre, which was a late reading of Octavia’s Lilith’s Brood, I had no interest in it. Now I find myself specifically seeking sci-fi literature sometimes. Almost like a craving. And the selections for the Saint Heron Library inspired a deeper dive, seeing Flying Piranha, and Madam Zanobia’s zodiac/dream book and Otán Oyebiyé: Las Piedras Preciosas by Lydia Cabrera, which is rooted in Afro-Cuban legends. Can you talk a bit about the resonance of folklore and sci-fi literature to those who are less familiar or find it uninteresting?
Rosa Duffy:
I think that, as Black folks, we're storytellers, just in general and whatever form that comes in. It's very much a part of who we are since the beginning of time. So whatever way we tell it, we're trying to tell our history and keep our history and our culture alive. I am very interested in folklore because it's the recurring theme in what we do. So, like you, I did a lot of nonfiction before. You didn't get into speculative fiction. I was a nonfiction person. I was reading a lot of stuff that was historically accurate because I was working from that stuff for my artwork. So I was like, "I love finding factual information about what we were going through and translating that into whatever," which is kind of telling stories as well. Like you said, I didn't get into speculative fiction or anything like that until later on.
Ted Jones, though, with Flying Piranha, I've always loved him as a poet, and he spent a lot of time in the Lower East Side, which is where I lived when I was in New York. I just feel like there's a strong connection between the folks that were making work at that time, the musicians, the writers, the painters. They were all spending time with each other and around each other. So I tend to include him quite a lot in the stuff that I curate. So I love him and Jayne Cortez, those kinds of folks that were all around each other and creating this universe because I also think about the future of For Keeps and who's going to be in there. I keep some of my friends' books here. I'm trying to create a collection for whoever's going to be doing this in 30 years. I think that's why I include them because knowing about them gets you into even more people. Because if you're into Ted Jones, if you're into surrealist poetry, then you're going to move into a different space with Black folks who were talking a whole different language. Based on the things that are going on around the world, I mean, going on in our community, it's hard to face factual truth 24/7. She's [Octavia Butler] a perfect person to get involved with at the time that we're in because she's imagining the unimaginable and she was creating stories that I think other folks would prefer that we didn't create because it's living outside of this hold that the world has created for you. So she's just phenomenal in that way, and I think a lot of people are being more drawn to her for those reasons and some escapism during this time. Not even escapism, but some idea of…
Shantel Pass:
Transporting in a sense. She really takes you to a whole other place with her writing, a whole new world.
Rosa Duffy:
And you're like, "Oh, and this isn't that unimaginable based on what we're going through." I think Clay's Ark is one that I picked because it was one of the first that I had in this space of hers, and so I always tend to lean to her when I need something. There are people that are thinking entirely outside of ourselves.
Shantel Pass:
I love that this curation includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual retrospectives. There's really something for everybody no matter the preference. Are there any characters, settings, particular essays or poems in the works that you curated for us that you highly favor or recommend to the Saint Heron community?
Rosa Duffy:
Oh, yes, of course. Once: Poems is one. Good Woman because I suggest that to everyone that's going through - I'm like, "That one's great if you're stressed beyond belief." Black Borders, Anthony Barboza. He's an under-popularized photographer that made all these beautiful film photos. In that one in particular, he has Amiri Baraka, he has a lot of photos of the folks that were a part of this era and time. But it's just a look into the people that were spending time together and talking together and creating together. It just reminds me of maybe being in this space and taking a photo of everybody and then putting it in a book, and then, 30 years later, all of your friends are these amazing producers of great Black work. So, I love that book, in particular because when I first got it, I wasn't totally versed in Anthony Barboza, and so I didn't know when I opened it the people that I would see. Then I put Scarifications in there. Oh, another great one that's changed entirely is How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, and when I say changed, I mean now it's impossible to find. That’s going to be great because people get to put their hands on something that I think intentionally is kind of removed from the space, right? Bob Thompson, obviously, is unbelievable. And, yeah, the dream book, I think, especially now, people are very invested in what their subconscious means or what we're trying to speak to each other. Between the Lines is something that I'm like, "Please, guys, go look at the photos of…" The chess one in particular, the chess drawing, is my favorite. Black Artists on Art, so anything by Samella Lewis, I'm like, "Bless her." She put together so much work for us.
Shantel Pass:
One name that stood out to me was Rosa Bogar. I was a latecomer to her work but was immediately fascinated by her creative range as hers isn’t a name we hear commonly. It was really exciting to see a name that, again, is not so common in this. When you saw Black Woman Sorrow, what made you feel it was worth adding to inventory? What made it stand out?
Rosa Duffy:
So, obviously, the title, right? I was very drawn to that. Who knows what kind of space I was in at the time. I was like, "She knows what I'm trying to say. Her name's Rosa, we're on the same page.” Black Woman Sorrow is striking. So she didn't put that out for her health. She's saying something that is meant to help you process, whether that's intentional or not. It's meant to help you process whatever you're going through. What I see as a common thread amongst young Black people today, and we all talk about it, is mental health and depression and feeling overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time and these conflicting feelings and everything that happens in the world, feeling like the trauma is entirely on your shoulders, especially as young Black people. That's just what it is, and I think that it's hard for us to express at times, just because of the way that we've been told to express ourselves, not in individual cases, but just generally, our feelings are second tier to everybody else's.
