2 10 650 https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/abd1685fc5394406f8d809b3de894257.pdf 0c824690b474d6fce2da8b36959f0075 PDF Text Text BLACK POETRY OF THE POST-RENAISSANCE AND CONTEMPORARY PERIODS The psychological, social, political and economic issues that conf'ronted Blacks after the Civil War and Reconstruction, p.ersi-sTed through the Harlem Awakening. The collapse of the American economy in 1929 signale~also,the collapse of white patronization of Black artists. However, several of the budding institutions)publications and social undertakings-begun before, during and after the Renaissance--have lasted up to this very day. And while the primary thrust of Black writing during the twenties was cultural reclamation and racial af'firmation, the literature since that time has been dominated by variants on the theme of sociaJ/IIA ,/i {..!!!9e~\~mos-r. l ~tnJ-tJI. m. writings of the Post-Renaissance and Contemporary period; protest is the most salient feature • .,......,...... 1,his factor, ~ ~ coupled with the appearance of new Black academic critics,~~~t off literary debates that still reverberate in Black letters. The two most vocal positions are l) or art remain free of overt 11 that Black literature protest 11 --thus avoiding "restrictions" which protest imposes on the creativity; and 2) that the Black artist's continuing responsibility is to engage in protest, to forge his work into weapons of liberation. These two views of the Black artist have always shadowed the developing Black literature. But it was not until the emergence of a Black critical "establishment" that the views received widespread attention or registered great inf'luence. 96 At this writing, �I ' I ; NEW TRENDS AND DEFIANCE: MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY BLACK POETS (1900-PRESENT) During the first three decades of the twentieth century, Black Americans underwent social, political and psychological changes that would leave indelible marks on both their's and the nation's futures. W.E.B. DuBois' "The Song of the Smoke" (1899) announced the Black man's uncompromising rejection of the plantation tradition and his defiant leap across the thresh-hold of the new century. Elsewhere DuBois prophetically noted that the biggest problem of the twentieth century would be the problem of the "color lineti.} Black writers and scholars had begun to record the Black experience in the nineteenth century. But it was during the first quarter of this century that Black scholarship, creativ\t$ and organized attacks against social injustice 7 reached their greatest intensity. Dunbar, who died in 1906, was the first Black poet to achieve international recognition. And the publication of his Complete Poems in 1913 was a si gnificant literary event in ~~ American letters. The publication also heralded the new mood of creativity and self-reliance, and spurred the embryonic Black national racial consciousness. During this period (1900-20), other Black poets were working in their respective spheres to hammer out individualistic as well as folk-influenced works. At the same time two major poetic developments were 72 �,• J : the issue of the writer's social responsibility constitutes one of the most vigorous on-going debates in the history of Black American l i t e r a t u r e . ~ , fhe two major living Black • poets, Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Hayden, are at sharp and critical odds on this particular issue. Hayden has refused to place conscious racial concerns over the craft of poetry, holding that many of the new Black poets are minor versifiers with political ambitions. Miss Brooks, who stepped into the middle of the Black Poetry Movement of the late sixties, has shifted to the 11 Black first, poet second" position and holds the younger writers in high esteem. She noted that if she had died before she was fifty, she would have "died a Negro faction." In modern history, these debates have taken place in the midst, or on the heels, of tremendous successes on the parts of Black writers. tet while the important Renaissance writers were prize-winners, it was not until the publication of Richard WrightJs novel,Native Son, in 1940, that a Black writer received attention on par with the best white writers of his day. WrightJs achievement was followed two years later by Margaret Walker's (Yale Poetry Prize for For My People), ten years later by Gwendolyn Brooks' (Pulitzer Prize for Annie Allen, poetry), and twelve years later by Ralph Ellison's (National Book Award, Invisible Man). Many of the Black writers of the 1930-1945 period sustained themselves by working for the Federal Writers' Project of the WPA. Some of their own writings, as well as important 97 �taking place side-by-side: one white and one Black, although there were some exchanges between the two. White America was in the midst of poetry revival which was characterized by various "New Poetry movements. 11 The revival was signaled and given impetus by the establishment of Poetry: of Verse (edited by Harriet Monroe) in 1912. new poets were part of the 11 A Magazine Many of the Imagist" school and were greatly influenced by Greek, Roman and Oriental symbolism and imagery. ~g~tr~ provided an outlet for much of this new writing. At least two Black poets participated in the development of the 11 r,lew 11 poetry in America: and Fenton Johnson. William Stanley Braithwaite James Weldon Johnson, though usually iden- tified with the Harlem Renaissance, also was a contemporary of then~ wet~ and published his first volume of poetry, Fifty, Years and Other Poems, in 1917. Braithwaite was a critic, poet, and anthologist who helped to launch the careers of a number of important white poets. 1 He edited anthologies of Elizabethan, Georgian and Restoration verse and a series of yearly anthologies of magazine verse which he began in 1913. He also wrote criticism and reviews as a member of the literary editorial staff of the postQD ~~B.,q~qr,~.l}~. Judged against the poets of his time, Braithwaite comes off well. Like Phillis Wheatley, he conformed to the forms, styles and poetic conventions of his day. Hence, one rarely gets a hint, from reading Braithwaite's poetry, that he is Black. Fenton Johnson, James Weldon observed, wrote poetry expressing Black 73 �cultural and historical studies, resulted from this work. During the same period, Black literary activity flourished despite the fact that, at times, Black unemployment reached ~ up to fifty-six percent. Most of the Renaissance poets and fiction writers continued publishing, as did the historians and social critics (DuBois, Charles Johnson, Locke, Benjamin G. Brawley, and others). A new Black critic, J. Saunders Redding, had written a critical study in 1936. And in 1~41, poet-scholar Sterling Brown collaborated with Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses Lee on monumental work The Negro Caravan--the most ambitious 1 anthology of Black literature yet published. Another pub0... lishing landmark of the period was The Poetry of the American Negro (Hughes an,d Bontemps, 1949). Both works carried earlier In~~ yer as well as contemporary poets. ~ -ween 1930 and· 1960"another group of poets, many of them teenagers at the close of the Harlem Renaissance,~ began to publish. In addition to Margaret Walker, Hayden and Gwendolyn Brooks, new names included Melvin Tolson, Margaret Danner, Dudley Randall (publisher of Broadside Press), Samuel Allen (also Paul Vesey), Frank Marshall Davis, Ray Durem, Owen Dodson, James Emanuel, Bruce McM. Wright, Alfred Duckett, Myron O'Higgins (who colloborated with Hayden on a 1948 booklet of poems), M. Carl Holman, Russell Atkins (founder of Freelance in 1950), Donald Jeffrey Hayes, Richard Wright (who also wrote poetry), John Henrik Clarke (:- editor of Ereed2W1g:I,§.), Lance Jeffers, Naomi Long Madgett, Gloria c. 98 Oden, Zack Gilbert, Hoyt Fuller �"disillusionment and bitterness." His "note of fatalistic despair" was "so foreign to any philosophy of life the Negro in America. had ever preached or practiced." (The observation was not entirely correct; for an examination of Black folk literature [the spirituals and bluesJ will reveal shades of Fenton Johnson's philosophy.) Johnson, who was also a jour- nalist, published three volumes of poetry between 1912 and 1916. His work appeared in the anthology Others and in Poetry ·• · Other Black poets writing and publishing in the first two decades of this century were James David Corruthers, ' Leslie Pinckney Hill, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Alice Dunbar Nelson and Angelina Weld GrimkJ. Social and artistic revolt dominated the early years of this century--culminating in what has come to be known as the "Roaring Twenties" or the "Jazz Age." The white dialect writers of the nineteenth century had passed from the scene but there appeared yet another, more insidious, brand of stereotypical writing among whites: 1\ II that dealing with the • Black noble savage allegedly untainted by the decadent systems and machines of the \kstern world. This kind of writing (no doubt a continuation of some of the ideas in Jack London's work, e.g., The Call of the Wild, 1903) stemmed from the rediscovery of the Black man as a subject for realistic fiction and drama. Writers either sensationalized the under- neath of Black life or revived the latent white notions of 74 �(editor of Negro Digest/Black World) and Lerone Bennet Jr. (historian ). pre o.t1cl Many of these~post World War II poets were writing during the Renaissance but did not publish or achieve recognition at that time. Black poets writing before the sixties were recorded in Rosey Pool's Beyond the Blues (1962) -and Arna Bontemps• American Negro Poetry (1963). Some themes in Black Poetry of the post-Renaissance period are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. Lynching Social injustice (discrimination, segregation, job bias) Paradoxes in Christianity The Black working-class man War Communism, Socialism, class struggle and other "le.ft II movements Black .Music (BeBop, Jazz, Blues, etc.) Black stamina and endurance Problems or the Black veteran Comparisons of Racism and bigotry abroad with similar situations in the u.s. Southern or rural Black life Black urban life Black women, especially mothers Patriotism Greek and Roman mythology and culture Racial slurs, stigmas and nicknames Black historical figures Academic pursuits Slavery Religion Poverty Status-climbing Many or these themes and preoccupations closely parallel political developments and pressures of the period. And. , Mt ove~o.LL ,are ltheyt.._too removed from the Ahistorical concerns of Black '• poets whom, Hayden notes, are "traditionally associated with protest." Nor are . these themes remote to the contemporary 99 �perspective. The bibliography provides more listing and direction for students wanting to study this period in depth. BLACK POETS OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE Although folk poetry had long been a spine of Black ' creative life and Black poets had endeavored in the English literary tradition since the middle of the eighteenth century, Black Poetry came officially and authentically of age during the Harlem Renaissance. Sometimes called the New Negro Movement, the Negro Awakening or the Black Renaissance, this period ran the length of the decade of the ·l92Ofs and er shed with the stock market. As was the case with their predecessors, Black poets of the Renaissance employed an exciting variety of styles, themes, techniques, and were arrayed along a diverse scale of ideologies ·with debatable achievements and successes. Students of the Renaissance usually concentrate on five figures--Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson and Jean Toomer--although a number of lesser known writers showed great gifts and powers in their works. At least two of the lesser known writers--Arna Bontemps and Sterling Brown--deserve close attention. Other youthful voices who contributed to this exciting decade were Waring Cuney, Frank Horne, Gwendolyn B_e nnett and Helene Johnson. 77 �Black Poetry. For the student will note that while some of today's poets are not always well-read in either their own or the general literary tradition, they are usually politically-charged and often·relentlessly cynical in their appraisal of American society. Indeed, the contemporary poetry (which will only be alluded to here) ties all the loose ends of Black Poetry in to one amalgamating knot: A knot of stresses and twistings which constitute, in the words of Jane Cortez, Festivals and Funerals. For it is in the contemporary period that more poets than ever before are writing, publishing, and establishing unprecedented worldwide . recognition and distribution. , (\Y\l'tlS) If Alain Locke could observe~that the Renaissance movement saw Black poets working as a grouphood, then an updated observation of Locke's reaction would acknowledge that Black poets are influencing each other before our very eyesJ--·o n television, on recordings, tapes, through a proliferation of printed collections and anthologies, via correspondence, through literary competition, at conferences and workshops, and through numerous new journals and other periodicals. The New Black Poetry movement--and its related ideological and aesthetical spin~outs--is, Hayden notes, one of the most "significant" developments of the contemporary era. The poets are not in agreement on the questions related to the Black aesthetic, to whom they (should?) direct their works, the use of racial consciousness, or the criteria !'or a "Black" poem. But most of them 1re discussing and examining these 100 �~-- Of the sevenkwriters, only Cullen was ,born in New York City and(as the adopted son of a minister) he was raised "in the conservative atmosphere of a Methodist parsonage." The other writers came from various other parts of the southern, eastern and midwestern United States. Not only were the poets drawn to Harlem--the Black capitol of the world at the time-but so were the musicians, painters, dramatists, cinematographers , dancers, singers and scholars. Added to this atmosphere of creativity and scholarship--in New York and ' other urban areas--was the presence of World War I veterans. The veterans came home with a new sense of assurance and conf'idence after having been genuinely received by other nationalities and races abroad. So) r , like the works of their white counterparts, much of the writings of Black poets and fictionists were a reflection of the war and post-war optimism. This spirit--which did not anticipate the Great Depression of the thirties--was one of jubilance and indulgence. Tbo white population, especially the writers, rediscovered Blacks and Blacks rediscovered themselves. Critic James Emanuel. notes that many whites went to Harlem to forget the war and "engage their new Freudian awareness." Students will see that many Black Poets unwittingly aided in the etching of the "new" stereotype of the "pre-civilized" primordial Black American/African. In most of the poets there is a romanticization of African--a depiction of a mood quite foreign to the contemporary realities of Harlem, 78 �issues. James Baldwin (novelist, essayist, playwright), who succeeded Wright as the leading Black literary lion, has said that any Black man in the least perceptive "must be constantly on the verge of insanity." Indeed, LeRoi Jones (now Imamu Amiri Baraka, and an acknowledged leader of the New Black Poetry movement) appeared in the mid and late sixties as the embodiment of Baldwin's revelation. Like Baraka, many of the new Black poets "rage" in scalding lyrics that denounce American moral bankruptcy, send broadsides against "Uncle Toms" and the Black middleclass, and perform their poetry with a verbal vitality that rivals the old time preachers. More than ever before, Black poets are writing their poems to be read aloud--to move audiences to action. All contemporar Black poets, however, cannot be loosely lumped into the pattern ascribed to Baraka (who is an enigmatic, complex and multi-talented man). Indeed, many of the new poets align themselves with neutral writers, the "mainstream" of white poetry, "third world" activities 1 and other political, religious or ethnic co.M ·p-;s., ·· . One · t'lewt1nd important factor in the new poetry is the$Ttw,+,e of~emerging African nations. Black Americans and Black Africans now fraternize in great numbers. Svc;k <U1 ~.. VJ,~ ..' " · h~S provided both subject matter and energy for the new poetry. Like the Beat poets of the fifties, many Black poets submerge themselves in everything from the occult to Eastern mysticism to private imagery 101 �Washington, D.C., Philadelphia or Detroit. The formalist poets--McKay, Cullen (a great admirer of Keats) and, to some extent, Toomer-- worked in the traditional s forms and styles. All three wrote sonnets with McKay achieving the most force and notoriety in this form. A native of Jamaica, McKay published his first volume of poetry in the island dialect when he was 20 years old. In 1920 he published a volume in England (Spring in New Hampshire), and his first bqok in the U.S. was Harlem Shadows (1922). Johnson called McKay the "most powerf'ul voice" of the "post-war group." And critics have continued to agree with Johnson's 1922 assessment that McKay "was preeminently the poet of rebellion." Active in the general literary life of New York, McKay was an editor ' of Liberator magazine, rubbed shoulderi~amous persons of the day (W.E.B. DuBois, George Bernard Shaw, Isadora Duncan, H.G. Wells, etc.), and wrote novels. He also traveled widely as did most of the other poets. Cullen, a devout "formalist" in his personal life and writings, published his first volume of' poetry (Color) in 192.5 but resented the stigma of being called a "IJegro" poet. In doing so, he was anticipating the clash of ideology and aesthetics which would take place in the 1960's. During this later debate over the significance of race in the poet's life and work, Robert Hayden would take a stand similar to that of Cullen's. Cullen, a teacher observed, may have written the "first rime royals in f\.merica. 79 11 Indeed Cullen �and symbolism.. In general, however, the protest of earlier ~ulie,rt times continues to be ,.;. ; and the devices and referents are more often folk or cultural. Prevailing themes of con- temporary Black Poetry include: l. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. Black Music (including instruments and salutes to musicians themselves) Religion: Islam, Bahai, Voodoo, African ancestor cult, Christianity War Interracial dating and marriage Art (Black art, especially) Sensuality Violence Urban life Rural life Social injustice (denouncements of racism, colonialism, Imperialism, capitalism, etc.) Assessment of the "system," the "establishment, 11 etc. Love (especially among Black men .and women) Black pride (self-development, community development) Africa (names, places, dates, heroes) Christianity {support and satire) Whiteness as evil. Blackness· as good Attacks upon hypocrisy and artificial self-restraint: upon those who are not "for real 11 Forecast of doom (for the Western World; America especially) Astrology, numerology, ancient knowledge Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism, Negritude, Soul, etc. Black History Rejection of drugs, alcohol and other so-called indications of Western 11 decadence 11 The list could go on ad infinitum. However, the student must respect the individuality of the poets and treat their works as separate flashes of power and creativity within the vast Web of the Black Experience. Much of the new poetry is avail- able in the numerous new anthologies, some of which are The New Black Poetry (Major, 1969), Black Fire {Jones and Neal, 1970), The Black Poets (R~nd.al~ 197J), New Black Voices 102 �of wrote in all4the most difficult--and outdated--\lestern forms: • heroic couplets, four-stress couplets, Spenserian stanzas, etc. Many critics, however, have consistently misjudged Cullen's achievement in that they are often too blinded by his formal style and techniques. In "Heritage," for e.xample, he employs all the conventions and stereotypical treatment of Africa and the Black past; but the student must look for deeper meanings and double entendres. He must see through the consciously formal style to the dilemma of the Black intellectual caught in the midst of the failures of Reconstruction, the frustrating promise of the period and his personal credo. Cullen's The Ballad of the Brown Girl (1927), an anthology he edited (Caroling Dusk, 1927) and Copper Sun (1929) are further indication of his discipline, power and variety. Like other Renaissance poets, he won numerous awards and citations for his poetry. Cullen also wrote The Black Christ (1929) while he was in Paris on a Guggenheim Fellowship. Toomer, a mixture of seven racial strands and a student of the occult and esoteric thought, is being revived today (in some quarters) as the towering genius of the Harlem Awakening. Robert Bone ( ~ We/i:J;!D lioJUlJ ~ .Aw.e.l!j ~) said Toomer was the only Black poet who participated on an "equal" plane with the major writers of the era. His repu- tation rests almost solely on a single book, Cane, published in 1923. It was met by a lukewarm reception among members of the critical establishment, but avant-garde writers and 80 �/ I) t I, (Chapman, 1972) and The Poetry of Black America (Adoff, 1973). Today's poets have inherited the psychosocial ambivalences and complexes of America, seen the almost constant economic depression among Black masses, witnessed America's persistent lynch-vogue and recurring riots, and felt the $a.Ma. alienation and rejection known to their forefathers. >1he»,~a.t ~any observers say A.the "break-away II strand in new Black America--and consequently in the New Black Poetry--was to be expected. Whatever the student's conclusions, it is evident Black Poetry is now an indelible part of man's literature. 