Angelina Weld Grimké has often been considered interesting only as a literary footnote--a transitional figure standing somewhere between the writers of the genteel tradition and those of the Harlem Renaissance. Some readers confuse her with Angelina Grimké Weld, her great-aunt, for whom she was named. Grimké's output was small, and she made little effort to establish a literary reputation; her poetry has never even been collected. She wrote her play, Rachel (1920), to express her concern with society's racial problems, but she did not pretend to have solutions. Her best energy went into her poetry, which was not written for posterity but for the satisfaction of exercising her craftsmanship and for the need to express her personal anxieties. Her best work is not only sensitive and skillful but is also a reflection of how a complex, unhappy personality found its creative outlet.

The daughter of...