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Abstract
By "dwell[ing] in Possibility" (Dickinson), the poetry contained within each of this year's award winner and honor books resonated with the judges in making its subject matter new. Like Savage, Nelson uses her art to capture vivid instants, single breaths of human life that may change our view of broader swaths of time. True to her subtitle, The Shape of a Sculptor's Life, Nelson constantly probes the implicit analogy between Savage's art and Nelson's own poetry as a way of examining the meaning of art and the significance of an artist's life. (43) The linking of "creation," "potential," and "freedom" for the Black artist and the woman artist in the poem is significant in developing and recovering the portrait of Augusta Savage the artist.