103 �critics praised the book. Cane is a patchwork of poems, stories, and at least one play. The poems interlace the stories which are usually preceded b~ poetic epigrams. Toomer is concerned with Black religious zealousness, sexuality, agrarianism and oppression, primarily in the south (Georgia) but in urban centers as well. Toomer's work is complex and has to be read several times before it can . be fully understood and appreciated. Like most of the poetry of the Renaissance, his is the work of a brilliant intellect sometimes intimidated by white condescension and other times by Black indifference. Also, like the other writings, it sees Black hope in the strength of Black common folk. Hughes, Bontemps, Johnson, and Brown, all worked .more blatantly with folk themes and idioms. Toomer exploited the , Black mass mind in bis work; but be was essentially an observer. poets. Hughes, Bontemps, Johnson, and Brown are true folk But each of the three men also experimented with, and sustained an output of, diverse "literary forms" of poetry. Hughes, especially, will remain known--as will Dunbar-as the poet of Black folk life and language. Hughes recorded the Black mood and character like no writer before or after him. In "The Negro Speaks of Rivers~ Hughes signaled spiritual '- unity of the Black world. Coming as it did in 1919, the poem is often seen as the official opening of the Renaissance. Hughes wrote in every important literary genre and even invented some. His ltfeary Blues (1926) firmly established 81 �him as a poet of tremendous talent and potential. Con- sidered a major American writer, Hughes would be the only Renaissance figure to stay afloat and prominent up to the tumultous sixties. In his poetry, Hughes advances three primary concerns: the wedding of Black music and poetry, racial affirmation and pride, and social protest. His first volume, as well as Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927), vibrantly illustrate the three themes. Johnson's "Lift Every Voice and Sing" (1900, with music by his brother, J. Rosamond) was being "sung generally by the colored people throughout the country" by the time of the Renaissance. The song is widely regarded as the Black American national anthem. However, Johnson's work as NAACP field secretary, diplomat, lawyer and social historian, often , dwarfed his efforts as a poet. A great deal of his importance rests on The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), the first such anthology, in which he not only introduced the poetry, but noted the most important Elack contributions to American culture. He published two volumes of poetry during the Renaissance: God's Trombones (1927) and St. Peter Relates an Incident (1930). In addition, he co-edited with his brother two collections of spirituals. Johnson also wrote lyrics for popular songs and musicals and has been called the true "renaissance" man. 'fh11J , the student will want ~ to look at the conposite man to understand the implications and motivations behind his poetry. Arna Bontemps, who did not publish a volume of poetry 82 �f/ during the Harlem Awakening, had individual poems appearing regularly in Crisis, Opportunity and other magazines of the period. He also won several prizes. As anthologis~, poet, critic, historian, librarian, and writer of children's books, his broad vision and endeavors inform his poetry with both colloquial and universal concerns. Brown also published in the magazines and periodicals of the period. involvement with seen in poems like His intense the folk idioms and themes can be 11 0dyssey of Big Boy," "Southern Road," "Memphis Blues" and "Long Gone." Though there is no single thematic or stylistic thread tying the poets of the Renaissance together, it is clear that they generally knew each other and were tremendously aware of the importance of their combi'ned and specific undertakings •. The student must recognize that there is no monolithic pattern in the works--and approach the diversity and achievements accordingly. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_07_46 Title A name given to the resource Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, typed partial manuscript, p. 72-83 Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B. Description An account of the resource Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, typed partial manuscript, p. 72-83. Pages 75-76 are missing. https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/1c779df79fbbb4f980e827c7f536fab7.pdf 963b676802bd7eff3564eebf47c24b44 PDF Text Text I ) 0 I 1 7 �• 1. 1Ula. 1 • ) ,. �• to ha.trona.liit1c. ) l t), l M. �b , II 1 / o. �,If. Sue.ha. a.n I\ rec.o_gn I z. es �" J t �( , �c.onten;pora.ry /l �Fo I\ • • �i �I �.f.vrthe.r 1 11 t �-the pm /} �the ba.lla.d 5pec1f1ca.lly, • �lt! . . (_ 16. I'. .- 0 1~ct:.di a. .n l.;,SS ndl ss 11 t 0 -· q e ~ r ~. a b ho p d 0 s n1n to n b C .n !:a:·. • .r ' OI· op l p le" n a : a a., 1 G ru , tr th C. ll ., th u l lo .,., i 1 a u 1."' 1,;, d k ,. g , , i, 1 co on... D 0 . he pee a ~· "" 0 . s ·.J.i.bli..,. , .bo · i Sttt �J ) ��a.. yet I\ I ���Sud, a.n excha.r.ge.. /\ �0 . • �r ...... - o~ ... , 97 -~ ¥YM.o ,1, ;then., -th4:'t ( · I\ "·· >.> to b !.'l 1 • � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_07_43 Title A name given to the resource Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, typed partial manuscript, p. 37-51 and p. 96-103 Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B. https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/419d79b0ae0526a66e34f36b9d114777.pdf 8f8bad2da5afc32cad4f2d4fda417e3c PDF Text Text u �• II ��0 ����) , , �s , l , '' . t 3 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_07_42 Title A name given to the resource Five Spirituals for Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, typed manuscript, p. 28-36 Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B. Description An account of the resource Five Spirituals for Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, p. 28-36 https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/e805d1ecd06af74b322ce090a8f40141.pdf becdd4dc12a4ddff48c5fd74c5e07623 PDF Text Text t./2 :nr �~ . ) 1 ~ <u~ , , -rb ~ ~ ±.Ju)~ u ..zz l/ �u ~ 9ce1/:nUxv 0 ~ ,I . 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Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_07_40 Title A name given to the resource Note cards with citations from Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B. https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/02ccf690e09cccd67002f7148a5736a2.pdf 420527f21645d1ff309fd60e6ee83214 PDF Text Text • 9~? ~,.,~d .u7cMA, j ~Al~,,. ~~ a,nd,,IJ~Jt~,} ~ - IJl'~y~~ .,.o~ ( "1~ ,,lk~ - a,n,ot,,, 9:,-1,,,.., 0~0'~, /~7-3,, ~_,J CJ .ctkd.v 1 'Jif~ y:}~ M · -s-~ 7 - J tJ 7 ) , ~~ W7 td. $ ~ ,vn~ ~ t::lzj ~ - ~ -/J~ , 0 ~ : ~ru CVYl./4,!!&~,) ~ ' , / 197~. 0.-LL.h / ~ , / ~ ) fd·. 1/-~ - , ~~" ~~} ~~: 197~. 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Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_07_38 Title A name given to the resource Handwritten list of anthologies, literary history and criticism, and language Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B. https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/509acecce447b68a177512ba8bd70eed.pdf d777a8ef12f3ef0557882d42114bc750 PDF Text Text IV BIBLIOGRAPHY This bibliography is designed to serve the needs of beginning and advanced students of Black Poetry. It is not intended to be exhaustive since many biblioisraphies repeat the same items. No attempt has been made to cite the count- less single collections of poems because numerous checklists and specialized bibliographies are available. Moreover, most anthologies., critical studies and histories list indi- I vidual collections--in selected bibliographies and biographies. Since many Black poets publish privately or with small and relatively unknown publishing houses, the student will want to examine listings and reviews in Black periodicals (Black World, Journal of Black Poetry, Fr~edomw~ys_, Black Books Bulletin, Black Creation, C~ Journal and others). Some Black publishing houses print title listings on the inside covers of their books. Scores of records and tapes of readings, films, broadsides (single poems), pamphlet publications and tracts are also available from i ndividuals or small publishing houses. Recently, such lar1_se recording companies as Folkways, Flying Dutchman and MoTown have begun to record and distribute Black Poetry. However, the task of locating and developing a checklist for the myriad publications and publishing activities of Black poets still awaits some serious student of Black literature. For con- venience, a list of Black publishing companies is included at the end of this bibliograph~. (18 ~ �B I B L I O G R A P TI Y GENERAL dsiARCH AIDS Adams, Russell L. Great Negroes, Past and Pre?ent. Chicago, 1964. The Arthur B. Spingarn Collection of Nerrro Authors. Washington, D.r.., 1948. Bontemps, Arna. "The James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection (')f' Negro Arts and Letters." Yale University _,Libre,ry GazetJ&, XVIII (October 191.J.3), 19-26. • "Special Collect ions of Ne groana. 11 Li brarv --Q-.u-arterly, XIV (1944), 187-206 Chapman, Abraham. The Negro in American Literature and a Bibliography of' Literatur_~J;iy anc3 a.bout Negro Americans. Stevens Point, Wis., 1966. Deodene, Frank and William P. French. Black American poetry Since 1944, A Pre1=J_Il).inary Checklist. Chatham, 1971. Dictionary _Catalo_g_ of ...the __Jesse_ E. Moorland _Collec_tion of Neg;rQ_.1:,J_.f_~ and His_j;g_r.y ( at Howard University). 9 vols. Boston, 1970. Dictionary Catalo8 of the Schomburg Collection of Negro Literature & __History. 11 vols. Boston, 1962, 1967. Drzick, Kathleen, John Murphy, and Constance Weaver. Annotated Bibliography of Works Relatin~ to the Fegro in Literature and to Negro Dialects. Kalamazoo, Mich., 1969. Du Bois, W.E.B. A Select Bibliography of the Ne ~ro American. 3rd ed. Atlanta, 1905. , and Guy B. Johnson. Encyclooedia of the Negro: Prepa~at9ry _:V<:>l.UTT?-~• Rev. Ed. New York, 1946. Guzman, Jessie P., ed. Negro Year Book, Tuske gee, Ala., 1947. Index to Periodical Articles by and About NeGroes (formerly A Guide tQ_N~ro. Period lc_al__Li t~_r_a_t_u..r.....e and Index to Selected PeriQ.d..ic.alB). ~rnationa.l Library of Ne_Ero __Life an<) JJJ,story. 10 vols. Washington, D.C., 1967-1q6q. Jahn, J{anheinz. A Bib1J__Q_graphy of Neo-Africe n Literature from Afr~_g_. __ America_,__ _aQd tbe __ _C_e...ri hbean. New York, 196?. Johnson, Harry A. Multimedia Materials for AfroAmerican Studies, New York, 1971. Kaiser, Ernest. "The Hlstor"'r. of Ne rrro Hj_s+,orv. '' Negro Digest, XVII (~ebruary 146d ), lO-lS,-64-80. 11 Recent Books." Freedomways, in each issue. --- I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I �~ McPherson, James, et al, eds. Blacks in America: Bibliographical Essays. New York, 1072. Major, Clarence. Dictionary of Afro-American§)-a~_g. New York, 1970. Miller, Elizabeth W. and Mary L. Fisber. The Ner;ro :i,.n America: A Biblior:raphy. 2nd ed. Cambrid ge, Mass., 1970. The Negro in Print: Q~ plioaraphic Survey. Porter, Dorothy B. 11~arly American Ne r.i:ro Wri ti nP-s: <' - - A Bibliographical Study . 11 Papers of the Bibliq-_,, _.....,,. ~ 9_~ i Q.t y ___9 r __ AI!!.~T J.~!3- , xxx IX ( 191-i 5 ) , r~~: le:1--~ • North American Negro Poets: A Biblio--g-r-aph i c a.:J:_ __ .Qhey_k.___I,J_~t __ Q_f_ ~he. ~r _Writ i nr;s, 17 60 - l 9h4. Hattiesburg, Miss., 194S. Rowell, Charles H. 1¼ Bibliography of Bibliographies for the Study of Black American Literature and Folklore.1r _Black Experience, A Southern University Journal, LV (June 1969) 95-111. , Smith, Jessie Carney. ''Developin~ Collections of Black Literature." Black World . XX (June 1971), 18-29 Turner~ DBrwin T. Afro-American Writers. New York, 1970. Wori<, 1"Jonroe 11J. A Biblior;ra.phy of the Negro in Africa and America. New York, 192 3. Yellin, Jean Far;an. "An Index of Literary Materials in The Crisis, 1910-1934: Articles, Belles-Lettres , and Book Reviews. 11 CLA Journal, XIV ( 1 q71), 452-L~65. 73 e,. PERIODICALS Amistad Black Academv Review Black Books Bulletin Black Creation_ Black Orpheus: A Journal of A_f ri~~n ___ g_q<;:l __ t\f.r._Q.:-:1.\.!11.~.ri.c~.P Literature The Black Position Black Review The Black Scholar Black Theatre Black World (formerly Ferro Dicest) CLA Journal Controntation: A Journal of Third World Li.terature The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races Douglass• Monthlv ssence Freedomways ; ~1.c ~1,,Jl()~~k,t-) 1 �;d~ ¥ . ~ ~ Ir/~ o~,duo1 0\,()-; y PEnoD~CALS ( ~ t '<l) - ( ) ~ ~be Journal of Blac_k Poet:r_y The Journa.i of' Black Studies The Journal of Hec:ro His_to;r_y Ner-;ro American Li t~tu...-i;:;~.E..9.D-1~1 Negro Historv Bulletin Nkombo Nommo Opportunity: A Journal of Negro _Life Phylon: The Atlan_~~ __ l!_.!2._-~yers i tv Review of Race and ,culture Presence A.frica.ine: Cultura.l____ Revue ___of the __Negro World Roots: _A_ Journa.l ___of _Critical _and Creati ve _Expression Soulbook Studies in Black Literature Umbra Yard bird __Reader I C. ANTHOLOGIES (NOTE: - Most, but not aJ.l, of tbe followin g a.ntbolo rsies are devoted primar ily to Bl ack Poetry .) Adams! William, Peter Conn, and Bar~y Slepian, eds. Afro-American Literature: Poetry. Boston, 1970. Adoff, Arnold, ed. Black Out Loud: An Anth ology of Modern Poems by Black Americans. New York, 1970. , ed. I Am the Darker Brother : An Anthology --o-f-Modern Poems by Black AmeriQans. New York, 1968 . _ _ _ , ed. ~he Poetry of Black America. New York, 1973. Afro-Arts Anthology. Newark, 1966 . Alha~ isi, Ahmed and Harun K. Wan ~ara., eds. Black Arts: An Antholo gy o.f Black Creatio ns . Detroit, 1970. Baker, Houston A., Jr., ed. Black Literature in America. New York, 1971. Barksdale, Richard and Kenneth Kinnamon, eds. Black Writers of America. New York, 1972. ~_]2CD. Soul Sessi on. Newark, 196l). - Black History Muse um Comrni ttee of' Ph iladelphia. Black Poets Write On .. Philadelphia, 1969 (?). Jt/70~ Bontemps, Arna, ed. American Negro l1 oetry . New York, 1963. Brawley, Ben j ami n, ed. Early Ne r;:;ro American Writers. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1935. Brooks, Gwendol:in, ed. A Broadside Treasury . Detroit, 1971. �ANTHOLOGIES (cont'd) --=-...' ed. Jum~ Bad: A New Cbice ~o Antbolo gv . Detroit, 1971. Brown, Sterling A., Arthur P. Davis, ond Ul:rsses Lee, eds. The Ne,CJ'ro Caravan. New York, 19hl; Arno, 1969. Cade, Toni, ed. The Black Woman: An Antholo gy . New York, 1970. Calverton, Victor F., ed. Anthology of American Negro Literature. New York, 1929. Chambers, Bradford and Rebecca Mo on, eds. _Right On: Anthology of Black Literat~re. New York, 1970. Chapman, Abraham, ed. Afro-American Slave Narratives. New York, 1970. , ed. Black Voices: An~~hology of Afro-American __ L___i.,..terature. New York , 1968 . , ed. New Black Voices. Hew York , 1971. -c. l_a_r_k-e, .. John Henrik, ed. Harlem: Voices from the Soul of Black America. New York, 1970. Coombs, Orde, ed. We Spe ak as Libera.tors: Young Black Poets. New York, 1970. Cornish, Sam and Lucian W. Dixon. Chicory: Young Voices From the Black Ghetto. 1'iew York , 1969. Cromwell, Oteliz, Lorenzo D. Turner, and Eva B. Dykes, -'- eds. Readinr-;s from Ner;I_'_ Q_Authors. llew York, 1931. (cruise, Harold. The Crisis of the Ne r:ro Intellectual.) / _{_L.j'] New York, 1967. . ' Cullen, Countee, ed. Carolin g Dusk: An Antholor;y of Verse by Negro Poets. New York, 1927. Cunard, Nancy, ed. Ne~ro Antholo ev . London, 1934. Danner, Margaret. Regroup! Richmond, Va., 1969 . . The Brass House. Richmond, Va ., 1968 . _D_a_v_i_s_, Arthur P. and Saunders Reddin~, eds. Cavalcade: Ner;ro Amer i can Writin g from 1760 to the Present. Boston, 1971. Davis, Charles T. and Dani el Walden, eds. On Beinp; Black: Wri tings by Afro-Americans fr om Frederick Douglass to the Present . New York, 1970. Dreer, Herman, ed. American Literature by Negr o Authors. New York, 1950. - Emanuel, Ja mes A. and Theodor'e Gross, eds. Dark Symphonv: Negro Literature in Amer ica. . New York, - 1968. Ford, Nick Aaron, ed. Black Insi_gg.ts : Si rmificant Literature by Afro-Ameri ca.ns-_1760 to the Present. Waltham, Mass., 1971. Freedman, Franc es S., ed . The Black American Experienc:· A New Antholo gy of Black Li tera.tur_~. New York, 1970. Giovanni, Nikki. Ni ght Comes Softly . Newark·>· . 1971'. �ANTHOLOGIES (cont ' d) Haslam, Gerald W., ed. Forgotten Pa aes of American Literature. Boston, 1970. Hayden, Robert, ed. Kaleidoscope: Poems by American Negro Poets. New York, 1967. , David Burrows, and Frederick Lapides, eds. --A ....r.,..r-o-American Literature. • New York, 1971. Henderson, David, ed. Umbra Blackworks Antholoc;y 1970-1971. i'J ew York;T971. Henderson, Stephen. Understandinr, the New Black Poetry. New York, 1973. Hill, Herbert, ed. Soon One Mernin ~ : New Writin _ bv American Negroes., 19 0- 19 2. Now York , 1 963. Hughes, Langston, ed. The Book of Ne ~ro Hu'.11.or. New York, 1966. , .. ~ ., ed. La Poesie N~gro-Am~ricnine. Paris: Editions Se ghers., 19 06. fed. New Ne gro Poets U.S.A. Bloomington, Ind • ., ----1-9--fa~ • .. and Arna. Bontemps, eds. The Poetry of the Ner:ro_., 1146-1970. Rev. ed. Garden City ., IJ . 2: • ., 1970. Johnson, Charles S., ed. ~bonv and •r ooaz: .A Collectanea. New York, 1927. Johnson, James Weldon, ed. The Book of American Negro Poetry. Rev. ed. New York , 1931. , ed. The Book of Americe.n 1Je £Zro S irituals. --N-ew- York, 192 ; The Second Book of Ne r"T'_Q_ Spirituals. New York, 1926. Jones, LeRoi and Larry Neal, eds. __Black Fire: An. Anthology of Afro-Amer i can Writing . New York, 1968. - Jordan, June, ed. Soulscript: Afro-American Poetry. Garden City., N.Y., 1970. Kearns, Francis E., ed. r he Black Exp~:rj.~nc~: _An Anthologv of American Literature for t he 1970'~. New York, 19 70. Kendricks, Ralph, ed. Afro-American Voices: _1770's19709s. New York, t 9 70. Kerlin, Robert T., ed. Neero Poets and Their Poems. 2nd ed. Washingt on, D.c., 1935. - King, Woodie. _Blac~. §_ pJ F_i ts: A_ F':?.sti ya),__qf _N_e:w Blac~ _Poets in America. New York, 1 972. Kni cht, Etherid r e, ed. Black Voices f rom Prison. New York, 1970. Lanusse, Armand, ed. Creole Voices: r oems in French by Fr_~~ ---~§ln_ of _Colq_r. Ed. Edwar d re. Col em.e_ n. Centennial ed. Washine ton, D.C., 1945 . �ANTHOLOGIES (cont 1 d) Locke, Alaine, ed. Four Ner.:ro Poets. New York, 1927. , ed. The New Ner.:ro: An Interpretation. New --y--o-rk, 1925. Lomax, Alan and Raoul Abdul, eds. 3000 Years of Black Poetry. New York, 1970. - ¥"~Lowenf'els, Walter, ed. In A.Time of Revolution: Poems From our Third World. New York, 1969. Major, Clarence, ed. The New Black Poetry. New York, 1969. Mi ller, Adam David, ed. Dices or Black Bones: Black Voices of the Seventies. Boston, 1970. ~ Miller, Ruth, ed. _B lacka.merican Liter~e 1760-Presen_t. Beverly Hills, Calif., 1971. Moon, Bucklin, ed. Primer f'or White Folks. Garden City, N.Y., 1945. Murphy, Beatrice. ed. ~ero Voice§. Hew York, 1938 . • Ebony Rhythm. New York, 19~.8 and 1G68 . - - - . Today's Negro Voices. New York, 1970. Nelson, Alice Dunbar, ed. Masterpieces of Nerrrp Eloquence. New York, 1914. -.. Nicholas, Xe.vier, ed. Poetry of Soul. New York, 1971. ~ ,f-:: 0 'Daniel, Thurman, ed. Langston Hu r;hes, Black Genius: )~: ~Jn_ t\C ( A Critical Evaluati on. New York, 1971. · Osofsky, Gilbert, ed. Puttin' on Ole Massa : The Sle.ve Narratives of Henry Bibb, William W. Brown, and Solomon Northrup. New York, 196G. Patterson, Lindsay, ed. An Introduction to Black Literature in America from 1 to the Present. W&shington, D.C., 19J9. -Perkins, Eugene, ed. Black Expressions: An Anthology of New Black Poets . Chicac o. 1967. Poems by Blacks, vol. I. Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1970. , Vol. II. Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1972. - - - , Vol. III . ( Pinkie Gordon Lane, ed.). Fort Smith, Arkansas, 1973. Pool, Rasey E., ed. Bevond the Blues : New Poems by American Nep.:roes. Lympne, Kent, Entland, 1962 • • Ik Ben de Nieuwe Ne ~er. The lla r ue: Bert __ B_a,.....kker, 19 64. Porter, Dorothy, ed. Early Ne vro Nritin5, __1_760-1S37. Boston, 1971. - Randall, Dudley , ea. Black :)_)o~1I'...Y: A Supplement to Anthologies 1,lhich Exclude Black Poets. Detroit, 1969. and Margaret Burrour;hs , eds. For .Malcolm : Poems on the Life and Death of Malcolm 2(. . Detroit, 1969. , ed. The Bl•ck Poets . New York, 1971 . .