The Tongue Is Sharper Than the Sword

This is one of the paintings I just discovered in my garage.

The painting celebrates Robert Hayden’s poem, “Middle Passage.”

It is a really long poem.

The painting focuses on this excerpt:

“That Crew and Captain lusted with the comeliest

of the savage girls kept naked in the cabins;

that there was one they called The Guinea Rose

and they cast lots and fought to lie with her: ”

The character across the floor of the ship being whipped to consent is the lady called Guinea Rose in the poem.