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Improvise in the Amen Corner is a collection of 45 extraordinary portraits and poems that tell the story of an African American community. In writing that is raw, surprising, uplifting, and at times funny, Ms. Butler creates an intimate and animated world.
View a PDF of sample pages from the book, and read a beautiful article on Ms. Butler from the City Paper to learn more.
Ms. Butler is an Afrocentric feminist living on a fixed income in Baltimore.
With no money for art supplies, she makes her drawings with sharpened sticks that she collects in the park and dips in India ink. She creates shadows with paper towels.
Two of her drawings are in the permanent collection of the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia.
Many people in Baltimore recognize Ms. Butler's name from reading her letters in the Baltimore Sun and the City Paper, or hearing her voice on radio talk shows. But few know her as a gifted and resourceful artist.
Improvise in the Amen Corner is her first book.
Miss Butler's work first appeared in Passager Issue 41.
Ms. Butler was featured on WYPR's program, The Signal, on November 9, 2007. Listen to that interview.
Ms. Butler's hometown newspaper, The Greenville News, featured an interview with her in January 2008.
Read the article and hear some of Ms. Butler's poems.
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