--· _R_e_d_m_o-nd, Eugene. Sides of the Ri ver: _A Mini Antholo gy of Black Hri tings. f..£;.:.!.·T $-j. ·L..o"t1 \S /'I LL~ .·- , 19 70. -:~Long ., Richard 4. and Pu~·enla Go l 1ier1 e.ds .. Af-ro - Amerfc~n ~ ~nol_oey_ of' Pro5e. -and_ J)oe.tn/. :;l._ vo -1 5 . ~;: t~~°t·A79 1 I I I I .~ I �ANTHOLOGIES (cont'd) Reed, Ishmael, ed. 19 Necromancers from Now: An _Anthology of Original American Writing tor the 70s. Garden City, N.Y., 1970. Robinson, William H., ed. Early Black American Poet~. Dubuque, Iowa, 1969. Rodgers, Carolyn M., ed. For Love of Our Brothers. Chicago., 1970 •. -- Schulberg, Budd, ed. From the Ashes: Voices of Watts. New York, 1967. - Shuman., R. Baird, ed. A Galaxy of Black Writing.~~ Durham, N.C., 1970. . ., ed. Nine Black Poets. Durham, N.c., 1968. So'~ession. Newark, 1970 (?) Stanford, Barbara Dodds., ed. I, Too, Sing America: Black Voices in American Literature. New York, 1971. Ten: An Antholof. of Detroit Poets. Fort Sm1 th, Arks,nsas, 196 • - Troupe, Quincy, ed. Watts Poets and Writers. Los Angeles, 1968. Turner., Darwin T., ed.· Black American Literature: Poetry. Columbus, Ohio, 1970. Watkins, Sylvester c., ed. Antholo~ of American Negro Literature. New York, 1944. White, Newman I. and Walter c. Jackson, ed.s . ..Alt Anthologfuof Verse by American Negroes. Durham, N.C., 19 • Wilents, Ted and Tom Weatherly, eds. Natural Process: An Anthology of New Black Poetry. New York, 1971. Woodson., Carter G., ed. Negro Orators and Their Orations. Washington, D.c., 1925. -. D LITERARY HISTORY AND CRITICISM (General) Allen, Samuel. "Negritude and Its Relevance to the American Negro Writer. " The American Ne_gro Wr1 te:r and His Roots. New York,7:'960. Pp. 8-20 The Am.eri.c.a-n Ne-gr() Writer and_~l.1LB09t~. New York, - 1960. Baraka, Imamu Amiri {LeRoi Jones). "The Black Aesthetic." Negro Digest, XVIII (September 1969), 5-6. Bontemps, Arna. "The Black Renaissance of the Twenties," Black World, XX (November 1970), 5-9 • • "Famous WPA Authors." Negro Digest, VIII - . . .c....J--uo.e 1950), 43-47 . • "The Harlem Renaissance." The Saturday Review __o_f,....Literature, XXX (March 22, 1947}, 12-13, 44 . • "The Negro Contribution to American Letters." --Th--e American Negro Referenye Book. Ed. John P. D•vis. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1966. Pp. 850-878. �LITERARY HISTORY AND CRITICIS M (General) • "The New Black Renaissance." Ne a:ro Dir-est, 1961)., 52-53. , ed. , The Harlem Renaissance Remembered. New --y--o-rk, 1972. Brawley, Benjamin. "The NeGI"O in American Literature. u The Bookman, LVI (October 1922), 137-141. Bronz, Stephen H. Roots of Negro Racial Consciousness: The 1920's: Three Harlem Renaissance Authors. New York, 1964. Brooks, Russel 1. "The Comic Spirit a.nd the Ne gro's New Look. 11 CLA Journal, VI {1962), 35-1-1-3. Brown, Lloyd W. "Black Entitles: Hames e.s Symbols in Afro-American Literature." Studies in Black Litera~ , I (Spring 1970), 16-44·. Brown., Sterling A. "The American Race Problem as Reflected in American Literature. 11 The Journal of Negro Education, VIII (1939), 275 -290 • • ''The New Ne gro in Literature (1925-1955)." ---,,.T.,...h-e New Negro Thirtv Years Afterward. Ed. Rayford W. Logan et al. Washing ton, D.C., 1955. Pp 57-72. Calverton, Victor F. 'r he Liberation of American Literature. New York, 1932. 11 • Tbe Ne gro and American Culture. " The Saturday --R-e-view of Literature, XX II (September 21, 1940), 3-4. Cayton, Horace R. "Ideolo g ical Forces in the Work of Ne gro Writers. " _-B,nr;er, and Bevond: The Negro Writer in the United States. Ed. Herbert Hill. New York, 1966. Pp. 37-50. Chapman, Abraham. "The Harlem Rena .i.ssance in Li tera.ry - History. 11 .Q.LA Journal, XI (1q67), 3>3 -58. Clarke, John Henrik. "The Ne glected Dimensions of the Harlem Renaissance. 11 Black Horld, XX (November 1970) --x. .I~{November . 118-129. - • "The Ori g in and Growth of Afro-American Litera----rt-u-re. 11 Negro Digest, XVII (December 1967), 5Li-67. 11 Clay, Eug ene. The Ne gro in Recent American Literature. 11 Am~rj._Q_fl..!}___Wrtt~:r.s' _Qong:r:~i:i.§. Ed. Henr y Hart. New York, 1935. Pp. 145-153. - _Qg_lf~~µ-tI~66J\-~~~~-~-s~~{~ A~~1~!-r~~-~~~1 ~~6-%~ ~~iq6~. N~-~ 0 Conrad, Earl. '~merican Viewpoint: Blues School of Literature. 11 The .. Chica g o Defender, December 22, 1945, p. 11 • ..... Cook, Mercer and Stephen Henderson. The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United States. Madison, ~ W i s . , 1969. - · Cullen, Countee. "The Dark Tower. 11 gpportuni ty, monthly column, 1926-1928 . -i!Cru.N se; l+a ~ 1 d • l'h.-.e. S.r~j_S___Q f' Jb_~ .N.?..St9__ J_t:1!.~_l.1~c t ua1. ew Yor r-. ~ 1 0-:1 ·61 - I 2 l.o �LITERARY HISTORY AND CRITICIS ( Genera.l) ,1 Davis, Arthur P . "Growing up in the New Nev,ro Renaissance: 1920-1935. 11 Ne,:,-ro Ameri~an Literature Forum, II (1968 ), 53-59 . Dillard, J.L. Bleck English. New York , 1q72. Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls·of Black Folk . Chica ~o. 1903. Ellison, Ralph. ~hadow and Act.. New York, 1964: Evans , Mari. "Conte mporary Black Lite:rl:lture. 11 Black World, XIX ( June 1970), 4, 93-9L~. Ford, Nick Aaron. Annual "Critical Survey of Significant Belles Lettres by and About Nerroes . 11 Phyl on, XXII (1961), 119-134; XXV (1961-!-), 123-lJJr. • "Black Literature and the Pro b lem 01"' Eval11 --u-a.... tion. College English, XXXII ( 1971), 536-5L~ 7. • Black Studies: 'I1hreat or Challen r:e? Port ,ie.fl<9.,.. --r-!ashinr;ton., N. Y., 1973. rf,:.( ·,.C Oi;,.s}.!}' St>• ?uller, Hoyt W. "Black Imo.res and Wbite Critics. "\/~e~~~; uA ~ 1 • "The lJe .n ;ro Writer in t he Un it ed St ates." ~e.,n J • ~ n y , 11XX (November• 196Ld, 126-134. • Porspecti ves. 11 Ne r-ro Di t·est and Black 1:lorld, --m-o-ntblv column. , e~. '½ Survey: Bleck Writers ' Views on Lit--e-r-ary Lions and Values_, 11 Kep:ro DL..,.est, XVII ( January 1968), 10-4 n , a1- B9 . Gayle, Addison, Jr., ed. The Black Aesthetic. Garden City, N.Y., 1971. , ed. Black Expression: Essav s bv and About ---=B--1-ack Americans in the Creative Arts. :-iew York, 1969. --- -- - -·· - Gerald, Carol:rn. "Th e Black Hri ter and His Role . 11 Ne~ro Dipest, XVIII ( January 1 969), u.2-h S. Haskins, Jim and Hu 3h F. Butts, I'-1 .D. The Psyc h olor;y of Black Langu~ ne. New York, 1973. Haslam, Gerald W. --nThe Awakenj_nr,. of American l~ec;r o Literature 1619-1 900. '' The Black Americat1__Wr iter. Ed. C.W.E. Bipsby . Deland, Fle ., 1969. Vol. II, pp. 41-51. • "Two '.J.1radi tions in Afro-American Literature. 11 --n-e-search Ctudies, A Quarterl y Pu b lication of Washington State University, XX.,'C~!II ( S eptember 1969), 183-193. Hill, Herbert. "The Negro Writer and the C-reat i ve 11 Imagination. Arts in Societv, V (196 G), 24L~-255. Huggins, Nathan I. Harlem Rena.is-sance_. Hew York, 1971. Huc;bes, Lang ston. The Birr Sea. i-Jew York, 19l~O. I Wonder as I 1..la. nder. New York, 1956. • "Tbe Ner,:ro Artist and the Racial ;vlountain. 11 ---T~h-e Nation, CXXII (1926), 692-694. tJ.1 �LITERARY HISTORY AND CRITICIS f.i ( General) 11 To Negro Writers. 11 Amer i can 1tJr :t ters' Con['",X..M_fl. Henry Hart. New York, I'9]~: ,~ ·Pp :"-\39-llrl. • uThe Twenties: IIarle:-n and Its He -·r·i tude. " -~Af-r-ican Forum, I (Spr inc 1 19~6), l].-20. Jackson, Blyden. Annual "R~ sume of iJc r-.:ro Li terature. 11 Phylon, XVI (1955), 5 -12; XVII (1956 ), 35-40. Jahn, Janheinz. Neo-African Literature: A Hi story of Black Wri tin ~ . New York, 1968. Jeffers, Lance. '~fro-Ameri can Literature, The Conscience of Man." The Black S choler, II (Ja n uary 1971), Li7- 53 . -------- Johnson, Charles S. "T'he 1'1ep;ro Enters Literature . " Carolina Har:azine, LVII ( ~1a y 192 7 ), 3- 9 , Ji4 -l~ G. Johnson, .James Weldon. Alon r; This Way . New York, 1933. Jones, LeRoi (Imamu Amir i I3araka) . Home: S oc ia l Essays. New York, 19 66 . -Keller, Joseph. "Black Writ i nr; and the Wt1i te Cri t le. 11 N.~r;ro American Literature Forurq., III ( 1969 ), 1()3-110. Kent, Geor g e E. Blackness and the Ad v enture of Western Culture. Chica go , 19 71. Ki l r.:r, orc, James C. "Tbe Case fo r Black Li te:ra.ture. n Negro Dl~est, XVIII ( July 1 969), 22-25,6 6 -69 . Kill.ens, Jorin Oliver. ''A nothe r T.i.mc Wn c n Bl ack Was Beautiful." Black t·:orld, XX ( Hov e::nb e:r 1970), 20-36. Lamming , Geor c·e. "':Pbe 1Je 0 ro Writer and Il is H orld. " Prlsence Af rica ine , Nos. 3-1 0 ( J une- Novemb er 1956), pp. 32!~-332. Lash _, John. Annual "Critical Summar y o.f Literature by and About Ne groes. 11 Phvlon, XVIII (1q c;7 ), 7-24; XIX (1958 ), ll-1-3-154, 2h7-257; XX ( 1 9_c;g }. 115-131; XX:I (19 60), 111.-123 . Llorens, Davi d. '~hat Contemporary Bla ck Writers are Saying. 11 Nommo, I (Winter 1969), 2µ-27. 11 • Wri ters Conv er f-: e a.t Fisk Un i v ers i t~r . 11 Ne r::ro --D~i-gest, XV (June 1966), 54 - 6£:!i . Locke, Alain, ed. The New Nerro _: An Interpretation. New York, 1925 . Lo gg ins, Vernon. The Necro Auth or: His Development in America to 1900 . New York, 1931. 'V[urray, Albert. The Omni-Amer i cans _: New Pe~pectiv.e..s on Black Experience and -American Gul ture. New York, 19 70 • • South Ar ain to~ Verv Old Place. New York, --E-a-. • --19---7~. , ---~ 11 Neal., Larry . Any Day Now: Blac k Art and Blnck Liberation." Ebony, XJCIV (/\u r:ust 1969), 54 -5,9 , 62. "Our Prize Winners and Wbat '11hev ::-_;av of ~l.'hemsel ves. " Opportunit v , IV (1 926 ), l GB-i G9 . ~eddinc; , Saunders. "American Ne g ro Lite rature. 11 'rhe American S cholar, XVIII (19h9), 137-14 8 . ~K) I Dani e.1: Thu ff'()an., e.d 1an_~t~Y1 jfug_h~SJ S1a.ct Genf u-5: ,4 _Cr; tt ca1 __E'fa_Tuati a1. New Yarr; 7977, -- - -· O �I I LITERARY HISTORY AND CRITICISM (General) I I • "The Negro Writer and His Relationship to --H'T"i-s Roots. 11 The American Negro Writer and His Roots. New York, 1960. Pp 1- B. • To Make a Poet Black. Chapel Hill, N.C., I I __1"'""'9,..,..39. I Rourke, Constance. "Tradition· for a Ner;ro Li terature. 11 Roots of American Culture. New York, 1942. Pp. 262-274. Shapiro, Karl. "The Decolonization of Ame rican Literature. 11 Wils_pn Library BulletiQ, XXXIX I I I (1965), 842-853. Spingarn, Arthur B. "Books by Negro Authors. 11 The Crisis, 1938-1965, annual feature. Thurman, Wallace. "Negro Artists and the Negro." The New Republic, LII {August 31, 1g27), 37-39. Turner, Darwin T. "A.fro-American Li tere.ry Critics. 11 Black World, XIX (July 1970), 54-67. • "The Teaching of Afro-American Literature. 11 --.c. .o---llege . Engli~h, YJXI (1970), 666-670. Williams, Sh~rl9y. G~ve Birth to Brightness: ~Thematic Study in Neo-Black Literature. New YOrk, 1972. {Poetry) Bailey, Leaonead. Broadside Authors: A Bio~raohica1 Directory. Detroit, 1971. Barksdale, Richard K. "Trends in Contemporary Poetry . PhyloQ, XIX (1958), 408-416 . • "Urban Crisis and the Black Poetic Avant--G-a-rde. 11 Nep;ro American Literature Forum, III (1969), 40-44. 11 Bennett, M. W. "Negro Poets.,, Negro History Bulletin, IX (1946), 171-172, 191. Berger, Art. "Negroes with Pe ns. 11 Mainstream, XVI (July 1963}, 3-6. Bland, Edward. "Rae ial Bias and Negro Poetry. " Poetry, LXIII (1944), 328-333. Bone, Robert. "American Nec;ro Poets: A French View. 11 Tri-Quarterly, No. 4 (1965), pp 185-195. Bontemps, Arna. "American Ne gro Poetry. 11 The Crisis, LXX • (1963), 509. "Negro Poets, Then and Now." --(1.--950), 355-360. Phylon, XI '1 I I �LITERARY HISTORY AND CRITICIS M (Poetry) Braithwaite, William Stanley. "Some Contemporary Poets of the Negro Race. " The Cris is, XVII ( l q19), 275-280. Breman, Paul. "Poetry Into the •Sixties.'' The Black American Writer. Ed. C.W.. E. Bigsby. Deland, Fla. , 1969. Vol. II, pp 99-109. Brooks, Gwendolyn. "Poets Who Are Negro. " Phylon, XI (1950), 312. • Report from Part One. Detroit, 1972. ---. "Introduction. 11 The Poetry of Black America. Arnold Adoff, ed. New York, 1973. Brown, Sterling A. "The Blues." Pbylon, XIII (19_52), 286-292 • 11 • Nep.;ro Folk Expression: Spirituals, Seculars, --n-a--llads, and Songs. II Phylon, XIV (1953), 45-61 . • Negro Poetry and Drama. Washington, D.C., - ......1.....9,_.37 • • Outline for the Study of the Poetry of American --N~e-groes. New York, 1931. Cartey, Wi lf'red. "Four Shadows of Harlem. '' Negro Digest, XVIII (August 1969), 22-25. Chapman, Abraham. "Black Poetry Today. 11 Arts in Society, V (1968), 401-40 8. Charters, Samuel B. The Poetry of the Blues. New York, 1963. 11 Collier, Eugenia W. Heri tage f'rom Harlem. 11 Black World, XX (November 1970), 52-.59. 11 • I Do Not Marvel, Countee Cullen." CLA --3-0-~nal, XI (1967), 73-87. Davis, Arthur P. "The New Poetry of Black Hate." CLA Journal, XIII (1970), 382-391. Daykin, Walter I. "Race Consciousness in Nee;ro Poetry." pociology and Social Research, XX (1936), 98-105. Echeruo, M. J.C. "American Ne g ro Poetry. 11 _Phylon, XX.IV (1963), 62-68. Ellison, Martha. "Velvet Voices Feed on Bitter Fruit: A Study of American Ne~ro Poetry. rr Poet and Critic, IV (Winter 1967-1968), 39-49. Ely, Effie Smith. "American Negro Poetry . 11 The Christian Century, XL (1923), 366-367. Fla.sch, Joy. Melvin B. Tolsop. New York, 1973. Furay, Micha.el. "Africa in Negro American Poetry to 1929. 11 African Lit~r.gture TodfilT, II (1069), 32-41. 1 Garrett, DeLois. ~ream Motif in Contemporary Negro 11 Poetry. English Journal, LIX (1q70), 767-770. /30 I I ,I I I �LITERARY HISTORY A1'J'D CRITICISM ( Po etry) Garrett, Naomi M. '~acial Motifs in Contemporary .. Am~rJ_Q,{3,t]..,_an<LF_r_ench Negro Poetry. 11 West Virr:inia ·····• ·"''' ·university Phil5IBical Papers, XIV (1963), 80-101. Gibson, Donald B, ed. Modern Black Poets: _A Collection of Critical Essays. Enc;l~wood Cliffs, N• .J., 1973. Glicksberg, Charles I. "Ner_::ro Poets and the American Tradition. 11 rrhe Antioch Review, VI (1946), 2~.3-253. 11 Good, Charles Hamlin. The First Americe.n Ne gro Literary Movement.u Opportunity, X (1932)~ 76-79. Heath, Phoebe Anne. '~e gro Poetry as an Historical Record." Vassar Journal of Underc;ra.dua.te Studies, III (May 1928), 34-52. Horne, Franks. "Black Verse." Opportunity, II (1924), 330-332. Johnson, Charles S. "Jazz Poetry and Blues." Carolina Magazine, LVIII (May 1928), 16-20. Johnson, James Weldon, "Preface. 11 The Book of American Negro Poetry. Ed. James Weldon J ohnson. Rew York, 1931. Pp . 3-46. Kerlin, Robert T. "Conquest by Poetry. 1' The Southern Workman, LVI (1927), 282-284 . • Contemporary Poetry of the Nepro. Hampton, --v.a-., ... 1921. . - • "A Pair of' Youthful Negro Poets. 11 Tbe -'Southern Workmar::i, LIII (1924), 178-l Ml. 11 • Present-Day Nep;ro Poets. 11 The Southern --w-•o-rkman, XLIX (1920), 543-548. • "Singers of' New Songs. " Oppor t uni t_y, IV ---,(,.....1--926), 162-164. Kilgore, James C. "Toward the Dark Tower." Black World, XIX (June 1970), 14-17. - Kjersmeier, Carl. "Ne gro es as Poets. 11 The Crisis, XXX (1925), 186-189. Lee, Don L. "Black Poetry: Which Direction?" Negro Digest, XVII {September-October 106R). 21-32 . • Dynamite Voices: Black Poets of the 1960'~· --n-e~troit, 1971. Locke, Alain. "The Message of the Negr•o Poets. 11 Carolina Magazine, LVIII ( May 1928), 5-15. Moore, Gerald. "Poetry in the Harlem Renaiss ance. 11 The Black Ameri,gaQ __J_-J"ri_t._~r. Ed. C. W.E. Bigsby. Deland, Fla., l9b9, Vol. II, pp. 67-76 . Morpurgo, J.E. "American Negr o Poetry. 11 Fortnightly. CLXVIII {July 1947), 16-24. Morton, Lena Beatrice. Ne ~ro Poetry in America. Boston, 1925. "Negro Poetry. 11 Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poeti.cs. Ed. Alex Preminger, Frank J. Warnke, nnd O.B. Hardison. Princeton, N.J., 1965. Pp 556-559. 13/ I I I I I I I �LITERARY HISTORY AND CRITICISM {Poetry) "Ne gro Poets, Singers in the Dawn. 11 The Nec:ro History Bulletin, II (1938), 9-10, 14-15. Oliver, Paul. Blues Fell This ~orning : The Meaning of' The Blues. New York, 1960 • • Conversation with the Blues. New York, 1965. _P_o_o-1-,-Rosey. "'l1he Discovery of American Ne rrro Poetry. 11 Freedomways, III (1963), 46-51. 11 Ram.saran, J.A. Tbe 'Twice-Bore' Artists' Silent 11 Revolution. Black World, XX (May 1971), SF.3 -68 . 11 Redmond, Eugene B. The Black American Epic: Its Roots, Its Writers." The Black Scholar, II (January 1971), 15-22. • "How Many Poets Scrub the River's Ba.ck? 11 --c-o-nf'ronta.tion, I (Spring, 1971), 47-.53. 11 Rodgers, Carolyn M. B~-~-~tc Poetry-\fuere It's At. 11 Negro Dig~st, XVII {S~tember 1969), 7-16. Rollins, Charlemae. Fa .,t uUS American lJe~r_o P_~ets . New York, 1965. Taussig, Charlotte E. "The New l'fa~ro as Revealed in His I)oetry." Op?,ortunity, V (1927), lO P-111. 7 Ne gro Poets and Their Poetry." Thurman, Wallace. The Bookman, LXVII ( 1928), 555-561. "The Umbra Poets . 1r Mainstream, XVI ( July 1963), 7-13. "The Undaunted Pursuit of Fury. 11 !ime, XCV (April 6, 1970), 9 () -100. , , Wagner, Jean. Les poete~ nacres des Etats-vnts : Le ' sentiment rayial ~_t_relii:deux dans la poesi~~ P.L. Dunbar a L. Hughes. Paris, 1963. lt:-~lker, Margaret. "New Poets.'' Yhylon, XI (1950), 345-354. White, Newman I. ''American Ne gro Poetry." _South Atlantic Quarterly, XX (1921), 304-322 . • "Racial Fee line; in Nep;ro Poetry. " South --1-t-lantic Quarterly, XXI (1922), 14-29. Work, Monroe N. '1The Spirit of Nerrro Poetry. 11 The Southern Workman, XXXVII (19o e ), 73-77. ( Fo 1 kl ore .,_-_.,N,,,,"'""'".,....~"" b ) * Abrahams, Roger. Deep Down in the Jy.t}_g],~: _Negro Narrative Folklore from the Street 0£ Philadelphia. Hatboro, Pa.. , 1964. · -· Brewer, J. Mason . "American Negro Folklore. u Phylon, VI {1945), 354-361. ,_ - - - : . r r--•,•y.··,·n·•,-. l i ···q) - 7 . c:-7 ·n·1 , 1.... l ) ; -,1, Yl·:-,. ~-~ 1,. ::.-, .. ,.., ,J 1. • 1 .... 7 7 '"'J.l ~}-, .. ·-!1 ,/:. ,. · _ ·t·) FvJ•'••~ l! . . . . -- ',· ··: - , , ..., T ·-,· ...•-. ; '-·i '>_ JJ r'\·1 •1 ff ·. ,-·,v,;;:L1~· I -, ·~ '? j" 1 I �LI'rEHARY HISTORY A1ID CRITICIS E (Folklore) • American Ne~ro Folklore. Chicar,o, 1968. =B_r_o_w_n_, Sterlin~ A. 7 11'he Blues. 11 Phylon, XIII (lq52), 286-292. • ''Negro Folk Expression: Spirituals, Secu~1-a-rs, Ballads, ar.,.d Songs. 11 Phylon, XIV (1953), l15-61. . 11 Conley, Dorothy L. 0ric;in of the Ner::ro Spiri tue.ls. 11 The Negro Histo_ry __ Bulletin, X,Y..V ( 1962), l 79-lBO. Courlander, Harold. Negro Folk Music, Q. S .A. New York, 1963. Dorson, Richard M. American NeRro Folktales. New York, 1967 . • ed. Arrican Folklore. New York . 1972. -E-1-1~1-s-, A.B. '~volutlon in Folklore: Som~ West African Prototypes of the Uncle Remus Stories ." Popular Science, XLVIII (November 1895), 93-104 . Fisher, Miles Mark. Negro Slave Songs in the United States. New York, 1963. Georgia Writern' Project. Drums and Shadows: ~ vi val Studies Among -~b e Georr;ia Co_~~~~~___ Ner:roes. Athens, Ga., 19h0.({1 !V-: ,: .•.C.:t-J ,2•J '/s:,1-i<. 1l'"f7;.!.,; Handy, W.C. and Abbe Niles, eds. Treasury of the Blues. New York, 1949. Harris, Joe 1 Chand 1 er • D'----a_d_d....,_y_J-'a'-'--k-'-e.C...-_t=h-"e--"-R-'--'u"'.""n=a=w-"-a=y~,~a__i1___d Short Stories Told After Dark. Hew York, 1:J[1 9, Jones, LeRoi (Imamu Amir[ Ba.rake) . Black Music. New York, 1967 . • Blues People: Ner;ro Music in White America. --N-ew- York, 1963. Krebhiel, Henry Edward. Afro-American Folksonrrs: A Study in Rae ial and National Music. ~tfow York, l 9ll~. Lovell, John. "Reflections on the Orir;lns of the Negro Spiritual. " Neg1•0 American Literature Forum, III (1969), 91-97. McGhee, Nancy 13. 11 The Polk Sermon: A Facet of tbe Black Literary Heri tare. 11 CLA Journal. XIII ( 1969), 1 57-61. Odum, Howard W. and Guy B. Johnson. Tbe Ne,~ro and His Songs. Chapel Hill, N.C., 192_5 • • Negro Workaday Songs. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1926. ~O~l~i-v-er-, Paul. Blues Fell This Mornin g : The Meani ng of the Blues. New York, 1960. Scarborough, W.W. "Negro Polklore and Dialect. 11 Arena, XVII (1897), 186-192. Talley, T. vL Negro Folk Rhymes. Wise and O~berwise. New York, 1922. 133 �LITERARY IIIS':PORY AlilD CRIT IC I S ' -; ( F o lklore ) Thurman, Howard. Deep River. New York, 1955 . 11 Twinine;, Mary Arnold. An Ant b ropolo i:;-:ic nl Look at Afro-American Folk Narrati ve . 11 CLA Journal. XIV (1970), 57-61. . White, Newman I. American Ne gro Folk-~9 n ~s. Cambrid ge, Mass., 1928 . 11 Work, John W. Ne gro Folk S on g ." Oppor tun i t y , I ( 1923), 292-29!~. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_07_36 Title A name given to the resource Copy of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Bibliography, p. 118-130 Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B. Description An account of the resource Copy of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Bibliography, p. 118-134 https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/14e188986a059abcd28f372969eb0c17.pdf 72327a1e033c0d7775862eec59941505 PDF Text Text • .six1i'e.s "chariots of fire , 11 " smoking ,r- I Ii , ' ' o.t')(L ll~ r ·o~ PNe. t '' "get down on whi t ey"l\;ta!lftll!mrf-re often used by critics attempting 'Armageddon, descri ~ to 11 and defini ~ • u • th ver-- L while there was u;11a.