Sarah Fleming was a Black poet who advocated tirelessly for African-American women’s rights. Her poem about friendship echoes a universal truth: the world could always use a little more love.

She was by no means unknown in her lifetime and if, as is often said, there is a pattern of being unrecognised among women poets she did not set it. She was on terms of friendship and mutual ...

The epistolary form is both intimate and expansive: It triangulates among the speaker, the subject (you) and a third, eavesdropping reader. This poem traverses an emotionally capacious friendship ...