Biographical poems on artist Horace H. Pippin, who left an invaluable record of African American life during World War I.

I Now Why Do I Want to Get Up So High 1Picture of the Poet and Horace H. Pippin Before the Perigee2II If a Man Knows Nothing But Hard Times 3A Primitive Portrait 4III I've Seen Men Die 6Like This, Like That 7Night March, 369th Infantry 8A Canel 9Finding the Words 10Shrapnel 11The Speller 12Form and Shapes 13Fire 16Hard 17Horace Pippin's Red 18IV War Brought Out All the Art in Me 20Tell My Heart 21Losing the Way, 1930 22Prophet 23Surface Decoration 24The Subtlety of Blue 25V You Have Requested an Explanation of the Picturr 26Domino Players, 1943 27The Satisfactions of a Limited View 28Topoanalysis 29Victorian Interior, 1945 311939 32The Trapper Returning Home, 1941 33Lilies, 1941 34In a Painted Room 35Why, Oh Why, the Doily? 36White Flesh 41The Warped Table, a Still Life, 1940 42Birmingham Meeting House 43Harmonizing 44Contemplation, the Art of 46Newly Discovered Portrait of America's First Black President 48by Horace H. Pippin (1888-1946) VI Now I Know How You Feel Alone 49Erotica 50Definitions 51Commitment 54My Wife Is Not Home at This Time 55VII Then a Hand Lightly Layed on Me. Then a Still Voice 56Blessing 57Notes 58Acknowledgements 64