~ fire , II and brimstone , as Blyden Jackso Indeed when the ~+he in its ,,ip o lene ss , s oene is who Mount0d often not poets. o oets 0 ~aid of them. n 1, t.ili~fm:W, stay "mounted in a ch r.; ot of to time had New Bl~ck poets .~~- .s- - v0rba:::!. and popular of/\.;991-,,,.. ikki Giovanni .- - Lven the most , Madhu.bu ti/\ denounced poetry as a luxu~ . ~e,W'le Jtll~ ()It? a r aka, ~onia San- -fhd"o,uUk /~L•a. f/:onJ, d. · Ji>Ls 0rt4i> •ii i ~-tevolution., 11 admitting in the meantime , perhaps , thqt theirs ~ was a partic~lar brand of oratory ~ etry in a traditional theM an This chore "place" in the poetic scheme of things --albefutj a "nlace 11 important yet to be designated. Wbv iously there On.). Some , .--..... . eJ,UJ t e w r i t i n ~ n y of1'\?ie poets • suffering from the , disfigurement of perc eptions Madhublil.ti , in halfre - baked theories e, like corre ct sociological picture not the n~w Blacknes s, sul -4- II ~ 1IS 1 • 1'hoi; poetrp 'ja often/\f · dled with confusion; inaccurracies �2 and this is ghast l y , so that a popular "latex stamp of approval while the deeper , searching an Patterson, Cornish, C0 rte z, Jordan, Lorde 4iil-• provide with an 1 extended ctisfigurement allilll:h~'!B•ren · o. 'llbVhct~-fP;;"~~ cleaf.~ t up as Neal h .'11_.iiifll!l!~Black criti c oli ti cal p~JJJ. 'J and ide Both Mchay und Hiv hie Man can write my story, '' but durin~ teachers H9i19 'iJ:Pi 9tl?f Black r0aa0rs and asking 11 ~ here is the IP ack writer who wi J 1 write it?" Contrary t o popular belief, ti I J}g1'i t takes years and understand the com~lex~ """""'-~ Black ~XPerience . And those writers €rid snokes?1en) who seemed to hav e mastered aspects or it 49•r often J,iMii111. .llli•IIII\ alcolm, ~nifpt , uarold Carringt on) which allowed them time for rf flection , creative development , and exnerimentation . ~ven Gwend0lyn Brooks had " tir1e '' to work out ti cklish quP-stions and noetry. unlike she did not have to~ I during her early ..-..-.~ lecture circuit ,,.,_sz;t.im:a. ~ t she cultivated and protected .her distanc e is ev • ·dent in the superio n quality of her whi ch aoes not shun the salient thene s oft he pride , -cP9N:8\ii'iQ int o;poi;;t ii.ii: Africa , Black music , self- love , Black heterosexuality, violence , mistrust of whites , the Western world and self- detcI'Plination . Yet those opnosing the Black Aesthetic not always hav e a clean slate • • ~ , since they .w..~s. often "shored up" by personal experiences , �3 with whites. Ar1onF, the onnonents oft hJ1 11 senarate" aesthetic for ...5lacks, il,GIM~~ill!!~heve maintained close associutions vtlth academy-trainer, oriented white critics and writP-rs. And Hayden must~ ask him.self why rA subscribe to a Black Aesthetic if he subscribes to the aesthetic of the Baha•i 1''aith-- 11 the only one," he hvs said, 11 to which I willingly subr1i.t. '' :•'or it is clear that olac 1{ culture ,ossesses f or a new re 1 i. i i.~~ the possio~lities and 1/ ... :t:::mi:::c:::::ec:cc:=::=z:::::.- n ~J.,'tv coulwepla~~~vhristianity as the driving force{mystique) behind J spiritual •m~strivings and aspiration!:I a prospect ;i. which should not be too lightly dismissed. That sonB new poets ~ i-- ,; ,o,i..-.i:ili&illiil;li!ilie,lllftllt however, ~~--=~~a..lieli... did wade a~ 13 is seen Ausi.cal, daring, ambivalent, complex and technically dexterous, the poem suITII'l.arizes the U"'lcertain wdw, of ~lackness. Like Hayden's 11 -..----.-.-......... fluentn Zeus" r.nd Gwendolyn orooks 111 Hiot 11 it.,.· cap- tures the suspense and hyperactivity of contemporary life. The po- the 11 invisible" - - - world and "cyc1ical nir:htmare" of the rllack .t!ixperience, ..-:::::::::::: becomes a~_legorical as -e, 1,oef , celebrates heroesllfsung c.nd unsung, ,,-- al 1 of whom vre a.ead i.n one way or another. 'Ihey winged his spirit & wounded his tongue but death was slow coming The 11 slow" death is both the agony and the ecstasy, as it were, nestled somewhere between the dope needle( 11 rusty rims of a needle") and "cultural vaginas" that"rushednthrough stregts urging men t o d •~e for shame lj If •ii �4. The poettiost a good frined" whom she loved; shijl>ped b&ck to hnr, with "thorns on his casket , " ~ &he has been c. 0•.0 .: collect on death collect on death co lect on death "friend '~ome$an.y dead nack sookemen whose blood has been "consumed by vultures" : 1 fuo killed IUM.umba Who killed I alcolm •rhese lines • refrain which laments join other~ the loss of all friends ; death and dope and violence and cons umption have devoured theM! The,re are no tears we have no friends this is the word .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . we are alone f he world of "cadillacs and coc aine II is populated by festivals and funera ls , poets that s c ream "kill run kill , '' -=ailill•IIF•:•lllillllll•glll!li.iu••liiliiliJ:~ 11 e1.ashikis in the wind " "the flesh of PatriceJ ever -pm and 11 the blues . Blacldk) 11 t knowA ' church . - 11 as close as the juke jojnt or the In the urban maze of Mind rnd place , the~e_wjll;JZom its ecstatic ope ration • (heath)even when dope , • · · or politi c al oppression will not . ~lack girl , Black without friends; in a hostile country or living in one • In Africa or Ame~ica the fates of Blacks ~ areAsi~lar : Who killed Lunumba Who killea Malco]Jp. It is a backdoor or valve to let off steam. !'he rush of the poem•s languaf,e compleMents the "rush" of Black life which is necessitated by oor--;ess1on but wnich , in tu'Y"n , results ~n enor~ously high and early deaths. �5 11 .t:t'estiival s 6c B'une rals" is not rosited here a .a: tr~e best or g.,,F,atest noem of the new PP.riod , but it certainl y takes in M.of the Blac~ ~xperience ,~:a=i...~~,e,li!•IJ!!lll!l. roo, i t s c ourageous lan8uage and f i-1 ~ imac:ery mark i t a s l a r g e and s i gn-i f i c ant - amon g mo de rn poems . It is~ lac4n •-~!1ii8111,....a..,w., but it has taken~ ~ in1,0J._allegorical - --- pJ yChdltiqica.l ., styl e , thene and subje c t materiaJ{-- festtvals and funerals --and worked 1'ne~ mrssage of major Proportions . Thus it enlarges the legacy o f Bl' ckness and f11aclc poetry since the linfuist.;c bf' se is a priori in the stated aims....,a:h.<l]\weapoii°'ry of the poe~. out o f all thi8 " erotic imp ·ovisation" cones +-he "uprooted perfe c tion" known §.S the "b1 ues . " And in this sense , the poet has ~''.Z.~• ._•~.a.J "';,he 1~1l:~.-ilie and a l ways diffi cult "(he ri ch aesthe:i c whi ch her tradition produ c ed. good poets of this era will emerge From among ■ak:■ been se¥erely a few great ones, though such a prospect the popular (,) . retarded by Ii..._ renunciation of "art" and "1dea4 IC) But it can l ~ ~ niallii..lllilN.,..,.ellllllll!Ql' long olftlllii•• because there is both and 1Ybreadth II urgency in much of the new thought a n d ~ .Lis then /J r to~~zl.ng ~ philosopberts--•111:a!llttlll- ,. focusless rantings. If t knowledge to complaints and ~ Black thought and literatu~e can not be called to on to function in the traditional capacity of such ar1;t--to train, develop and stimilate the faculties--then the "battle for the minds ot Black people" is already won by the other side. And,tinally, it Blacks as a people are pron--1... ~ roundly tragic, comic or heroic, then their ideas CIM'lf..µJ,I.,{ poetry~should..., be profp!andly tragic, co71ic or heroic. For Blacl~ p I to have not alWUft),S ~ 6 c l • the streets and alleys of other men's minds"and a true and nest Black poetry aill: will not be afraid to be "~reat" s and alongside whatever else of greatness there! di .<.4""' h � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_07_35 Title A name given to the resource Draft of partial manuscript of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, dated February 10, 1975 Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2/10/75 https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/138c12b531802838f0b59976c0f21bf9.pdf 6fc5e8b9666401595695b0833cad65a3 PDF Text Text CHAPTER • CONCLUSION: I VII AFTERTHOUGHTS As - - promised in our Preface we haved ; J i tried to avoid f" I • fore • ;t\ · ,- \ ·d I I'\(,/ -:.tb..fil~tt111_;-tn,l!!tllfllll!NJilill11Jlllif,:!Ur research andA.1'i8i~ e@:ttAJ u ei o:r.e into However, manicured paradigms and neat frames. #0 Dru~~oices does:-. advance theories and theses-we LL t< o 14111 /J.-~ many @4l•i!M.....liril-i-aU•lli-.Jl--•..-••A...and a) .flow • • - - • 0nti ~e/ ~ ~J. (JYI.J.~ ~ origina3A--for w~termed4_1J1 a critical nis GOrj" Indeed, tneir own have taken;tstands, a as individuals ••rthe poets . . . . . ,Wii(liilila;ia. . i~c:3tu91 and ga,oups, since to, •1 is to assume a stance: to PNJ:S-ec-t. {)., \ti~,~~ t.:e t ~ ta~ u ~Li c I!!!'!'.!' of pocbtj ±,!&}£111~ I 11• ➔ lim i-o kk out one I s systerrf of beliefs, per- en1geg; .1 ceptions, relationships and values within the poetry and poetics. Such stands JI · di poets I• alwa ::, /fri icalNor , tor Afro-Ameri~al} poets they have represented -.iil:Jll1ut, ;{I.. · · · ~ factors ~ attend ·_y-1 · ~ ¢ ~ •~he ap p arent there was simple--bu~ave 11 "proving ~ s y ~ was conducted ~~..Qi#~alas, · in 3 PX'.c.:WFGI llllllliC --task of employ literacy skills; by 11 li berk.1 11 slave masters states mad~teracy while many a crime punishible by imprisonment, beating, and,in some case~1~ath. ~ere w~onfusion and . energies in the e a rlier misdire ction · ~f ~lues an d . were ~ " Al_\ 1 poetft~ ,mir ~f\.encoura ged/YW? ~ (; - �2 conc l usion 1L I • to retain I g C 2 11§ · I I lt:ass)..- orA-the he _..• Christianization of slaves 11 African flavor(let alone ...,.,..Mi@~~'l!Jf a gh:atly duality"--or wall between the African and himself--which cluttered indeed sending most ca.lled Black intellectuals into psychic chaos. This tendency,A !:,V held 1 -111 lid& w. E.B.;?-i;:J 11inn al Afro-American the~ poets' self- and world-views, a M=6 -::ft• poetry inA, a "veil 1 A of~ limbo al -~'-J'he beginning of the twentieth Horton, ough there were exceptions(~hitfield, Whitman, century. a .,;.,;1.._pt-opt-t- ~(k.(>,rOQnd~'( --~ Frances Harper), ~tne fan understand the isolatio~sm and alienation of a Phillis Wheatley or a Jupiter Hammon who refused freedom for himself }tt.ta!!,1:1 he advocated it for young B}3. c k s. One need only read David Walker to discover the Negro"free dom" in 77u, ~&vndoJ,/e1. of among escaped slaves, out ing, • of uho llf111 11 steteli.a This folk strain in the poetry(separated by Wagner from the "spirithas ualist" vein) xsmr1thn•••• survived as a conscience, more or less, of Afro-American letters, philosophy and art. And even though critics like Wagner, ~ f a l s e distinctions l::etween / all but a -n'.CA--u and the literary(or spiritualist) realmJ, of the roots and origins ..._/\"intellec~oets delved into the folk, ~·•d·•=•~=-•• '"l!l!I-• !"l ,a · · PR ~ J· @Pw • Th.is ~ t h J ~ UR .-,il&i@?!-O&Qf f ac t 1.S · no tas 1 ' :&!,-,J1A'{lt,d 3U~ ·, lillTSiisaP 1-., ct 'i • in poe t S like Countee Cullen, Claude McKay or Jean Toomer, as it iB in,say, Baul Laurence Dunbar, James ~ildo W' Johnson,,#,-~rling Brown and Langston .c'.11"!,,...... ~ l ,,,r~~J Hughes--but it is there. ai~!tllljjjp:iliPlll.•M•~~ however, the ambivalent J~~~~~lli!! ~;Ml} Christian <!foe' ,!1"£,..,_wnit, .P I people is as evident in the exclusively folk poets as in th~se stseped in book theology. - �3 conclusion Examination of ,J.p .t,J 0/lartificial boundaries ..._ f'}?-~~oral, gestural) poetry and literary(intellectual,book)poetry ~ n o t been irrff~iis with enoughjllD intensity by critics and writers. Just because Europe or larger Americ~ have evelved beyond connnunal art forms does not mean that Afro-America has to Or does it? f:ll~w suit!A : ~~• as we staJe in th~~nning ofChapter VI, $- I e:it -~cial-communal • I l has yet to be Jiewed l b ~. . . \lo-4- fca,~. nr) Black 8l"l lii&SSO. -➔:sr¼n£~ieti&i~ei}_,i,.~. r \Ai) Lt.~ Blacks place fJ,,\1,/,X j Rllf\ empt-~~is reading trends and habits. iarlft:f!\Nz1k8F1iliJU.I h I on the dramatic presentation of a poem. /J,~i}nesB,_jpr Mdtane1!$m a/ltd tha.1,t'.sM1d-iP~ XMI" · -~the i 4 eta: l!iltFlpi'elilibJ\.l"~ngs and the sb!l!@u development of a national~au ience for poetry via s u c h # ~ tv "$-h-0 fJ{; ~ '\ as Ellis Haialip' s~ Soul,.te •;(Hit g Ill All of the foregoing statements tie in•••lq!ili) with ~ opening ~ ' 5 : g H I1h6 about stands and positions taken by poets. For, if •;J..&± SI a s:baror t·s;t Ji&l?:iiua o f ~ poe · the silent r e ~ o,.,f,.,~t_,"h e~~•1 111 ■' lb °"the ft trans- e to the page ~ ~ l i t ~ f you will, of the thought or im ; a :mr:ib f I ~:IM!I~ then oep~ainly ► I~~ ma aiR even f:lt:tybhc;- 1 ,'k,:z..:.;_ r,f I ab:::.e..t · ~riginating idea~ instincts. -...S One has only to hear an "intellectual" poet like Robert Hayden read his own works to understand thisj'principle . Our point,then, is that much of the apparent straight-laced :::::::&:; :e~;;.:;;;~~~ ~ 1' • /4 not delivered ~ ~~~ ii.1 a ; t l e~A of church =@II' survices, abolitionist rallies c · -singing, danceS or~cial ~ , One shoul~-w...!1111.1 liste{? tbr example, to a poor reader presentwzt dialedt poems of Dunbar, Davis or Corruthers. A �4 conclusions instances(Wheatley, Hammon , Ann Plato, the Creole Poets) k~ett, · to the social whirlwind, poets seem to /\be "-immune "cur~z most Afro-American poets have beenJ..u that whirlwind. Hence, patterns okJA::JJr;J;tion in = ~ d a a blessing (to parape;;;-i•••J and,rsrtriiwJt,.._"Mffl Black poets •;r-anguage,,,_~ fo~ styles and tonJ. From the ditties)t;.e bhe blues,"bv the~iritua).s ~ ~~ ~ ~ ...a ~ --.tQ tba dozens ,ee :eifts serm.9~ .. t Me jo_k~s, the . . poets "':7fan end~ / poelll eJ(){.SOI? dWJ €d P1nda1,l txJe ina. (le! Fo).NI ). -tt\'() less stre~ of /(orms and fusion~ segregated pattern ~ • that same gave these poets their ominous theme~~ their grave tones and temperaments which, coupled with their crisp insight into America's c ~ a d i ~ s and paradoxes, allowed them to project, prophesy ';9lrefine'\.'ff!la 11 duality' 1 into one of the most powerful . J 1 : : ~ o o l s available to any group of writers. Hence th;'~Apo:trlha_s_~is and themes as weihl ►&I I l a <:. (111!& I ; =j;=-, wn private(cultural) sob ef symbols ~~mad~==:c:tcm!llttlmlll=..t the larger ~ j~""a' world-• Most Black poets have written poems about lynching, for example,~ most.- ~uro-American poets have not. T h e m e s ~ "1ri the Christian e•teJ•Rh job dilscrimina tion, i;he twe-fac_pness of m J 1 I a God, psychic ~ l e n c e in a white worl~ r -R .cas;:i;,:lion, ~<-4 the ....:t_~siii... ~ ' . ¼ •~ Landscape of G,rror and f e a r ~ - social inequities, A:::J sa I OiibC 1:9 I.MJ)ln one way or another) work themselves into ~ i c a n poetry. Certainly there are hundre ds of others, easily~• asrl. - - I l l ~ ~ ,pe rus.,.., I any anthologyl;;:;::r.;m:;;aa=;;;;••iiil=:Efiible of contents. ) �5 conclusion ~u9h .~ r-~ , '1To eray i:hnt c.ertain forms and 1lllll9t theme~,~~ ~rica~~-v;,. . ,. dominaf-- Afro -American poetnr Ii z ~ o n s I •and divergent approaches characte-rizJ- th&.Se po ·t-s 1· ~ ' : O f : suoh 1 -::r-or1bH.and them • of prime importanc to note, also, t' · tside T,of .. domina~~ng cluster~., th~~ ha!gun~.(~ss othe~ interests REarcupations • .fd~a0K family · ForAJJ:511!1il~ unite ha~e been in tact for hundreds of years-- ,\ • a. ....,..,,""" __ ' even if such ~ •·-8'i..ii.a.ii.aiiiiei►lld:Sl•aeR obscured b':,r a socio-media. oe•••--••i~lir..1 with al;:L~ accompanJing p a t h o l o g i c a l ~ , I. •"~ ~ " (:,, I Usten~to z51syoung Blackf(I analylt A,..,C4, ~ ~ sis of wh ·· ,grasp ~ u n s t a t e d or implied cultural .\ trithe new land --. preferences;.,TruJAfrioan?JiP OmiPie~have live~e :.lllfterieMl H ~ t - er•• : ' mare amidst ~alk of an American Dream; and, ~(,k- · ,v..,he d a r k ~ poets 1 songs are full of unpleasantries and recollections o f t ~ ,-;-.. • nightmarel• • ,.. • I •• ' .,. .... :_.)t"~ • ·t• - -~· .... . " . ' has never been ltODa But the en~ioBlack p o e t ~ • • • be.self-pity, chauvinism., @~ '1,tn_ -ci,{-M . ,,; . • mrr· . ideologµe~etoric or complain~• Thus Margaret Walker, ,a 4 c..-- '%~ amids:!:~0. :r,~~~e" and mt (ii,. fe~~e .subjects ~~~•-ti f SW»-• • • • white literati, is able to celebrate . Black lifeil' Fam My People). f19 Robert Hayden i,■ ••is,•• transcend.S-wie a rtificial barriers between himself and nature and enter;the flower~ (Night-Blooming Cereus )~ ~~~anry Dumas Ebony Play Ivory G:=, S'5 ab;;~ in Play and Pinkie Gordon La ne in Wind Thoughts. Other examples of such diversity and sensitivity abound: Owen Doason (Powerful Long Ladder), Langston Hu ghes (The Dream Keeper), Alice Walker(Once), Raymond Patterson(26 •ays of Looking at A Black~ ) , Joyc e Carol Thomas(Blessing):., and'~ the c r oss-spread of a l most any anthology. o£ 41'.:g AH10Mia: 111 w=~-·-- �. i conclusion w.e kA-vt ~he 1; poet~ takes a stand not inherent in),,_ ~ )-;t::J:;::Q 1!/,~:::. musicianxrs -tio,w when he commits his thoughts to paper. And 1 I ~ J,(1¥ft,,.r in times of r ap<.d. socia~chan,ge,or u ~ @»~ ~ - ~ e s up e110 efk...,.~~ 2iil11.~rilMip~_--.. ef~~:;/i. court, at '""1ich times his o-..n feelings -and sensibilitie:-::::tl!!'uetralized in:.,:;vor of 'ii! 7 a the 11 popul ar latex brand." JJe jerious critic,5~1cultural stabilizeJ; need; to exam.in~- 11 o n e - ~ 11 approac~lMA ro· 1n■ 1 ~;t'o~~irjl;S•iiii.W=iJli!!Jtf>O etry/ c ri ti ci sm, especi al-f:#~er the last 10 years. eS: 1ilu We mention this 1l!ll!i!l1 of the 11 11 important s i d ~ t h h ~ ; , , . , , ~ d ' J ~ ~ r y o ~ scene because its presence hasAeither crippled o~ destroye ma a budd. ~y -t"' ~ -·' ~ -rt. ~-1..n · - -,_case~, it_ ha~'1: talent. ' a rich n_.. 4iiiil'significant voice. Howeve r, ~ ~ • • • • • " " " critical ~~wru :c111s 11 ./!uJ)yJJ14 opened" ,a, 11;3:ilJ ,1qmpletely and honestly. PIT? \PM ' -~~.J.,~ ~ & - ... ___ ,, 4.f!!!iiiOva,YJitlilSmSilt&n It.id e --=:. @nly ~ougbr 1:&li\~ft-~1111~~.t'" 11 ,. ,.--.;. e Afro-American poetry~- continue t o b reatn~the breath of the ancestors. 1 ~ ( l'inally, as. winds of change shi ft.1,AMl-qbi speed up or slow down,~t:i,p designs Areader~ and poets must -as k about ultimate~•• •io•u and inherent I' ~ t r a d i t i onal missions. As tre drum stand s a:,t_~;{A~~uJ.~=frican a nd Afro~ ,, C(r,t,/di.~/ American culture, so the poet ~ t a n d at the center of ,t,fe drum.J.,~ , ~ p o e t i c principle':Jand the language associ ated w i t h ~ } c:fsound and music. Music is the most shared expe rience--the most I\.. music~s 1 £ t a l commoGity--among Afro-Americans. 'And poetry is~win•lli ~ Khe metaphysical and t he metaphorical s tem f ro m an d r~turn to the drum: life, love, birth and death labo r e d ou t i n m as ured rumble ~) 1 A 1/.o ~ an22-ous cacophony. Between t h e l i ne s a r e t he rattle of ch orus e s QtA.lU,14 / t h c:1 e sfiriek of trunbourine ~ f r ame d. by rivers that 1.nb ll no~ .i..·un away • And the drumvoices urgi ng us to cross them, cross them. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_07_34 Title A name given to the resource Draft of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Chapter VII. Conclusion: Afterthoughts Relation A related resource Eugene B. 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In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B. https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/76aae805eac8a7ad9e939902b2ec1b3e.pdf b5a47891b89423e6a2ffd984dcc1ce86 PDF Text Text ~ J CHAPTER ih: ~ FESTIVALS & FUNERALS: BlACK POETRY OF THE 1960s JIIII 1970s They winged his spirit & wou.t;1.ded his tongue but death was slow corning~ • • • • • • • • • • • • • 'Who killed Lurnurnba What killed Malcolm • • • • • • • • • • • festivals & funerals festivals/Z&: funerals festivals/Z&: funerals & festivals &IX funeralsx •••• -----Jayne Cortez I Overview: The space between festivals and funerals can be infinite or says throue?ti the twistings and it can be deathly short. So Jayne Cortez But s.in h er poem. f!'hatever the space, or the pace, we all slip, slide, soar, and between the polarities{assigned each rip as we make our way at birth) Mt:U88R :ene lEina of life we live and the kind of death we die. Black poetry of the 1960s have and 1970s often faces life and death "straight upf":a'hough, as we from seen, Black poet in other times not....__.. cring the breaches of racial nightmares, violence, sexuality, unbeautiful language, wicked or r eligious of them see each To attempt others' folkisms, and the demands of music which to hear--albeit 11 dift:tterent drummer-. 11 Black a discussion of contemporaryfi'oetry is to· tum tongues into flames: "Blasphemy!," "I was the first r," "We Started it!," "That anthology was incomplete since it didn't include me!," "It all started in this place or that place!," "His/her poetry is not Black enough!," and so on. JW..,.111a111:::.:1ua,1~_..,....,...., the "smoke 11 !6rom the sixties is beginning to clear �2 ~ - 1 1 \ , 1 '-" u•h mo r e and, whlhl :..Ji. .io!!!dtTJ=-:a-.1Nie'll!IMt9it:► is needed, there are '1 observations be made Hence in this chapter, the format receding · th a noticeabl~ de-emphasis that biographical-critical on individual poets. Most serious poets who began writing in the l a te tiIM!:iHJm fifties, sixties and muc seventies, still hav rowing and threshing to do. recent volumes to evaluate Black poetry produced over I ·able rends have occurred, and they look roughly like this: ~ ~ck poetry since the Harlem Henaissance(see Brown, Hedding, Henderson, Jackson) has had cyc}.