A collaboratively composed 3–5 minute Renaissance motet-style piece for 4-part a cappella mixed choir, setting a poetic text by the Black woman poet Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958). See the story on the Brattleboro Camerata website.

Brazelton notes, “’The Want of You,’ a song about unrequited — and forbidden — love between two women of color, first appeared in 1923. It’s important to offer audience members the deep poignancy of the poem’s context.”

Grimké was an African-American journalist, teacher, playwright, and poet. By ancestry, Grimké was three-quarters white — the child of a white mother and a biracial father — and considered a woman of color. She was one of the first African-American women to have a play publicly performed.

The Want of You

A hint of gold where the moon will be;
Through the flocking clouds just a star or two;
Leaf sounds, soft and wet and hushed,
And oh! the crying want of you.

—Angelina Weld Grimke (1880-1958),  Negro Poets and their Poems, 1923