"The corpus of slave songs is enormous, and their impact on African American literature has long been acknowledged. But little has been written about the connection between these songs and American literature. Slave songs are usually marginalized in, or omitted altogether from, literary anthologies and studies of verse. Even classic, if now dated, works examining the songs--including Lawrence Levine's Black Culture and Black Consciousness (CH, Jul'77) and Dena Epstein's Sinful Tunes and Spirituals (CH, Sep'78)--fail to discuss the poetic aspects of the songs. Ramey (CSU, Los Angeles) attempts to fill this glaring void with this erudite yet readable volume. The author provides provocative analyses of some of the individual songs (e.g., "Poor Pilgrim" and "Steal Away"). More importantly, she sheds light on their originality and their African roots, including the call-and-response tradition. In so doing, she makes a strong argument for studying these important pieces in light of their lyric poetic qualities. This is a book for all who are interested in African American literature and in poetry more broadly."--Choice