$ng currents of "rage" and "fire " though not the sustained gush witnessed in the mid and late sixties; ~Black poetry after 1945 expressed a belief(see Ray Durem) th a t white liberals were not real ly interested , in mounting t h e chariots on behalf of Blacks(despite Communist-Socialist pronouncements); /Black poetry of the 1950s and early 1960s provided a Ci vi 1 Rights '-groundswell for the volcani Ju~st poetry of early sixties ttylistic, attitudinal and ~ Poetry; linguistic character ent B Black y, despite "evolutions" and "changes," has nota.1!1:~e-.-~m--ei11ta~iiiii.ii,,,a1-iWN~~ ii.1,,.-the bevt work of Hughes, Johnson (both), Davis, Toomer, Walker, Hayden, Brooks, Tolson a nd Dodson-~> i xcept for what ,,.--... ~ - illlR .::>tephen Hena erson calls "tentative II answer#s, Blaoc poetry defies all definit i ons (li k e Mari .l!ivans~ "Black Woman")--splintering off into ennumerable directions, st y les,~ ~es, considerati ons and ideas. his chapter, all above considered(!), ~M~~~1¢%2W o i F ties.~Thef sketch wi • • •'.....J -sS~ will <lli~~brief ~/ t ~ fropi t 1?-e .fi t; s i ,,...::::::c;r;:.iiii!- wt,# a~look at transitional poets(older and younger) as their work appears primarily in about �3 a half dozen anthologies(from I ~aw How Black I Was, 1958, to Kaleidoscope, Locke's and Bontemps 1 s divisions of the Henaissance) who came to recognition under the banner of the Black Arts Movement and who loosl~y fall into the c a tegory of New Black Poetry. Older Walke poets--Hayden, and others--will be briefly re-visited to see if••=- the ...... significant changes "new" mood wrought in their views an~eir poetry.• ThoufY:l.J-a critical history, this book is primarily a historical guide--designed to aid students, teachers,and , lay readersJ ?ll ■,in their explor'la-tion of Black p oetry. Only a naive person would attempt, at this stage, a full c¾itique of the poetry & J . r.f,e.. ~ . of the 196Os and 197Os. Howiver, th e re are ~ , similarities, a ~ \.thematl,9 clusters- wh i ch will be pinpointed and assessed from time to time. 1 the most provocative of recent studies of contemporary Bla ck poetry are Henderson's !iii "11he ill:Militant Black Writer in Alflrica and the united li11asch I s Helvin Tolson(l972); Dtates(l969, with Mercer Co~~~~ Un erstan ew ac'If ~e 4lb5 gn•s Modern Black Poets(l973)~ Shirley Williams ~ Give Birth to rightness ( 1972) ;I\ jg 71.i!J)] 11 Jackson I s and Rubin's Black Poetry in Arnerica(l974), lf1itdJ£11{ !'lnii;lalso s e e ~ bliography). d ·o �II Literary and ~ocial Landscape: ideolo~ porary period. world. ~ c • • • are - -· e contem- Revolutions ( of a.11 kinds) m'e>c:t-.,.(Vllaffli,ld the From Cuba to Vietnam, Harlem to Chile, Pakistan to Watts, Nigeria to Indonesia, Kenya to Berkeley, Jackson State to Kent State--t~e fac_..,U'P'l- """'-..t.' }:n~ kt. 1 d~ma~ic .~'). i...olent.i7V~ -;tJ, p,))i...,~ .~4'J ..,, ~e , was decli- ni gt-..and Jazl•s greatest living interpreter, Charlie Parker, was dead. Musicians and vocalists began probing new forms under the leadership of Coltrane, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Wes Montgomery, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Ornette Coleman, Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughn, Ella. Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, who died in 1959. Miss Holiday's name and fame again reached a worldwide audience when, in 1972, Diana Ross, formerly of the Supremes, starred in the controversial movie, Lady Sings the Blues. Saxophonist Coltrane, a major influence on the current generation of musicians a.nd poets, died in 1967. An innovator, he sparked new interest in music with his "sheets of sound" approach to playing/ ~ :,µ,"fl f)~l'-4 IJ The Fifties also witnessed the matlration of Rhythm \"0-010 and Blues, popularized primarily by BlackAdisc jockeys who developed large followings. :tJhe-iJ2 iii&Bl!6~~ 'n".tc DJ' a emµ'!.ej@'n! e,n!'l! MJ effl', 1 'e!ffl l!!PW~!. Interweavi lively Black social news and comme 85 li&44MM ', p• ,Ji,''- �theySii!m anticipated the ~'.Ear lbj poetry of the :Sixties. 61P the oral new Spin-offs from these MSSISi.ff..l,-lt)t., . . . . . broadcasting styles were programs like Bandstand (started in the late atched Blacks dance, listened to Little Richard and Chubby Checker, and tried to imitate it all on ~V and in their homes. This period gave birth to the first white superstar Soul artist--Elvis ~ de»~ Black critics and social historians note that the ne~cial music, and the dances accompanying it, freed white American youngsters from the prudish and self-righteous inhibitions of their foreparent~ • . ··~ ' ~" ~- Generally, American science and industry developed more rapidly than in previous periods. Russia launched Sputnick, ""h r'c-h a feat~was followed by an American-Russian science and space~/ exploration race whic,i/fontinues,clC!~!:r · Telestar paved the way for televised coverage of global activities while biochemical warfare and atomic research became the nightme.res people lived daily. The American literary scene was swamped with political novels, satire, writings on the war and experimen listic prose. The "underground II a major vehicle for-..illl•~ this new writing. 86 journa- .... newspaper -•••=::~lallle"-:£,(1-;'2'.:' ~....,,,... ...,_. �,e(.l..._L1e"' employed in~writine; is still present. of the writer However, the influ- .f %'~.~n na...n. .d. . .....w.,.,a r years ~i ~1) ~ w • i • .. the /J /B~rard , I Y ' [~C-ni. Malam l .._.....,....... ohn Hersey, ~ ; llow, Norman ~ a , -~ er,A4½fest Gaines, James Baldwin,111anner~•Conq9r, Albert Murray,~~n1A t~'¥1J.A i'2 . .i - ~~) Willia~yro, i liam Demby, ohn Barth, Wi~Liam Melvin Kelley, and Irvin Wallace. :J Black writers are included in the general listing because during the contemporary period mani of them achieved recognition on par with the best (~eed j 60...- e't.o.mph21WG\.S n,c,,-,ui,c.i'ted (n ~ o c4ie e s ~ oV""'\1-\ ~ N<M°t 10.(.. llo/\&c writers everywhere.AMiliiiilliiM.~~ ~ome important contemporary~ 01 ~~,.~L.-' are: Stanley ~ e r t 71{ ~ Hayden,~Eberhart, Robert ~tJ.n Warren, ,..._Gw ndolyn Brooks,~' ,.:f. 14{ (A..........,..,,..J ; Theodor~~~oethke, Karl Shapiro e . vin Tolson, John Berryman, I 1.'.fok~ ~~ , ~ , T,1'1'~:v,-) H e ~ : P t Lowell,ARichard Wilbur, Paul Vesey, James } Dickey, Imamu Baraka, Sylvia Plath, William Bell and James Ho.yd r\ "e' \ved. CL rn~T,bnat. 8 00 Aw ... ~ n On'\t ~ii> • 'l Wright. (\ Many of the Black prose writers and poets ( some from the pre- and post-war schools) died during the contemporary period {Tolson, Bontemps, Hughes, Wri ght, Durem, Dumas, D u;) Rivers, Toomer, Malcolm X, etc.). Indeed death, in one way or another, not only preoccupied writers {White and Black), 87 . ~J f-\o"'ne> �1 ~ ?v 'rs. ued • but waskomantically nB!l!S!i&at~.•~·1~1~1~:-~3-••s~i•aa• Beat poet Kenneth Rexroth ~ - -,.1111•1111 • "Why have 30 American poets committed suicide since 1900?" Those poets not concerned with death were investigating decadence or the deathness 1 (U c 1• The development of contemporary poetry cannot be ;;JI:Jd properly without understanding the "Beat" period. As y- product of the Be Bop era in Black music, Beat poets emulated the hip mannerisms and aped the "man alone 11 1liJlf' @:_rop-out imag~ tMIIII•.-~ associated with ·;t¥ musicians. 2'iiiii' ~·:::ec::::c::.::i::po;a~ ~a::rkma~ot·;~ playing "Something," in the words of Thelonious Monk, "they can't play. 11 (They, meaning whites). Important~ poets ~~ Lawrence Ferhlinghetti, Re:xroth, Allan Ginsberg,~nd Gregory Corso, among the whites! and Bob Kaufman, LeRoi Jones and Ted a Jo/l1fs among the Blacks. Another Black poet writing at the time and loosely aligned with the Beat i ma ge was Russell Atkins who founded Freelance in 1950. The Beat Movement, which nurtured occultism, rejection of the Establishment and an existential view of life, was centered in New York's Greenwich Village and the San Francisco Bay area. The movement died in the early Sixties. Kaufman is viewed by many as the unsung patriarch of the Beat era. Black critics say major white poets of the movement enthusiastically took their ~ues from Kaufman's ~ innovation_s : bl::3 ~ ~ ~o .ri JI!~ ::,;ai- , c in tf!G.h reco~ his a.,.~ ~~a:Pde ,teP.ln- Kaufman's poetry is 88 J ·• �in anthologies and in his two volumes: Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness (1965) and Golden Sardine (1967). As a kind of spiritual heir to Toomer, Kaufman is a complex, sometimes fragmented, but brilliantly original poet. , His work, like that of many of his contemporaries, 'i"nr1uenced by Eastern religious thought and the occult. Stylistically, Kaufman has the nsweep II of 'ci'iii) Whitman coupled with the best techniques of modern poetry. He passionately experi- ments with jazz rhythms in poetry and often invokes jazz themes, moods and musicians. Many Beat poets and enthusiasts later joined or were Civil Rights struggle which was intensified I Luther King,f.Jil!ll!Jrlr,Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-56; sit-ins and other dramatizations of segregation and discrimination; the challenges of Jim Crow in travel in 1961 (CORE); the widening activities of SNCC (1961-64) and the March on Washington (1963). Other significant activities J en.flamed and inspired the hearts and imagination of American youth especially. The Muslims' (Nation of Islam) growth to 50,000 members by 1963 and the Congressional action on Civil Rights Legislation were two seemingly unrelated but strategically important events. The growing influence of the Muslims suggested that many Blacks no longer believed America was Bv-M sincere in its pledges to implemen~m•fl!MIP'li!m':\:• law. became Abetting their distrust were the continued killings, night-ridings in the south and harrassment of Blacks in public places and their homes. 89 With the bitter taste of , �Emmitt Till 1 s murder still on their tongues, Blacks reeled under the killings of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, King, the Kennedy brothers;and the three ,.._....,,.,..:r""."" ' / Black Panthers ••&ltli po By 1966, however, Black apartment) Power signs and slogans overcome- ~ in their sleep in a Chicago be gd.n to replace the ''We shall lack and White Together" exclamations. Young Black America) adorniht Afro hairdos a.no. African jewelry, attended cultural festivals, back-to-Africa rallies)Jllllfi poetry readings/and began reading community news published in revolutionary broadsides and tabloids. Rhetorical forays by H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael, young SNCC officers, set off a flurry of state and national laws against inciting to riot and the transportation of weapons across state boundaries. Large and small cities i gnited in flames that set the stage for gun battles between police and the often "imagined II snipers. These conft:~9t}~t'l.~ns were repeated~· n ~ so.s:.i'n«.Te.J scores of cities after Dr. King was iiiliiiiiiB• in 1968. W oet Quincy Troupe captured the shock and horror)and chronicled t. ' the official reaction in his poem ttWhite Weekend u: 1 The deployed military troops surrounded the White House and on the steps of the Senate building a soldier behind a machine gun . ., . 32,000 in Washington & Chicago 1,900 in Baltimore Maryland 76 cities in rlames on the landscape and the bearer of peace still lying in Atlanta ••• ln the last stanza, Troupe notes with curdling irony: 90 , �Lamentations! Lamentations! Lamentations! Worldwide! But in New York, on Wall Street the stock market went up 18 points ••• At this writing, fallout from the Black Revolution reverberates around the globe. Black journalist Thomas Johnston reports Irish revolutionaries sing t'We Shall Overcome." Posters and emblems commercialize everything from African hairstyles to the raised clenched fist--tbe initial ~- symbol of Black unity and defiance. A wave of Black 'WttJ' movies--called Blaxploitation--beginning withAexperimental ' flicks like Putney Swope (1969) multi-million dollar theater patronage. Black movies retrieved the crippled movie industry from the brink of disaster. Meanwhile, the murder, incarceration and poli- tical harrassment of Black men and women made them heroes and heroines in Black communities--yet ironically symbolized the torment and what some Black journalists called the "genocidal schemes" of Americal..ae.e..-.a.""'4<"</. ~ J:ht {_). Criss-crossed by paradoxes, political contradictions, social revolts and reli gious ambivalences, the Black community%evertheless ~p;t.iicocEB~cr regenerated by its singers and performers. ~tt:12ai_:s;r..:Piiii=:r not ~~ only reached unprecedented~mo capabilities. Rhythm Blues, said to have died about 196.5, gave way to nsoul"-- nr ' m a Soul Man, n ixties. Sam and Dave announced in the late The Impressions told lovers that you "gotta have soul" and Bobby Womack reminded listeners that the "Woman's Gotta Have it 11 --pre~umably ''Soul. 91 11 Black recording companies �are in a boon, the two largest ones being Mo Town (Detroit) and Watte,8tax (Memphis). The current period has £&the . Black superstar--a ~" called "super Nigger"--in everything from sports to movies. Curtis Mayfield's soundtract alb m Superfly (1972) sold more than 22,000,000 copies and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (1971) Rec.eml'lJ h6we~e., ~~v,·etik,;;d vi~ svl-"p&. d ~ a.LL ' set records for album sales.A Literally dozens of singing groups--modeled on the quartets and ensembles of the fifties-are releasing albums regularly. These folk or "soul" poets "conscious" in recent years and have b .,. and exaltations of Blackness~ many Much of this new wave came on the heels of severe criticism by Baraka who admonished singers for doting on unrequited love. are preoccupied with 11 ~ many my baby's gone, gone" Black consciousness activity--and creativity in g neral-- howflourishia_•fllla•:t. Related involvement - includeS: J'evelopment of Black acting ensembles; opening of free scho and Black universities; establishment of Black Nationalist/JJ . . t he number of Back l a.riJAf rican . communes; increase in bookstores~ boutiques; establishment of Black Studies programs on white and Black campuses . and, in some cases, quota systems for enrolling Black students; the escalation of Black demand for "cream of' the crop" jobs such as W announcing and1'he hosting of'• variety shows; expansion and creation of new roles for Black newspapers, magazines and radio stations; 92 �formation of national and state Black Congressional /aucuses and similar units in most professional associations and, finally and importantly, new engagement with Africa and her problems and possibilities. to the 11 Mother country" or age and social levels. Indeed, future trips to Africa-11 Homeland 11 .:-are discussed at all Much of this renewed interest is understandable in light of the emergence during the contemporary period of several African nation states and the 0-mohq increased fraternization t!lfA~fricans and Afro-Americ ns. Malcolm X, cannonized today by great numbers of young Blacks . t and Black i nte much to f os t er11iiscurrent interes a rally in Harlem in 1965, Malcolm in Africa. (El Hajj Malik El S~z~~ad already been expelled from the Nation of Islam/ f'ormed~plinter group . . , known as the Organization of Afro-American Unity. His Auto- biography of Malcolm X {with Alex Haley, 1965~whicb (as he predicted) he did not get to see in print, chronicles as Malcolm Little, hustler bis "Detroit Red", Malcolm x and El-Hajj Malik El Shabazz. 1 Malcolm was lionized by Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Ossie Davis, Baraka and various other scholars, activists and (o.nd, C.oL T?lo,l'\e) Black poets, especially, have found MalcolmAa source of inspiration. A partial indication of impact on poets can be seen in For Malcolm: Poems on the Life and Death of Malcolm X {1967), edited by Dudley Randall and Margaret G. Burroughs. Shabazz 11 Robert Hayden noted that: 93 In 11 El-Hajj Malik El �~ He X'd his name, became his people's anger, exhorted them to vengence for their past; rebuked, admonished them, Their scourger who woµld shame them, drive them from the lush ice gardens of their servitude. At the First World Festival of Negro Arts, held in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966, Hayden was awarded the Grand Prize for Poetry. A major event, the festival was attended by experts, scholars, artists and enthusiasts of the Black Arts who gathered for 24 days to hear papers and discussions, view art exhibits and cultural performances, and give preliminary direction to the Black Arts Movement. Presiding over the ' ' ' festival was Leopold Sedar Senghor, Senegalese President, and one of the architects (with Aim~ Cesair~ and L~on Damas) of Negritude. Negritude is a philosophy of Black humanism~,(' ensc.on e.s , according to its originators, the Black mystique or religiosity. The term grew out of the associations of Black African intellectuals, French writers and artists, and Black Ame_rican~xpatriates. ,.,. v) African-oriented publications such as Presence Africaine and Black Orpheus have renewed their interests in Black American writers. Likewise, Black American journals and popular magazines (Black World, Journal of Black Poetry, The Black h(l.ve Scholar, Essence, Encore, Ebony, Jet, etc.)Abegun to publish more materials by and about Africans. The revolution in the Bl ck Arts was signaled by many events including the First Conference of Negro Writers in March of 1959. Langston Hughes was an important figure at 94 �-MiaSR:ie!'e'!',e,e--as he was at the Dakar gathering seven years later. The First American Festival of Negro Art was held in 1965 and the Second AFNA took place in November of 1969 in Buffalo, N.Y. Interlacing these and other con- ferences, symposia and conventions were exciting developments 1 and experiments in New York, Chicago, Watts, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baton Rouge, St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit and Washington, D. C. During these periods of social turmoil and artistic upsurge writers and poets often aligned themselves with ideological positions and regional movements. Consequently, Black Arts communes and regional brands of Black /onsciousness grew concurrently. Splits between older Civil Rights workers and Black Nationalists were paralleled by splits between older writers and younger practioners of "Black Arts. 11 The splits were not always clear-cut, however, for many older activists and poets joined the new mood in spirit, thematic concern and personal life style, while some of the younger writers retained the influence of the earlier moods. Complicating things even more were the variants on the dominant themes of each camp. Gwendolyn Brooks, Dudley Randall, Margaret Danner, Margaret Walker and .John Oliver Killens are among the older group of writers who vigorously took up the banner of the new mood. works imbibe ~~ /2./.Av.£.b ti mG Younger writers whose "tradition" include Henry Dumas (Poetry fLo..yl')&:~\iiC,7'/- For My People, 1970K, Conrad Kent Rivers (The Still Voice of Harlem, 1968, etc.), Julia Fields (Poems, 1968) Al Young 95 �(Dancing, 1969, etc.) and Jay Wri ght (The Homecoming Singer , 1972) to name just a few . period was dealt a severe blow Dumas and Rivers in 1968 . promise of this The the untimely deat hs of These poets are deeply influenced by the moods and preoccupations of the period @elf- love , racial injustice, violence , war, Black Consciousness and History) but they work along tested lines and experiment within careful and thought - out frames of references . Most of the writers of the period (their styles and ide olo gies notwithstanding ) have found t hemselves engulfed at one time or another in heated debate s over questions related to the "Black Aesthetic", the relationship of writer to reader , Vi Black 8lllli and the part At this writing, these discussions continue in mos t s e ctions of the Black Worl d . The flurry of ideological and aesthetical debate among the poets (and other writers) has often been precipitated or attended by critical writings, historical studies, social essays and public political statements. Some of t he indi- viduals associated with initiating the pleth ora of rhetoric on the question of a 11 Black 11 aesthetic (and related issues) are Ro n Karenga, Gwendolyn Brooks, Baraka, Addison Gayle, Jr. , Hoyt W. Fuller (Black World), Edward Spri ggs, J. Saunders Redding, Ralph Ellison, Larry Neal, Ernest Kaiser, Mel Watkins, Ron Welburn, Dudley Randall, Lerone Bennett, Jr., ~ James Emanuel, Toni Cade John Henrik Clarke, Don L. Lee, - 96 N,~:~tlr\ ~u,1 �Ed Bullins, and Stanley Crouch. A number of important studies, literary and cultural, by Black and white writers, aided in whetting or prolonging the critical thirsts. Some of the important and/or controversial writings er' tne;/4t1@ ~ tea,.Pl!P.