Poem set to music by Jan Poe of the slave poet George Moses Horton.
“Alas! and am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil and pain!”
George Moses Horton was an African American slave poet — the first one to publish in the southern United States.
With his poetry he aimed to earn enough to buy his Freedom. He didn’t succeed, but he earned enough to buy himself
time, allowing him to continue writing. Freedom would come to him at age 68, at the end of the American Civil War.
His work takes you back to that time. His poems dragged me along with him, to the cabins, to toiling from dawn
to dusk, to longing for freedom. And also to love, to the sublime and the everyday in those times. And from there
I started writing music. It may seem that I set his poems to music, but in fact I set myself to music, as I was
observing all of this.
My deepest thanks to Cyprian, Ramon and Daniel for their collaboration and selfless involvement in this project.
And for having plunged with me into the universe of a slave poet.
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