Bronze Silhouette is a poetic collection by a Black and African woman who rhetorically views the present age from the point of view of the under-privileged socio-cultural classes. This is the third published poetic collection by Gladys Williams Russel and is, like her other two works, a virtual discourse on the life patterns and vagaries that confront the lower classes as victims of discrimination. Williams-Russel's earlier two collections, Africa Woman - The Poetic Perspective and A Middling Plain - Reflections on The Times, are also committed to the same theme and the need for men to address the issues that create pain and sadness in all societies. She speaks about love, returned and unrequited; of the pains of motherhood and the hope for positive growth in the future; of the impact on man, of the negative actions by his neighbor; of the bond between man and his God; and of the hope that wells up in every heart that tomorrow would bring forth a better rebirth.. The three collections are sequential in nature and constitute the AFRICA WOMAN SERIES. Aside from being a socio-cultural commentary, the collections also seek to answer questions that relate to the purpose of man's existence on earth, his relationship with the God Force and the effort to achieve optimum perfection here and beyond. In essence, Africa Woman is about the woman's life experience as part of the culture-transiting, post-colonial and newly independent society of the middle quarter of the 20th century. A Middling Plain, on the other hand, is a commentary on the socio-cultural impact of military interferrences and administrations that were a major occurence towards the end of the last century. Against this backdrop, the effort by the people to re-instal democratic governance, created a climate of conflict and confrontation. All three publications, and other works by the author arer available under Amazon .com

'A Middling Plain - Poetic Reflections on The Times, ' is a collection of 38 poems that comment on the issues that confront men in their existence on this earth plain. For, there is a mighty part of the universe that is beyond the reach and understanding of men. They include issues like faith and belief, the journey of soul, the relevance of life, man's relationship with the God Force, the power of death and the need for all to work towards a permanently perfect existence. Coming from a third world environment, Gladys Williams Russel has aptly utilized the socio-political and economic exigencies in her environment, to paint a lucid exposition on the realities that confront and confound men today. For, as the poet points out: 'Only in realization of our worthlessness can man accept to surrender himself. Only in surrendering of the self can the fears and snares bedeviling our hearts as creatures of form be put to rest.' (introduction to subtheme, EXHORTATION) The collection is in part, a record of the nuances in third world regions and poverty affected areas of earth.Thus it speaks of the impact on life of the conflicts of colonialism and politics, of the relationship between corruption, unemployment, civil strife and poverty, of the results of militarism, transitions and foreign intervention. The poems come under eight heads dedicated to specific sub-themes. Although they are thought- provoking, they have a light and airy quality that makes for easy one-sitting reading. As she postulates in the introduction to 'Dreamscape, ' 'What is dream and what is real? The line between is thinly drawn. For one is built upon the other And none exists without the other.' This 90 paged collection is the second part in a trilogy of poems by Gladys Williams Russel under the AFRICA WOMAN SERIES. The others in the collection are 'Africa Woman - The Poetic Perspective' (1997) and 'Bronze Silhouette - The World From my Thatch' (2012).,