~=;,3=~t:l=im~: The Militant Black Writer: in Africa and the United States (1969), Cook and Henderson; Black Expression (1969) and The Black Aesthetic (197i} Gayle Jr., ed.; Muntu: The New African Culture (1961) and Neo-African Literature: A History of Black Writing (1968), Jahn; Langston Hughes: Black Genius (1971), O•Daniel, ed.; Black Poets of the United States: Paul Lawrence Dunbar to Langston Hughes (1963, French edition; !ins., Douglas), Wagner; Before the Mayflower and ~ (1966), ~ E l l i s o n ; Understanding the New Black Poetry (1973), Henderson; Colloquium on Negro Art: First World Festival of Negro Arts, 1966 {1968), Editions t Presence Africaine; The Negro Novel in America (1965), Bone; Mother is Gold: A Study in West African Literature {1971), Roscoe; The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967), Cruse; Native Song: A Critical Study of Twentieth-Century Negro American Authors (1968), Margolies; Dynamite Voices: Black Poets of the 1960's, vol. I (1971), Lee; Blues People (1963), Black Music (1967), Home: Social Essays (1966), and Raise Race flays :R,aze {1971), Baraka; and Give Birth to Brightness (1972), Williams. A number of Black critics, artists, and activists heatedly denounce whites who research or criticize Black literature, saying that only those who have lived the 97 �Black Experience can write about it. Another group holds that whites can report on Black writing if they are sincere and sympathetic. The Black Arts Movement, as the contemporary period J.!i ome..17me.s • • called, took place in the shadows of what many Black social critics have called the "second Reconstruction." Hence, much of the writing is a revolt against , political hypocrisy and social alienat·on. In the . ·"4 I?.& :poetry >tib:... pawa ca,. 11'1'1!n, w1 l"+Je~ shower* disdain and 1 1 obscenities on the "system" and whites in general. ~ "integration ",(if 1:l;llliD..e offered, younger poets derided American values and attitudes. "Unlike the Harlem group," Hayden noted, "they rejected entry into the mainstream of American literature as a desirable goal." Of course, more than a few of the older poets were writing in the Sixties and are writing today. Many of them, however, were sometimes laid aside by youni readers who were unable to separate 0 poetry" from the fiery declamations of Carmichael, Brown and ennumerable local spokesmen and versifiers. Often the poets exchanged superficial indictments, indulged in name-calling and, as groups or individuals, began rating eacb other on their 11 levels of Blackness" even though no criteria existed then and none exists today for such judging. Much of the dispute centered around the question of who "started" the Black Arts or New Black Poetry movements. in the Spring, 1971, issue of Confrontation: E~-tr'le llcdmo d. Third World Literature, A stated: 98 In an article A Journal of �l \ While it is true that there are leading li ghts of the Black Arts Movement, it is an emphatic lie to say one geographical region of the country is solely responsible for either the main (and Major) writing output or kicking off any tradition of Blacks writing about themselves . To take such a contemptuously arrogant stand would be to write off the Black musical past., Aggression has been the tone in much of the contemporary poetry. This is partially due to the presence of some who selected poetry as a medium of expression because of its deceptive simplicity and briefness. ~ Many of the ;tpoets II obviously have no genuine interest in --'--,,,..; craftsml_nam-,. ~ i , m..$1.,~ / ,. ~ On the other hand, the current period con- tinues to witness a growing and wide-ranging concern for - poetic craft and knowled ge . During t he $ixties and into the ¢eventies, literally hundreds of Black poets started writing and publishing--in J tabloids, magazines, broadsides, anthologies and individual · A.Lso ~ /u,wrosin..9tl.t. /l\.t.w'fva;:.),.~~11\.14-V'~>'l,(I: ~;l?LCA£.k Pi'a.~vt1 ~wl.ho11~ 4..v1J fu collections • I\ S ignificant r, clusters of poets aevelop€.d in hv1-11\1~~~ ~. ?o:ey-~y. geographical regions . l('[lhe atmosphere was enhanced by a number of African thinkers, artist s, poets and novelists who arrived to America to teach, lecture, perform and travel. The importance of this interaction among Blac ks from various parts of the globe cannot be overemphasized. ~ Black writers and students h'e:l=:a'l~read l African, 101 ( �West Indian and Afro-Latin writers. Langston Hughes acquainted American audiences with African literature in his anthologies: An African Treasury: Essnys, Stories, Poems By Black Africans (1960) and Poems from Bl ck Africa (1963). In 1969, Trinidadian Wilfred Cartey edited Whispers the Literature of ' ) ~~iw- I ~~~o~a~r=s~a~n~d~w -~riters also wrote critical studies or edited anthologies of Afric~~it:r~ture. Black writing received a significant boost when in 1971 Senghor o.nd A{:'t"o-Cvb~V\ Po t N,chclas 0viUen we"e --~nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature--thus fulfilling James Weldon Johnsonts 1922 prophecy that the ' fi f . r to B~ck u' d i! , · · · · e fr writers now publishing or living in novelist-poet Nigerian eiilei Oi!II•• Achebe,h3outh African poet Kgositsile, Nigerian poet-playwright Wole Soyinka, Ghanaian poet Kwesi Brew, South African critic Ezekiel Mphahlele, Nigerian poet-playwright Ifeanyi Menkiti, Martinique poett playwright Aime Cesaire and Guianese poet-scholar L~on D ms. The writers fraternize, exchange ideas and compare styles. Mphahlele, for example, has written critical studies of Black American writing (Voices in the Whirlwind, 1972) while Miss Brooks has praised African writing (•Introduction•, Kgositsile's My Name is Afrika, 1971). Mazisi South African poe~ f Kunene,t wrote the J:ntroduction for Cesaire's Return to My · ~merican expatriate artists and writers returned to America during the current period for either 102 �temporary or permanent residency. Added to this flurry of activities and changes were the establishment of :;i ; publishing houses (Broadside Press, Third World Press,~tc.) and hundreds of and literary journals. During the contemporary period a number of important <1Lso anthologies haveAbeen published. Some of the more notable ones include Beyond Tbe Blues, Pool, 1962; Sixes and Sevens, Breman, 1962; American Negro Poetry, Bontemps, 1963; Soon -) One Morning: New Writing by American Negroes, 1940 - 1962, Hill, 1963; New Negro Poets, Hughes, 1964; Kaleidoscope, Hayden, 1967; Black Voices, Abrahams, 1968; Black Fire, Jones and Neal, 1968; The New Black Poetry, Major, 1969; Soulscript, Jordan, 1970; 3000 Years of Black Poetry, Raoul tz B~P.,. J L(.1 \<17 ~ and Lomax, 1970; _New Blas,k Vo;i.cee, Abrahams, 1972;.l\~,~,,.;'fl) Kii-i~JIOlj Black America, Adoff, 1973. In addition to these and other nationally distributed anthologies, collections of Black Literature were compiled and published ~ vario s r gions: 19 ~ Watts, Watts Poets and Writers (Troupe, chulberg, 1969); South, Fress Southern Theater by the Free Southern Theater (Dent, et al, 1969); Chicago, Jump Bad: A New Chicago Anthology (Brooks, 1971); East St. Louis- St. Louis, Sides of the River (Redmond, 1970); New York, Three Hundred and Sixty Degrees of Blackness Coming at You (Sanchez, 1971) and Harlem: Voices from the Soul of Black America (Clarke, 1970); Philadelphia, Black Poets Write On (Black History Museum Committee); Newark, Soul Session (1972); 103 �Detroit, Ten: 1968}. Anthology of Detroit Poets (South and West, In many regions several components have merged to form cultural and performing arts conglomerates. It is often at these centers that white movie and theater moguls cv_,. ~-et1i find new talent for the wave of Black movies. At this writing, the s(ontemporary poetry scene i embroiled in vigorous debates and conferences dealing with "directions" for Black writers, consolidating publishing houses, and getting published materials into schools {especially into Black school~. Caught {sometimes unknowingly) in the midst of these issues and questions are the older Black poets--some whom have remained silent in face of rhetorical provocation. Others, however, have been quite vocal as in the case~of Gwendolyn Brooks and Dudley Randall. active'U Miss Brooks 1 supporf the younger writers by w, y of financial and moral encouragement. She supervises writers workshops, establishes poetry prizes with her own money and travels to read before conferences and classes. Recently she withdrew her affiliation with Harper and Row and began publishing through Broadside Press. Randall established Broadside Press in Detroit in 1966 and also bas set up poetry awards with his own funds. Hayden, who often shuns public displays dards .. # • He is recognized as a brilliant teacher as well as poet, and is known to work quietly with young writers and scholars. Hayden played a major role in gaining recognition for Lucille Clifton (Good Times jl969; _. Good News About 104 �&, Ond1n4t~~ Wt1w1<1 n.; \q 1'1-)1 the Earth/ 1972) A one of the most splendid of the new poets ~ Some new and old'(names closely linked to the current period are Pinkie Gordon Lane (Wind Thoughts), Michael Harp:{ (Dear John, Dear Coltrane, History is Your OWn Heartbta., Waring Cuney {Puzzles), . Troupe (Embryo), Sterling Plump (Half Black Half Blacker), Jayne Cortez (Pisstained Stairs and the Monkey Man's Wares,..._ Festivals I~ and Funeral-;>, • WA~~,;2~~ J• Dumas ( Poetry For My Peopl~), .,. - ~· Rivers (The Still Voice of Harlem, etc), Nikki Giovanni (Black Judgement, Black Feeling, Black Thought, Re:Creation), Reed (~atechism of A neoamerican ~ .,er, odoo ~hurc1tt), David Henderson (De Mayor of Harlem, etc.), Arthur Pfister (Bullets, Beer Cans & Things), Baraka (Black Magic, etc), John Echols (Home is Where the Soul Is), Arna Bontemps (Personals), Hayden (Selected Poems, Words in the Mourning Time)~ '/ Lee (Think Black, Black Pride, etc.), Sonia Sanchez (Homecoming, e t c . ) , ~ Randall (Cities Burning and More t,o Rememb~), Stanley Crouch {Ain•t No Ambulances for No Niggahs Tonight), Hughes (The Panther and the Lash,etc.), Atkins (Heretofore), May Miller (Into the Clearing), Austin Black (The Tornado in My Mouth), ~11$n Tolson (Harlem Gallery), Young (The Song Turning Back Unto Itself), James Vesey (~yory tu§~~), Mari Evans A,.; Emanuel (Panther Man), (I Am A Black Woman), Julia Fields (Poems), Stephany (Moving Deep), Etheridge Knight (Poems from Prison), Gwe~n Brooks +nffi2Mecc4 , ~Riot) Family Pictures, etc.), Roy Hill (49 Poems, etc.}, Ray Durem (Take No Prisoners). ~~~QiiliiiDi--far from being 105 �~M ~ exhaustiv'l",s:ii;=::•a~ is ~epresentative of the great poetic output during th~,=~~---- period. Many of these poets--Reed, Troupe, Young, Crouch, P\lt.l}~~~J ~ ~ EJl'i)--are also · .affl anthologists. Certainly the ~....-JU# list grows and changes constantly, especially in view of the continual unfoldinFZ..-u•••~' urpri es, e:t; i,i,e pieaenb • Suffice it to say that the contemporary mood of ./, Ct~- # Black roetry is multi-leveled and ~e~, ctfti'.ft:rl:ieated. are •••a generalities; There ,_ t,f• one is that -WAOf the poets w..-WJ~IAM~~ saturate their work with obvious Black references and cultural motifs. There is~nti-intellectual rlavor.lm •une u:P• as ~ o1ts turn their backs on ac demic or ~ PJ~b, Western forms. 'n · ,e general disregard for the esoteric, literary and sometimes secret allusions, employed in much of the current There are exceptions, or course--notably - - ts (Marvin X, Askia ' Toure, Baraka, Sonia SanchezJand others). These exceptions can also be seen in works or poets who explore African Ancestor Cults, Voodoo, mysticism and African languages. Evidence of this can be seen in the poetry of Ishmael Reed, ' Askia Toure, Henry Dumas, Norman Jordan, Sun R, K. Curtis Lyle, Bob Kaufman and others. Generally, though, Black poets are framing their allusions, images and symbols in the more concrete cultural motifs, as indicated in a line from &9et1e f!eci111n J •-'11 i:m "Tune for e. Teenage Neice II where being "spiced as pot-liquor." 106 hE.. ~.o A views• neice as �J.II ·11HE PO~TS AND THEIR TOTEMS: ,,,t A. tSoon, One Morning~: Threshhold of the fi&: New Black Poetry (My Blackn - ess is the beauty of this land. '------ Lance Jeffers ____...,/ ~chard Wright.-mlll called the Blacks and "ta ~t: fer e tb&m- · America 1 s metaphor" ~-'~ sixties and seventies. andiiii~iil;ii~ 11 "the beauty of this lana.. "~t1 taken-it; well in advance of~ her playmates in the Alabama iiill!!III- s 1,ancel:j ".black Pride" poetry of the l'1argaret Walker• s discussion of 1 11 1 ~If}*aa:••-•• dust or self-deprecating; ~ortrait_ Uwendolyn rlrooks•s j.\Satin Legs ~mith\1945) is far from geing unhappy. These are only four of Blacks viewing themselves ••me•·•••· randomly 11 selected poetic affidavits poa tively 11 before the advent of the New Black Poetry. We could, of course, bring up hundreds of examples from Phyllis Wheatley the poeury of~••.-s.through t~at of Langston Hughes. But the point, already -.......!'.ecent,. made, is simply that one is seriously remiss in looking a1,fBlack ~oetry without The poets who wrote and published between 1945 and 1965, for example, did not work in sealed chambers of -...-v tunneled vision. ~ach group/ <J concern, ev~lved from what had been written or said before. teachers, a ,d and tools were oft hese poets were heavily influenced by white writers, How€ver e best of themftallillB••~ applied their knowledge the service of a the Black literary tradition. Others under the direct tutelage of Blacks(Paul Vesey studted with J.W. Johnson, Joyce Yeldell with Hayden) and beclme part of a continuing l-ine of Black-developed thought and writing(~esey in turn taught Arthur JPfister). Whatever their make-up, or their mission, the poets as a group show great facility with language, depth of insight and passionate concerns for their collective and individual hurts:as Blacks and as humans. ,and that of their older pen-fello~ 'l 'he work of these poets can be found in several anthologies: �Poetr of the ~e ro 1949,1970); J. ingua Zwart Ik Was(I ~aw How Black I Was, 1958); urning S¥ear\~ Beyond the Blues{l962); American Negrn ~Y( 96) ~sand ~evensll963); r Negro Versetl964); New Negro Poets: USA(l964,1966); Poets of Today(l964); the bilingual Ik Ben De Nieuwe Neger(I Am the New ~egro, 1965); and Kaleidoscope edi tad Poetry of the 1~egro in (1967). Bontemps and 1949 ,"the first major collection smnce Cullen's Caroling Vusk, it was revised by Bontemps in 1970 Hughes's death. Interestinglf' I oft he 1949 en tries are has been doctored some table of teontents tom!~is,,iih&(tfi~sDudley Randall,..t Mari Evans and Ray Durem) coincide with their age-line. Bontemps, a Renaissace poet who did not publish a volume until 1963(Personals), also edited American Negro Poetry, a task which.J'l,J~•• him the opportunity to pick the best from the past as well as the present. The two bi-lingua published in Holland and England and edited by Rosey Pooi, with the assistance 1905-1973) of Paul Bremen. Dr. Poo a Ro ande~, came across Cullen when she was preparing a paper on American poetry in 1925. This disvovery a life-long UIIIIIM!lt!imBlimlMf interest in Black culture and poetry. During 1959160 she toured the United ::;tates on a Fulbright t r a u a n t , spending several months visiting and lecturing at 27 ~colleges and uni- versities. Dr. Pool 1 s work in Black 1oetry has drawn mixed reactions from cautious Black writers and critics. But her importance~ in helping to bring attention to Black poets, despite cries of "exploitation," is undeniable. ~ven more controversial is Bremen, 'Wilo appears to fancy himself as an English Jean-Paul ::;arte; he originated the Heritage ::;er~m:ldmxix "devoted entirely to the works of Afro-American authors"--with Haydend:s ~ Ballad of Remembrance ~~~Dbital"3Iltlll5I'IJIUllll1tl:nDll in 1963. Since that time Bremen, who edited 1\lnl~ Sixes and Sevens and You Better believe It: Black Verse in poetry. has released more than 20 volumes of Afro-Ameirican roadside Press services as the American distributor or the �slim booksx which have invluded the aesthetical and historical range of Black poetry: 1''rank Horne(HaverstraJ, 1963~abim':Dl311!1f:-._ ff:ffl Bontemps, Rivers(The Still Voice of Harlem, 1968; The Wright Poems,1972), Mari Evans("Where is all the Music?, 1968 but withdrawn "at the author's request".), Russell Atkins(Heretofore, 1968), Lloyd Addison(The Aura the Umbra, 1970), Audre L .... lipve You, 1970), Ishmae w. whom Bremen calls "the best Black (Catechism of d neoamerican hoodoo church, 1970), poet writing today" James 1970), Dudley Randall, rdet,:-bles to Rage, Thompson(First Fire: Poems 1957-1960#,,~.;{~), - Dodson, Harold liarrington(Drive ~uite, 1972), Clarence Major(Private Line, 1971), the "first non-American contributor" ~ ukh arr us ap a1Thorns and Thistles, 1971), Durem(Take Mo Prisoners, 1971), and Hayden(The NightwBlooming Cereus, 1972). Bremen notes that r-- aymond Patterson d both l"lari ordered their books withdrawn because ..__... 11 wer_:;. suspicious of the contract terms. 11 In addition to ~ "suR'icion i',. ~other Black poets, there is - - . resentment of Bremenis fritical evaluations of the poetry--which · caustic, ridiculou~~~ow, and reflect; a lack o~ general knowledge of Black poetry. lie calls Durem, for example, one of the first "Black" poets. His statement about Heed, coming as it did in 1970, does violence to both tp.e author J::..d evecy ay.r,Nevertheless(alas!), one u sh~ · wh~ch Black P.oets grapple ders where these Black poets may have gotten published if such ~ "healthy diseases'' as Bremen did not exist. - Negro Verse,~ edited by Anselm Hollo, has no introduction or forward, but does 1-=-.-~a eozen blues and Gospel song-poems. Poets was edited by Hughes with a ~rward by Gwendolyn. word "new" &:::iau:u :1 tan ti' _31) Pp 1 11 s-- exemplifies the kind of spirit that was in ascension at the time·. Miss Brooks, terse as always, is also her uaual definitive self: �At the present time , poets who happen~also to be ~egroes are twice-tried. They have to write poetry,and they have to remember that they are Negroes. Often they wish that they could solve the Negro question once and for all, and go on from such success to the composition -of textured sonnets or buyant villanelles about the transcience of a raindrop, or the gold-stuff of the sun. They are likely to find significances in those subjects not instantly obvious to the r r fairer fellows . fhe raindrop may seem to them to represent racial tea rs--and those might seem, indeed, other than transient . The golden sun might remind th em that they are b%urning. There is an attitude in this statement that~ the Gwendolyn ~rooks of 1968 will reject : 11,y:t M' ''poets who falsolh_ajbpen to be Negroes . 11 But she reflects Cullen in the "dark tower" and his ruminating on the "curious thing 11 of the ·Black poet . She also presages the twistings and turnings in Jayne introducing the 11 'ortes ' s 11 :B'es ti vals & Funerals . " , in Hew J.~egro Poets," she informs the reader that "here stars of an early tomorrow . are some of the prevailing 11 Walter Lowenfels 1 s decision to include 11 20 Negroes" in Poets of Today was spurred in part by his recognition(along with Shapiro) that .Negroes . 11 11 most general anthologies of American poetry elltclude An authority on Whitman Lowenfels shared an award with S.E . Cumrnings in the thirties, and has he numer of Blackx poets m:=ikEiiiiliiiiiiiilila-into print: Dumas, Troupe , Patterson, Redmond, Carrington, Major, Reed, E~rper, Hayden, and many others . Lowenfels 1 was the first new anthology stantial number of Blacks. Jilhere were 85 poets in all . One of the most im ortant of these anthologies is Burning Spear,- which : Walter DeLegall(l936-), J e f f e r s ~ , Al Fraser , Oswald Go ~an( ) , Percy Johnston(l930-) �Nathan Richards ( ), LeRoy Stone tl936- ) a nd Joseph White. Bui.j{n ~ Spear, subtitle An Anthology of Afro-~axon Poetry, was a ef lso Dasein Literary Society, loc a ted at Howard University, which rn blish~d Dasein: A Quarterly Journal of the Arts(l961- 1969 ). Johnsto publisher ~ . while Delagall ~was. editor. *ronnection with the olde r £ii¥ • group of and sch olars ~ . · Arthur p. Davis, Uwen Dodson Govan, Je:C..fers, ~tone and White served as --- l''raser, • oets in the ,, ue of the advisory board list: as a memorial to i.Wll Richard wright, ~te:li~~ Delores Kendrick, Clyde R. Taylor, Jeffers, Wi lliam Jack son, Vernon A. Butler, Robert Salughter, Laura~. Watkins, Govan, Fraser, Delores F. tlenry, R. Orlando Jackson, DeLegall, Johnston~§tone• l Th':;'e is no~ing thre_a d running either Dasein or Burning Spear but ~ Black influences andAQ~~,;;i:!'rn are clearly imbeded. Burning Spear, for examnle, is published by Jupiter Hammon Press, another connection--in name--to the tra~tion of Black poetry. In a the ei.~...