Mose T's Slapout Family Album: Poems

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Summary: Witty Robert Ely poems inspired by the great Mose T.
Review: Paintings by Mose Tolliver, the key folk art painter from Alabama, who is one of America's greatest living treasures, inspired this gem of a book of poems by Robert Ely. The 8" 1/4-by 8 1/4" volume, published in Alabama by Black Belt Press, includes a brief introduction by Julian Bond. Twenty of Mose T's best known images are finely illustrated here in color, alongside the witty poems they inspired. Featured in the book are the fanciful inhabitants of the town of Slapout, among them the "Hoodoo Man...who learned his art from Kulba Khan," the "Jick-Jack Girl...who "kicks off her shoes when she begins to feel the blues" and "Mose t" himself, the artist who "paints pictures made with real paint...and many folks find them quaint."

--David Ebony, Assistant Managing Editor, Art in America magazine.