Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet
In this novelized biography in verse, Cheng limns the life of Dave (his only name), an enslaved nineteenth-century potter and poet. Owned by various members of the Landrum/Drake/Miles families, Dave became a master potter as a young man. Equally significant is the fact that he was literate and made it a habit to sign his pots, jugs, and jars, and often to add simple verses (“Dave belongs to Mr. Miles / wher the oven bakes & the pot biles”). This was remarkably brave at a time when South Carolina’s slave-literacy law could have resulted in his being whipped, maimed, or even killed for this simple act. Dave stubbornly persisted, impressing on his work his own humanity, and approximately 170 of his aesthetically and culturally significant vessels survive in museums and private collections. Cheng illustrates her stirring work with her own simple black-and-white woodcuts. Appended material adds additional information about Dave’s life and the Edgefield Pottery, of which his work is an example. Grades 5-8. --Cart, Michael