-back-cover note, contributors are called "a new breed of young poets who are to American poetry what Charlie Parker, Dizzy uillespie, Thelonious Monk and Miles !Javis are to American jazz." After this important analogy, the statement continues: These eight Afro~-Saxon poets are not members of a literary movement j f in the tradition sense of the word, because they do not have in common anj monist view about crea tivity or aesthetics. Collectively, however, they are indifferent to most critics and reviewers--since criticism in America is controlled and written in the main by Euro-Americans. There is no pre face or introduction or st atement about poetics; these poems themselve~ fill the pages. Poems by Delegall, Jeffers, Johnsl nn and ~tone the Blues and a in numerous "little" magazines. �programs participated in leading up th ~;:,:;:~~~~wider interests iq poetry in the later sixties and seventies. hematician and electronic data processing specialist, published in many anthologies and quart erlies, and had re~d his) and lectured at various eastern and southern colleges. FrasQr~is a political scientist with a , specialization in African Affairs. Along with LJelegall, ..--.. h~ ~tone,Bllll Govan, Johnston and Richards, he,{recorded r e ading his poetry at the Library of vongress. Fraser cultnvated a coffee-shop audience for his readings and appeared before college groups • ..._. He is a phimosopher-mathematician. One of the older members of the group, with have credited 11 influence" on the Howard Poets. ~~ and rU"it· has taugn? "half a do•en American colleges and universitfiesf. ~ Blackness is the beauty of This Land(l970)_,...._.,, His first volume of poevr-~A~Y secon~iiai~!;!!!5!SDDtamil:Qmua•••mn, When I Know the Power of My Black Hand, will be out in 1975. Bot~ are published by Broad- side Press. Jeffers llllt has also written novels, short stories and criticism. Jo11~6lfl'¢urrently teaches at a college in ,New Jersey and with Stone ~ "co-authored the revolutionary verse pamphlet Continental,. Streamlets\ ,. ~lso a playwright, Johnston published a pamphlet of his poetry, Concerto for a uirl and ~onvertible1960 Wert ~ w , and was con- sidered the leader of the lhite is a native Philadelphian whose work appeared in Liberator, Poets of T0 day, and other places • .tie is a technician for FAAx and has written short sotries as well as successful proee-poems. As a group, the Howard Poets represent one of the strains i n * contempoPary Black poetry. Maybe the fact of their having such \.~-~~ divseree ~esvrr1u vraning aided in their vitality, virtuosity and power. �hero-worship--they present precise analyses and interpretationSof their world. Most of them grew up .ik in the bejBop era and so ttheir subjects quite naturally include Miles Davis, Lester Young, Charles 1 P·ardbird" Parker, Clifford Brown, Sonny Rollins, •rhelonious Monk, and other makers and contributors to that period. preoccupation with Civil Rights and the their of the 0 11 1ack struggle is merged with bomb," iHlli middle class pre- tensions, history, mythology, religion, and the various trends in poetry:modernity, Seat poetry, jazzJ poetry and folk lyrics. DeLegall celebrates the Black presence( 11 My Brownskin Business 11 ) and satirizes a prenti tious lWilllllllliBNlll!li!~ Howard coed( "Requiem for A perfo~ tloward Lady 11 ) who is "cultured' an mBl8. every social amenity perfectly. She wears 11 High-heeled tennis shoes 11j he hopes, near the poem's end, that the preisident of the universal Institute of ~ugenics will i ~ d a &BJ x New species of female who will be robed in clothes nA Wa>man." In 11 of "sincerity" and who can be called Psalm for Sonny Rollins" he announces. that he is Absorbed intct> the womb of the sound. I am in the sound The sound is in me. I am the sound. Rollins, the Harlem pied piper, will lead his listeners to "Foet~, 11 and 11 God." Aftej; 11 11 truth," "Zen, 11 1:'he Blast" (nuclear bombing) there will be •• no I, no world, no you. MAJ 11 Govan writes convincingly The Lynching": He was soaked in oil and the match thrown. ne screamed, he cried) he moaned, he crackled ~his fiery inhuman dance. I Gova.n.A-~~aim~---~ turbulence in 11 Hungary, II space explorationr 11 The Angry Skies �~ Are Calling"), 11 and "Prayer" wherein he asks Christ II for a new dawnis light! Jeffers is is a living example of AAa~sa;&w£ij.i.1 ilintz been writing of plight o~black writer. Rlthoµgh he has for several decades, his work was white-listed by antholgiess . book form until the seventies. and .his poetry did not appear in Blackness is the 0 eauty of this Lan~" stanQ.s as a rebuff to those who say "black" poetry was "inventedn $tt~nin ~ ''My Jeffers' s poem, the fifties, is at once definat and proud: My ~lackness is the beauty of this land, my blackness, tender and strong, wounded and wise, ••• Walker, chronicles the hurts, the happinnesses, and the hungers of Blacks. 'l'he se he stands against his of larger America. 11 11 whi teness II and the perversiibns Black i::>oul of the Landf 11 rA:IR~•e.s the same vein: rich reliance on the well-deep strength of the Black man"in Lreorgia is "leathered, lean, and strong~~, And ~ - • The "old black secrets that "crackers could not kill,: a secret spine unbent within a spine, a secret source of steel, a secret sturdy rugged love, . a secret crouching hate, a secret knife within his hand, a secret bullet in his eye. The poe asks the old man to pasa on his source of strength so that he, and his fellows, will be able to "turn black" the soul of the nation and American shall abase to be its name. Jeffers gathers up a fury of love, anguish and co:mmi t:ilent in other of his poems: "Her Black and African Face I Love, 11 "The Man with A Furnance in His �Hand, 11 111 iegro Freedom Rider, A New Day, '1 and 11 11 11 Her 1Jark Body I Cluster, 11 11 black Man in Prophecy. 11 Johnston echoes Jeffers, though in a different voice and style, in many of his poems. But Johnston's concern is with Black music and musicians. "To Paul Robeson, Opus No. 3" celebrates the muliti-faceted talents of ~,gam&ls(Pdlmna the man whose song "stood Brooklyn on its feet." 11 Im l'lemoriam: Prezn is a magnificent tribute to the President of jazz: Lester lfoungx whose music continues to 11 igni te the heart. 11 In 11 Fi tchett' s Basement Blues, Opus B11 Johnson wanders why wverytime I want Coltrane or ~onny all I get is Brubeck, ••• history contemporary everyman, is R~~ary of the of Johnston• s generation. Words for 11 unkinkill8 hair, n recollections of Johnston with the knowledge that nothing Has changed but my postal zone. • In other peices he surveys the current and past Black musical seene: "Variation on a 'l'he by Hohnston" 1 Round Bout 11idnight, Opus 17, o Bobby Timmons," ~ is My Reward" R~ards says, noting that Sorrow came, and I left the world •••• An experimentalist, his 11 .Uo Not 1''orget to rtemember" includes a "prelude." and an "interlude." Like the other poets, he writes plrimarily in free ~ verse(almGst ••~rhyme) and in the forego}ng grief and anguish, as does Richards in "God Bless This Child and Other. ,. ildren... Hequiem. 11 In syntax and vocabulary, it bears resemblence;}o thk beats and to Boa Kaufman and Russell Atkins. ia,rds and phrases like "matronymic diva, "sepiacenic martyr," 11 11 albumenic hawk," "womb-prize," and "black aegis" convey the mystical,i and eerie sense implied in the repetition ot 11 sleep 11 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B. https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/f86a2e0ff0f4102f28a765df2590c479.pdf fbcbd748f02eee580ba25faa70947afa PDF Text Text rl p .... ; 7 C rJ. ':; lettres n_y,•- · , ~~ ~ 0 .f .,p. "T' S. ~ ~"llalii....... o-t: ""', r f a; T r- 0 -f' .... .,...7 7; i ., l 7 r:, o-f' "< l" e +- +-' r 7 I"\ .!.- "Y> (' l i A . (' 'T ~ (' ~ , il . ,:, ,...,,_ i r T Q (> ()f ' 1 ("' Pl., 1e l "(' B ., (' 0 7 • f' t. 1 ,, 'Y> l.- Y' -; i +- A , , i f' Y>() --: ·1 JP., se,... 8.Cf' i s. II q " t f', t f' r> -j ,.. 0f' L·nn t:" (""111 (' " l'(' -- l..: c ., .. ,,,t C' l •"('i l t t1- (' g,.,'Y)t ( -·.,... b r, r,lr l t "') l',... ,,.., ~ 7 ,, rcnT'le ('() .r "'' nf ("I ()f' r1_,+J. p . .... , 7 ncl 'Y\ 1..1-, 1-i -~ f',-. 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(' - ' H e f" H ---r ;n ' u'- -1- cl r ' ,_, !--- ' -,7 ; • C 7 _e , • Although, as a poet, Hayden bas maintained a steady balance betwe en racial 88iS8EBiz and the modern poetic tradition, he is ,Ji.at Sterling Brown would call a library poet. Classical allusions, obscurJ!.tism, surrealism, and complicated syntax go with experimental blues poetry and " the term "Kegro poet" muted agner. Arna Botemps (fl "displeasing"i,to Countee Cullen; and Hayden particularly ) in Kaleidoscope, rejected being judged "by standards different from those a pplied to the work of other poets." The Black. pet should not be limited to racial utterance, ,t- Ha)den believes • ..- a po] > of Black poets a great many of them feel the same way--even thou ~ img of the contemprary Black poet1 Speaking of his influences in Interviews ti.th Black Writers, Hayden :".f,4 i'.11 to& that: When I was in college I loved Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, Elinor Wylie, Edna ~t. Vincent Millay, Sara Teasdale, Langston Hughes, Carl Sandburg, Hart Crane. I read all the poetry I could get a hold of, and I read without discrimination. Cullen became a favorite. I felt �18 an affinity and wanted to write in his style. I remember that I wrote ) a longf:ish poem about Africa, imitating his 11 ,_, ritage." All through ~ my l[Ildergraduate years I was pretty imitative. As I discovered poets new to me, I studied their work and tried to write as they did. I suppose all yoiing poets do this.It's certainly one method of learn• ing somethiag about poetry. the point, inevitably, where I didn't want to be influeneed by anyone else. I tried to find rrry own voice, my own way of seeing. I studied with W.H. Auden in graduate school, a strategic experience in my life. I think he showea me my strengths and weaknesses as a poet in ways no oae else before had done. Hayden thus establishes himself as a poet of the book as apposed to the raw experience--vis a vis Sterling Brown, Langston Hughesjzouc, Frank Marshall Margaret Walker, and numerous others, although. divisi~ early poetry-- Most of the early poetiry shows rtayden as imitator of the older Harlem tienaissance poets and under the influence of the ~mmunist-socialist .... I --- af 0¥or,2:tea1iiam of the :ibNill1 1930s and 1940s. In",rophecy" he depicts destruction and the - people returning to the "ruined city" to rebuild a new society. "liabriel" is a about the famous Gabriel Prosserled slave revolt. "Black Gabriel" was · hanged for leading slaves From forgotten graves, •••• Interpolating italicized words and stanzas with colloqu~isms(likp recreates · )!.Ii ~ Sterling Bro'Wll}, Haydenrf ail • s: s the terror and drama of#\.tLs lm 1g· s Black and golden in the air, Gabriel dangles from a noose abo men who lever, never rest•••• Black �19 Black and white "Speech" is just ilhat--an harangue..._ calling "brothers" to fight the common opporessor, presumably totalitarianism, 1EFtf'.'.· 5 . . r+ism and greedy over-seers. J "~bit'Jil.ary" is a sensitive ~ and pained reflection of Ii J Jmis 1 father 'Who lived es tbeu@1:1 lie HOii epared for wings._. especially Among these early pieces(found interesting--for it ollects the new di~lect kind of social statement ~terling Brown perfected. 11 factory worker~ bacchanal 1 iiiiiiiMlllll into the ony ----·~ to desclr.i.be a Black getting High's a Georgia% pine to forget ~a.-=="""'"' that the factory closed "this mawnin1 1 i:e :ee!lling en • The Black man who, in "Lrabriel" aan never resia, is seeking Jlllllllil' real II joy" on earth. But, minus money and woman, ~s "bacchanal II becomes ' a weighty blues statement--not the revelry of ancient ,..@mi" Greek or Roman party life. One f.,inds none of these poems in Selected Poems. Instead the r e is the polished Hayden of "The Diver," and "Runaga te Run~ a e. 11 fl '51liH.1... WJAID.A. th e Mourn1ng . I ' 1me. . y et religion, nature and love. To be sure, Hayden does make his social comment, (Mourning) as does Cullen. But his "Zeus Over Redeye",.._is a far cry from Hughes "Dream Deferred" or "Ask Your Momma." "Runagate" and "Middle ~i ~ d allusigp Passage" a¥ess with I J ,_siirr~lle converns of Owen Dodsen("Lament"), Margaret Walker(' ince 1619 11 ) , and Frank Marshall .Uavis("Snapshots of the Cotton South"}. Hayden brings a fine and intense intellect to his poetry-regardless of subject matter. His oatput has been relatively small, considering his long career, but :t:allr::x .. ilh@ Words 1·n the Mourning Time proves �20 that his intensity for sticking to his aesthetic convictions and his unswerving devotion to concerns has been poetic craftsmanship. Hand in hand wit his interest in history, racial and general. His manuscript~ of poems dealing with slavery and the Civil War, ~ e Black ~pearl, won him the second Hopwood award. The idea for a book-length series of narrative poems on• Black hDlstory--:falal "from the lilack man•s point of view"--came to Hayden after he read Stephen Vincent Ben6t I s long ilarrative poem, John Brown's Body(l927). The Black ~pear never ,,,.... as a book, but remnants of it can be found in section five of I- Selected Poems. In working w.i.th Black history, Hayden champions such persons as Nat ~urner, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Cinquez, Martin Luther King and Malcolm x. He also inc l udes whites who have shared the burde11. of the Black struggle: William Lloyd uarrison, ¾llph \aldo .t.!.merson, Henry LJavid Thoreau, John Browa, John and .Hobert Kennedy and others. Hayden ' s history poems, however, reflect inherent· disturbance man•s 9m 1cii contuning struggle. poem like the "The Diver 11 the r e can be floating, plunging, piercing, blu, isillusionm.ent, wreckage, drunken tilting, "numbing/kisses," assumed, b e tween the shadow and the substance. comes through in poems of racial flavor. the same 11 feeling 11 1 :M.iddle Passage" certainly bears this out, as Blyden Jackson notes in ltiJl "From One 1 Naw Negro' to Anod:lher"(Black Poetry in Americ~., Jackson and Rubi~, 1974) ,._"in ~tf»("fL the rocking loom of history/ 11 "Middle Passage" isNfayden•s and Black America's achievement•• •ha so~~ time, Calculate~L;ar· "opening with the names of slave ships--Jes~s, Estrella, ~speranza, Mercy-the poem criss---accrosses the vast geographical., chron&logical and spritual web of racial horror since slavery. The names of at least two of the ships--Jes~s and Mercy--beia,r immediate �21 contradictions and are simultaneously reminiscent of the expletive "Jesus, 1 have mercy, ' and the attendant variations heard daily ••--in Black communities. But this Jesus will have no Mercy--and in fact will stand f Christianity as the albatross throughout the remainder around the neck of Christian slavers. >I J 1 g is exciting as well as dange rous-- finished quest. Hence the middle passage suggests since it both the horrible and brutalizing~ e crossing ~ •A.the Atlantic 6caan and th~ unalinfsl erience of slaves aboard ships "adventure" of Blacks• in America. tradition established by T.S. Eliot, Esra ~ound, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane and others. "Middle Passage," in fact follows stylistically as Eliot's 1,The Wasteland, Pound's Aantos, Crane 1 s The Bridge and William Corlos Williams' Patterson. Espcially is it akin to The Wasteland in its use of allusio~, fragments of obscure information(old documents, letters, conversation, etc.), typographical variation, and the urgency and importance of its "statements." .... after its sharp and arresting opening, "Middle Pas sage" weaves together objective narration, potes from sections from a ship a slave ship is log, offiver 1 s diary, testimony at a court of inquiry , Cuban slaver a (into a slave revolt aboarn , th~stad in , the tale of an old ~ sailer who his bones, ~(i l ~ on slaveships because "fever meltedn paraphrasings of a Shakespearean ·textl and familiar expressions ,...--::-... from the Chrisitan Bible and live religious servic~s. The every imiginable__ disaster and conflictf: - ~ 1 , ,,\ ,~ storms, rebellions, suicides, a plague t h at causes blindBe ~~,, wz.u,, UJ""" the lusty crew members sexual exploitation of female slaves, the "nigger kings 11 who sold the Africans into slavery, descriptions of the smell and sounds of dying, ia,;~&l ■ •i•~ of ■rtr ■ i•~~i1y •and the hatred/respect i? s~ slave ship 1 ~ • rebellion-leader "tI1eAsiirv1 ving spokesmannas fo7XCinquez. Almost 100 years before "1"1iddle �22 Passage", James M. Whitfi eld had honored this same revolutionary in "To Cinque." The idea of the remade man, a - "voyage" which take Ii one "through death" ~ i n t o "life, 11 recurrs in Hayden's poem: here, again/ the sense of one meandering through a "wast~land" ~ sane environment. F ~ ight society, the ■ J Jil pdeed in much Black American writing, ~:g mirroring sometimes the literature of larger Am1_r ica, there is the assertion that the new man arrives only after and oppressed. Even i n ~ everyday)\ the dues of bein~ brutalized , Bllacks are o f t e n ~ h e r s who have not "gone through" the fire and brimstone of depravity and alienation. Thust, for Hayden, the "middle passage" is both spiritually and physically a"voyage" through death in order to achie,e life. In the tJmiddle passage# the slaves are half way 9etween their African homeland and America. They will not be returning to Afri~~-- ► and yet they kno w nothing of the life "upon these shores. 11 Too, the middle z::u sage symbolizes the~itiation of everyman into the a w e s o m e ~ t y of adultho od-and~~tality. The middle passage is where we all triumph or £ m perish, just as in the wasteland one must create a new world or drift with the caretakers~f debris. However, 'furejfslaveships crossing the middle passage are as acutely aware of their mission as are the reflective slaves(and poets). They are 1 go bringing life through death. They bear black gold, black ivory, black seed. A 1 i " t ~ n s t the pervasive irony of the ship names Jesus and Mere¥• -31 -~he double irony of ~ --- 2 ••• true Christians all, •••• ll 1 2 Wfff!e the "Middle Passage" places%B~somewhe r e in the middle of things, "Runagate Runagate" continues the irony of moving through death to life. There is little to be envied in the "life" of the runawJY r-.. slave depi~ted in this poem. The hound dogs, the slave-trackers, the aucti~n �23 block~, the "iianted" signs,the braadings on the cheeks, the drive r's lash--all re-live the terror, ~ nightmarish nature , ~f B ack 1ife after 1 ,....--.., ~he . enslavement .The a ~ is••· c:bt~A- · ety and - . "never, never rest" life of the slave e..,a:M.4,;- y1nea · by Hayden w;-j8mploys a rich tapest;Y.J: lan- guage, syntax, color, i":"f!rt, :~a¥tion,f\:eligiob., and "sweeF~ 11 atioJvi p Jb continues ~ t h e first deathf the middle passage. ~ e~ . 11 ~ ~olism :.w~- ~ i n to mo e m ~ -,.the dramatic use or italicis. The poem celebrates tfM. the ~ - slaved and honors Black and white abolition- ist leade rs. Ha7den al lows. the reader to re-live the experience of the ~ accompanying runaway slave an<}\ lllllll tension-filled b-k:rn::r,im hide-and-seek - • drama .. rv-pze:rt By avo:hding of language vary ■71 n We hear and see the runaway in the opening line. punctuational breaks, Hayden achieves a "rush" ~~ to the relentless 11 dri ve II of]oral exp ression and to the "never, nev er rest" feeling he established in "Gabrie"J/.." The runaway Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness and th e hunt "many thousands" and hear the mixed jubilance and fear of the••• r•• sla ve who ':::l never otHm ~ts>,,~~e auction block a nd th.a driver 1 s lash • he • 'r : l l g ~ o . ~ Keeping with the trend of--;;fdern poetry, Hayden introduc/ea incidental notices and aata: an a nnot1;a~ement describing~ runaway~(including ~4 ~ agJe, dress, brandings, &ito,,%. -~ WR gj qj sr s 1 I9 11f ~ -IL,~Avr04 J] g that.A~ JiHHrnOUU I l I ~ r n t~selves into quicksan d , whirlpools or scoppions), wanted posters,K1ames of p rominant abolotionists o f the day~• Typographically and syntactically, the p o ~ g n e d to be reaa., without 1 significant pauses, so tha t the n o n - s t o p ~ 118 of t h e • slave, toward freedom ..Q actually occurs in the text; it is, Blyd n ~ uggests"-·l it repeaxts ◄ L,.,.,,., of "Middle Passage'~ "as~h1story• if .b:specially notable is Hayden's treat- �24 ment of Harriet Tubman, the greatest of underground railroad leaders, who was wm ted "Dead or Alive" and who wa s known to level a pistol at a doubting runaway,.. : D~ · Wt · ' ~~; (N\.e&,,e1,""'4.