ABSTRACT
I Lay My Stitches Down: Poems of American Slavery was written by poet Cynthia Grady (2012) and illustrated by award-winning artist Michele Wood. It is a picture book in which poet Cynthia Grady and painter Michele Wood draw upon spirituality, music, and quilting traditions to create a collection of 14 poems that convey the hardships and hopes of Blacks living under the institution of slavery. The poems are followed by an expository paragraph that presents additional details about the aspect of slavery conveyed in free verse prose. Grady and Wood's decision to weave so many Black female characters into the text seems deliberate, like an attempt to present the unique position that women were in under slavery because of their gender. Throughout the text, what is clear is that Gray and Wood are attempting to represent the cruel nature of the race-based institution of slavery that existed in the United States.