We're oftentimes not allowed to even define things as what they are, right? Which is the same thing that other people suffer from. They get labels… So anything to at all help us process sad feelings, I think, is incredibly important. But the funny thing about that book was I was sitting here and a guy came in and he was like, "How did you get this book?" It was signed by her. He was like, "This is my aunt. How did you get this book?" He was floored. That's the only other copy I've ever had. He has it. So, it's y'all's copy and his copy, and he was like, "This is my aunt." He started calling all his family. He actually ended up working at NBC, so he did an article on the store about the fact that he found that book. So something drew me to it, and he had never seen it before. It was almost like it chose me because it wanted to be in the space and needed to reconnect. That happens more often than I can say.
Shantel Pass:
Beautiful. That gave me chills. The hairs on my neck stood up thinking that somebody just casually walked into your store and discovered a relative's work that they didn't even know existed.
Rosa Duffy:
And it's like what you talked about. I'm about one percent of what goes into this. I do buy the books, and I do the work, but the people that come in here, and it sounds so corny when I say it, but I'm like, "That's what the space is." Obviously, it wouldn't exist without other people, but the life that people bring in here, the things that other people find in these things that I haven't seen before... That's what the person intended when they... They didn't intend for it to be…
Shantel Pass:
Stuck in somebody's storage just collecting “value.”
Founder and Creative Director: Solange Knowles of Saint Heron
Art & Web Design Director: Sabla Stays of Saint Heron
Editorial Manager: Shantel Aurora-Pass of Saint Heron
Project Manager: Diane “SHABAZZ” Varnie of Saint Heron
Season Curator: Rosa Duffy of For Keeps Books
Dossier Web Designer: Angela A. Asemota
Dossier Web Developer: Celso White
A Daughter's Geography
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Ntozake Shange
Ntozake Shange
Adrian Piper: Reflections 1967-1987
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Adrian Piper
Adrian Piper
American Negro Art
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Cedric Dover
Cedric Dover
An Ordinary Woman
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Lucille Clifton
Lucille Clifton
Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Cults of the Urban North
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Arthur Huff Fauset
Arthur Huff Fauset
Cap Wigington: An Architectural Legacy in Ice and Stone
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
David Vassar Taylor & Paul Clifford Larson
David Vassar Taylor & Paul Clifford Larson
Chase-Riboud
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Barbara Chase-Riboud
Barbara Chase-Riboud
Children Coming Home
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks
Civil Wars
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
June Jordan
June Jordan
Clay's Ark
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Octavia Butler
Octavia Butler
Coal
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde
Earthquakes and Sun Rise Missions: Poetry and Essays of Black Renewal
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Haki R Mahubuti
Haki R Mahubuti
Fifth Sunday
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Rita Dove
Rita Dove
Forty Years of Printmaking: A Retrospective, 1948-1988
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Warrington Colescott
Warrington Colescott
Gary Simmons: Ghost House
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Gary Simmons, Avery F. Gordon & Louis Grachos
Gary Simmons, Avery F. Gordon & Louis Grachos
Judith Jamison: Aspects of a Dancer
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Olga Maynard
Olga Maynard
LA TETE
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Julianna Free
Julianna Free
Mad at Miles: A Black Woman's Guide to Truth
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Pearl Cleage
Pearl Cleage
Martin Puryear: Public and Personal
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Martin Puryear
Martin Puryear
Meteor In A Black Hat
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Bob Thompson
Bob Thompson
My One Good Nerve
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee
Of Tulips and Shadows: The Visual Metaphors of Dewey Crumpler
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Dewey Crumpler
Dewey Crumpler
Otán Iyebiyé: Las Piedras Preciosas
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Lydia Cabrera
Lydia Cabrera
Shakespeare in Harlem
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
The Art of Henry O. Tanner
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Henry Ossawa Tanner
Henry Ossawa Tanner
The Black Unicorn
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde
The Clearing and Beyond
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
May Miller
May Miller
The Meeting Point
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Austin Clarke
Austin Clarke
The Soft Voice of the Serpent and Other Stories
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer
The Theme is Blackness: "The Corner" and Other Plays
Value: ${ forSaleVariant.price | money }
Ed Bullins
Ed Bullins
Terms
US Residents only
Loan Period: 45 days after check-out
All titles will be available August 8th at 12pm ET / 9am PT.
All borrowers are granted to reserve one book per person. Requests are fulfilled on a first come, first served basis.
Items borrowed from the library, which are returned after the end of the authorized loan period, are subject to charges which the SH Library team will determine.
Items lost or damaged while on loan will be charged to the borrower at the full replacement cost with credit card information on file, together with delivery charges where applicable.
Items not renewed (if applicable) or returned to the Saint Heron Library after 3 reminder notices have been issued (without an explanation from the borrower) will be deemed lost by the borrower and will be charged as above.
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