~~G,A.H. ~ • .. "Middle Passage" and "Runagate unagate 11 are-. only two of Hayden's magnificent poems. Othe r poems in the ~histor~cal vein are"Frederick Douglass" (an experimental sonnet without rhyme ) , 11'.1,_1he Ballad of Nat Turne1"" l "The fearful splendor of that warringt. "), 0 Daedalus, Fly Away Home" ( "Night is juba, night is conjo. ' ~ ~, (prior to Words) Ballad of Remembrance"(alfomplex and erudite poem). ay en poem -;;;,~ (i h ~ x m k ~ "T .. -J Z@ 4 ZIC J supernaturalismt"Witch Doctor"), folk life("Homage 11 to the l!._mpress of the Blues," "The Burly Fading one, 11 "Incens;:J_ the Lucky Virgin, 11 and "Mourning Poem for the Queen of Sundayx"),Afolk reminiscences("Surmnertime and the Living ••• ", "The Whipping," "Those Winter Days"). Words in the Mourning Time, which we w i l ~ a~.......119-.i~ in Ohapter VI, reflects Hayden's general and specific~ conerns as a poet. Again, he judiciously handles the spectrum& of themes, subjects and st¥les that assures him a place in the world of Western as well as Afro-American poetry. Poems like "' Mystery Boy 1 Looks for Kin in Nashville," "Soledad," "Aunt Jemima of the Ocian Waves," and "El-Hajj Malik El-i::>habazz, 11 mark Hayden in touch with the times and willing to share his poetic vision with revolutionaries, pacifists#, cultural nationalists and Black pride advocates. On the other hand he is at home with poems such as "Locus," "Zeus Over 11 and "J.Jear is Gay"--which m11Jfltmm mirror his reading, travels, still broad concerns and personal friendships. Hayden can/sensitively and delicately great art and discuss/flowers, as in Words and Night-Blooming control of Red~ye, 4 metaphorical accuracy and poetic poignanc is also clearly there. Hayden admits that the battle over aesthetics in the 1960s �25 jolted him. ~ c l e a r that the fight took place more outside of poetry than in(see Chapter VI), Hayden has not recanted in his Position that the Black po et -not be limited to racial utterance. Hayden, of ~ urse, has 'i his "-Robert Lowell, not been right to his own opinion. But, like John Ciardi, ~•.Lil- NJ~ and other poets of the academy, his trek has tksy1'. ~ Ant ~despit: statements Hayden makes outside of his poetry, poems like "Middle Passage" and "tlunagate Runagate" stamp him as a gifted handler of Black themes and materials • .fWt is not likely that he will be known, as a poet, for w rk that lie ~ ~ the as J t 111 JP L tt2 the passage, pace or plight of Black Americans. Much-needed critical attention is just beginning to come to Hayden. He is treated in Davis 1 s From the Dark Tower, Donald Gibson's Modern Black Poets{ "tlobeet Hayden's Use of History," Charles T. Davis), Jacksolllt and Rubin 1 s Black Poetry in America, 0 1 Brien•s Interview with Black and Writers, Barksdale and Kinnamon•s Black Writers of America,/How i Write/I (featuring Hayden, Judson Phillips and Lawson varter: New York, 1972)~ See also Rosey Pool's "Ro beet Hayden, Poet Laureate, 11 Negro Digest (Black World), XV(June, 1966), 39-43 1 ai!(IIIQ D. Galler•s 11 Three Recent Volumes," Poetry, r' CX(l967), 268,i■ ,,_. "' ;t . and Julius Lester's review of Words in the Mourning Time ftin ~e New York Times Book Review, January 24, 1971, p.4. Dudley RandelI•••t-displays good insights into Hayden in "The Black Aesthetic in the Thirties, Forties, and lii,fties" (Modern Black Poets). And there is a sensitive treatment of the poet in James the Thirties. o. Young's Black ~~ri ters of �- 26 - •sFijaving a~ ef the Harlem rtenaiss~nce, Langston Hughes continued his vast an thirties, forties ~ i ve poetic output fifti 1930s, three in the 1940s, P i mt the e published fo~ boo~s of poetry in the Qilill6. two in the 1 9 ~ n t o ~ a)lltobiographical and hi~ r dedicated work on 1ll:la. behalf of Blackt,eci'9B~EAS?Ci psaples sf ~. ~ "° uld ~it nj; • be "much too casual, "A.Hughes' s friend Arna Bontemp~ po distnis.ScAhim as "prolific. "fl?~) For Hughes ~~,D~ r. · 11 simpl · and a troubado111 int h e ~ s i c se~se.A,Hughes worked ra~idly') & E ~ ... turrf,ut · '')f~•!'l:Yrs i\ A.M ,t prodigious amo1m.tJ of wri tins.-) Blyden J a c k s o ~ us,'(feaused some Q.Rtioo hi'?l~ngside "serious was a "minstrel &R& u1!i.'8e!'a to~a 1'l111j12@1 like E1lison, Wright and Baldwin. Hughes always invol"le d himself in "contemporary affairs "--even lllt , during the Renaissance when Cullen, McKay and others ro fields of Africa or pined away/ in the -(io 11 ~d the Elysian dark 11 tower. But Sa~fers Redding Make A Poet Black) had complained that Hu~s .-.ae-:~ ythms in his ~ poetry but srZ 92d little intellect. Consequent-ly, the thirties and forties--with their step up in lef '1)st and radical activities--placed new protest weapons from Hughes in the position of having his "weary blues." About Hughes•s poetry was popular beeause it could be and back grounds. "II._ s i m ~Jimment O. Young noted: "His ~ad easily b~e?ple of all ages /{TlB,de of tbe pOC'I! J t- a I I II )lljl Black poetstllNlf Haki R. Madhub•tl(Don L. Lee), Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, David Nelson, Arthur Pfister) and others. In the early thirties, however, Hughes's poetry was considered "decadent' and "unacceptable" to 6ormnunist critics who wanted him to move from strictly racial t ~ to champion the fights of proletarians ~a aassoa everywhere. Hughes the switch-over and Scottsboro Limited(l932) shows the iapact of Communist thought ends t· ibirr on him. The pamphlet was dedicated �27 It trial for allegedly raping two white to JSlack youths such prostitates in Scottsboro, Alabama. ·~ John Brown, Lenin and Nat 'l'urner. The effect-- revolutionar,: .?'111 I efforts of ~tyr-making poets of ~ t h e 1960s--was to make the boys, "ignorant pawns " though they were, "militant proletarian heroes." The poem-play "Scottsboro Limited 11 shows 'Red Voicesl"' convincing .Black youths that the C0 mmunists are on the side of Not just ........... lack--but black and 'White • Hughes ---~published widely during the thrties in Party presses. In Good Morning ~tion(l973, forward by Saunders Redding), Faith Berry has compiled;,i,...,.. . . .li. 11 uncollected writings of social protest"•-' They give many clues to Hughes social concerf:.~s during the three decades fol- lowing the Harlem Renaissance. - /l. ~ ' "workers" • 1fi c ~ iitl i ,. 1~ermanl,r, China, Africa, Poland, Italy)and Amer~hrough the pages of New Masses, The Negro Worker, The Crisis, Opportunity, International Literature, C0 ntempo, Africa S 0 uth, The Workers Monthly, New Theatre:i,and American Spectator. In "Good Morning, Revolution," that I e gonna pal around together fro m now on. A • ect~on titles of.._ Good Morning Revolution'!ow 1IB=llllt Hughes ; t k WMt acutely attuned to the problems and needs of oppressed peoples-- long before Franz Fanon, Stokely Carmichael and Eldridge Cleaver--and in sympathy with Third World Section I, .H.evolutj o:r;;i.; Secti on 2, r; Section 4, ~ ar and Feace,. Section 5, G e Christ; ~ection 6, ~eweP4; Section 7, The Meaning of Scottsha®; Section 8, Cowards trom tha C.2.,l J eag.nes; Section 9, Portrait Aga;in1;1t BackgvoJJDA; Section 10, Darkness ln Spaj_n; Section 11, China~ Section 12, The American Writ e rs Congress, and Section 13, Hetrospective(including "My Adventu r es as a Social .l:'oet8"). �28 e Iconoclastic and sacriligous, Hughes incurred the wrath of many Black leaders with his poem "Good-bye Christ" published in the Baltimoee I Afro-American in 1932. Addres~t~hrist, Hughes noted that You did alright in your day, I reckon-But tha) day's gone now. And "Christ Jesus Lord God Jehovah" is told to "make way" for a new deity, who has not religion, and whose name is Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin, Worker, ME-heligious leaders especially condefIDe:d Hughes'A"blatant atheism. 11 But Melvin Tol8:f/j coming to Hughes 1 s aid, said that the youn~ t s simply showing thatf\.Christian~ offering of a better M':19' worlci.N1ad little meaning for the world I s suffering millions. Hughes was never a member of the Communist Party, but he was sympathetic to it as were m manv. --■ other Black writers: Tolson, Wright,Hayderf, Frank Marshall Davis, Margaret Walker, Ellison, and dozens of others. While communist-orient his poetry and other writings o ocial protest._ were ap p earing in radical ( iU t h Sterling Brown publications, Hmghes con inue eve oping and experimenting with ~lack folk materials. He painstakingly pointed up the contradicti ons in the promises and realities of American ~emocracy, assailed social inequality, lamented Black and white poverty, railed against double standards, attuked , racia1,. pegregation, satirized the Black bourgeosie, and immortalized the beauty of ev eryday Blacks. So, much of Hughes•s fight is caught up in "Let America ~e America Again," first published in 1936 in Esquire, and included in A New Song\1938). It is immediately reminiscent of Walt Whitman-- in its sweep--and recites, in the manner of Hayden's "Speech" and Tolson•s "Rendezvous with America," the multiple ills and ingredients of America. Throughout the poe tributions, lie ~ , as he catelogs the various ethnic stocks and con- intertoplates tha:I haunt~~ ( "America never was America to me."). By now Hughes•s interest in Black music and folk materials was �29 1I £iiiitiFMH • ¥ ueZb § 7 being worked more into his work. He carried his interest in Blues to his work in jazz(recording his poetry with Charliel Mingus and others) and the Be-Bop era is strongly reflec t ed in his poetry and his writings(see the music evident g in Mont a ge of Simple stories). Especially h . Jmrr :\a Q? & fi a Dream Deferred(l951) where, according to Jean Wagner, 11 jazz has strongly influenced the tone and structure of these poems. 11 It was from this volume, too, tha t Lorraine Hansberry would get the title for her prize-winning flay: Raisin in the Sun. The¢us poem in the volume is "Harlem," is likened to a "dream dleferred." A in which the ,... between :,. I 11 and the h1 ., explode•• ,, - Fl raisins, sores, rotten meat, syrupy sweet~~ heavy loads, ur e sent "dream. 11 Perhaps, Hughes notes at the end, the dream ~ Hugh.es was not\"perfect, 11 constantly on top of • gif -11!1!-. draw- ...,. a,...- .- .- .- ■ re explicit comparisons Hughes E.ve pre cise similes llilK iii'i:ii • Blyden Jackson points out, but he wa s , ,. . ~ A,,... ••111•••••111 contemp<irary 11 issues 11 . . , . : and ~ experiment~ throughout his writing ca reer. Ask Your Mama--Twelve Moods for Jazz(l9 61) was published after 46 years of experimentation in verse forms. It is indeed the attempt at the synthesld.s we weferred to earlier: that of jazz, blues and rela'!red folk idioms and themes. Con- temporary white poets, E.E. Curmnings and ~enneth Rexroth, had chosen to place all letters in lower case and Hughes did just the opposite, capitalizin& eve rything. Dedicated to Louis Arrnstrong--"the greatest horn blower of them allx"--the volume is an extension of ,.:;-•.deas attempted in The Weary- Blues, Shakespeare in Harlem and Montage of a Dream LJegerred. The 1 driving social protest is there, but the indig~ation is mutedf as in his earlier workl• A recession in larger America f'IIJI IS is COLO RED FD LKS I DEPRESSION• The work ia punctuated by the lin~ IN THE QUARTER OF THE NEG ROES and Hughes continues the Black poet's concern with history: h onoring Black . . ~ f heroes and race leaders, displaying the beauty of Blackness anu reca l lin~ �I/ 30 organizer of sharecroppers, Jftamatist,,.. ,,,--Politician,t( J gr,· 0 11 II El, poel,jl"tei:l.clie11 and 1 raaonteur Melvin Beaunorus Tolson was born in Moberly, Missouri,to the Reverend ~ . Mr.~aionzo Tolson. . . . Tolson lived his young life in various Missouri towns, publishing his first poem at the age of 1a in the "Poet I s Corner" Kansas City!.§. ,\ of the Oskaloosa newspaner • .tie gradualed rro~Iilcoln High jjchool~~f/J ranw fiij It; where h}.iJ_~ass poet, di rector and actor in Li-reek Cil.ub I I Little Theater am.d captain of the football team. Throughout his adult J\ life, Tolson maintained an active interest in sports, dramatics and ~ debate clubs. He attended Fisk and Lincoln Universities--graduating from Lincoln ~ ~---h-e~ll.111-M•·with ho~ors and winning awards in speech, debate, dramatics _,,,,,, and Ulassical literatures. He also captained the football team.a~ Linoolna In 1924 ~olson, continuing a rich and varied career, :auz:mp:eqmh•m began t~aching ~nglish and speech at Wiley Colleg~rshall, Texas. There he .and ,,,,,... 7 wrote PK pros: and poetry, . . . Airected d r and debate group4 · which established~O-year winning steeak. Tolson interrupted his work at wiley to pursue -work on a master's degree in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University J Na ~v I h where he met V.F. Calverton, editor of Modern ~uarterly. :rarter;~t Wiley, Tolson•s career as a debate I !ti 12 9 coached peaked when his team defeated nat~ozw-~champions, University of Southem California, before 1100 people. q947, the same year Tolson was appointed poet laureate of Liberia by Prisident V.S. Tubman, he • Riiime i :b:nglish and drama professor ~Lan~tp!), Q:qiyersi ty, ~~ton, O lahomat_~A I.., served a •.N ~ # J 1=> IJtl'IN{ i ~ ' where he ~ al•~ 7 GCe:r"'..iayor f r our terms./\A revered an feared te cher M :-:~iii and organizer, Tolson became a legend in his own time. Hardly a student at a dee -south a I a Black college hap n<?~Aheard~~on' s WOfkJ:~-1-..., ~~ , ' ~ .--.-....- · (°IWAh!..'MJ4,,~ , T £itl\ ,fH 'f.l~ ~ ~~U,~ .. poet, drama~ d -~ , ; h an~ducator."'-U · f NJ ---_.,,. · ~f : O{Actn.published wo•!lrn ±110 &d:'1\ ndezvous with America(l944), Libretta ":-n E:' f t, ,, for~he ile~ubliaria\1953), and Harlem Gallery, Book I: The 8urator(l965~ :;;Jsei:!:5:1- •h!!' in The Modern Quarterlz,11,?ommon Ground, Poetry and other periodicals. He won numerous awards and citations, among them • �31 &~ /"' firat p l a ~ National Poetry Uontest sponsored.JIIII by the American Negro .t!ixposition in Uhicago(for "~rk -=>ymphony"); the Omega Psi Phi Award for Greative Literature(l945); Poetry magazine's Bess Hokim Award for long psychological poem, "E. & O.E. "(1947); honorary Doctor of Letters, Lincoln University, and made permanent ..,,,,rqzc# Bread Loaf Eellow in poetry and drama(l954); District of Columbia Citation and Award for Cultural Achi•vement in li'ine Arts an~inteA to the Avalon Chair in Humanities at 'f uskegee Institute(l965); and annual poetry award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters eluding a grant of sitfig in- ~2 • .5OO(1966),the same year he died following three operations for abdominal cancer. and intellec As a Black poe in the mid-twentieth century, Tolson wore the manypronged mantel of his eiah,teenth and nineteenth century predecessors• (Prince Hall, Benjamin Banneker, James Wb.itfi ~ Frances E.W. Harper and others) who ~ n.. u·......,. /td ander Crummell~ · abolitionists, revolutionists, defende rs of what they believed to be ,,,..--..... decent in the promise of America,and character models f o r ~ Black communities. Tolson•s predecessor#$ fought for the right to bef called humans; ii; he fought the battle of integration. As Tolson lay dying, other,younger poets ~ were fi. ghting the battle of self-determination-- albeit using the same tools employed by poets and intellectuals of the past two centuries. So, it is indeed ironi~~en Ji -- young writer like Haki R. MadhubutitDon L. Lee) complains that Tolson is not acces s ible to . . the everyday readerAsee review of Kaleidoscope : ~egro Digest, XVII, 3 BJ1ua"J; 1968);-51-52, 90-94J• ~Joy Flasch points out in Melvin B. Tolson (1972}{Tl 1son was aware that he was not writing for the "average 11 reader but for the "vertical" audience. In "omega" of Harlem L:i-allery, Tolson asks if a serious writer should "skim the millt of culture" and give th~se demanding immediacy and relevancy a popular latex brand? �3 =tij; J ?* ~ gU::c Tolson did not live, as did Hayqen, ::>terling Brown, Saunders rtedding, and others, to make contact withp ayo•eoJJ ta@¥@ bell oponents o~~,._ the "Black Aesthetic'• of the 1960s. But~ have continued to rake him over the coals of responsibility. oet Sarah Webster ~•abio(~egro Digest, XVI, 2--December, 1966--54-58), challenged Karl Shapiro's statement (Introduction to Harlem Gallery) that '±' olson "writes in .Negro." His poetic language is "most certainly not she averf 1 _, NegroJ, .,.., 1" noting that it is "a bizarre, pseudo-literary diction" taken from stilted h aditllBB!lt "American mainstream" poetry "where it rightf)lllllf and wrongmindedly belonged." ,el!5i> ite critics and writers joi ning --..!nglis~ in the MIIA assault• on Tolson included Laurence Lieberman anaifl'""aii Bremen( of the .l:ieritage ;:)eriesriab I l ll9'iAS "' ] I asti~J Lieberman takes e&ception to Shapiro's statement, saying that he teachesJ Black students from all over the world--) who are steeped in Black languag~ who do not understand Tolson J review of Harlem Gallery in 1965,,~, ~ ~~ p ~ of decades, Tolson became ntore difficult as he made adjustments i ~ • to fit h)U1~~'a tiMi::d::::wii. .c ~ c:z:c::•llte:~ oetry. The Pmmd, Yeats, Crane, ~ tevens,~ stara of ~glish poetry;l - e J ~liot, Tolson admired and patterned Y~ough.o~t his poetic life, he maintained an.fl "enormous love for people" -wh i ch was reflected in his everyday work as well as in his poetry. Jlt Rendezvous with America as a title indicates ~olsori.Acommit•emt to love and do battle with America. America has cancer ' and promise and Tolson performed operations while he feasted refle 'jj;;' His title poem, "Rendezvous with America," the Whitman influence and Tolson's awesome worK skills, technical virtuosity and musical ear • .l:ie enumerates ~ the races and types of people He sees how Time unhinged the gates to allow the beginning of Amejica, noting such landmarks as Plymouth .rtocj, �1J Jamestown, ~llis Island, which he juxtaposes with ancient si~es like Sodom, <iomorrah, 0athay, Cipango and .l!,l• Dorado. The "searchers" came to America which ••• the Black Man's country, The rled Man•s, the Yellow Man's, The Brown Man 1 s, the White Man 1 s. America flows, Tolsontbelieves as An international river with a legion of tributaries! A magnificent cosmorama with myriad patters of colors! A giant forest with loin-roots in a hundred lands I A cosmopolitan orchestra with a thousand instruments playing America I three 3 1s--"biology, psychology ••• sociology," or the sycmronizing of sight • His major themes Qiistory, Black presence in the world, re- ligion, hatred for class structures, and the plight of the underdo~ are handled in av riety of forms: sonnets, rhymed quatrains, ballads, free verse forms, Npecial two-syllable lines. Kno'Wil as the iconoc a lst, Tolson .lirlia••■•fitfitilinm.1 used h is poetry to de-stool pomposity and fiP!. J rnffiiiirt-.-, who J IM @:j q7 everyman's su~terings from behind a cloak of high office. Music and art inform much of"- poetry--anobher reason why his allusory writing has been criticized--as in "¼lendezvous" and 11 .lJark Symphony", the most popular poem in his first book. In "Rendezvous," in addition to his musical structures, he lists America's melodies' by associating factor ·s, express trains, power dams, river boats, coal mines,and lumber camps with musical terminology: "allegro, 11 "blues rhapsody," "bass crescendo," �3i}, ndiatonic picks," and "belting harmonics." "lJark Symphony", imrnidiately musical and racial in its title, is separated into parts along musical lines and terminology: Part I: Allegro Moderato; Par II, Lento Grave; Part III, Andante Sostenuto-fr7a~t IV, Tempe Primo; "-Part V, Larghetto~ patterned after the -•-r• "~ndezvous" and ":Dark Symphony" are Tolson would expand on re 01gru1ize'"' Ml!& in 1lilll Libretto and Harlem Gallery). "Dark Symphony" carries the same theme as "Rendezvous"--people pitted against their injustices--but the latter poem is more racial in flavor and subject matter. ' Located, temporally and spritually, betweem the concerns of Whitman(the "sweep") and John Steinbeck(arpPes of Wrath), 11 JJark Symphony" ppens by reminding Americ~that "Black Crispus Attucks 11 died for them(Boston Uommons) Patrick Henry's bugge breath asked for liberty over death. A strongly masculine poem(as is so much of Tolson~s work), .._ it movesr".,: "robustly to recite the deeds of "Men black and strong." Part II tells of the ••-m "slaves singing" in the "to»ture tombs" of ships in the middle passage,•lillllliil. the swamps, the ttcabins of death," and "canebrakes. 11 In the remaining ~ parts, the Black Amercian, speaking through the collective "we," vows not to II forget" lilllii~ "Golgothax" has been tread or that "The Bill of Bights is burned. 11 The New .Negro wears "seven-league" boots and springs from a tradition that produced Nat Turner, Joseph Cinquez, "Black Moses of the Amistad Mutiny"), Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman( "Saint Bernard of the Underground Railroad.i:"). Grapes of Wrath and Native ~on are invoked as indices to the suffering and the breding of slums. And, finallY#,, the historical concerns ofthe Black poet: .,>Out of ab¥sses of Illiteracy, Through labyrinths of ~ies, Across waste lands of Disease ••• We advance! �35 Brilliant, esoteric, complex, innovative, and able to span the world of Black 0 diom and academic intellectualism, Tolson always punctuates his undaunted lyric ·sm with ribald humor and thigh-alapping:a uproa ousnessx. 'J ?olson 11 reman desparagingly referre~sturing forawhi te audience ••• with an iml-conceived grin and a wicked sense of humar ••• an entertaining ~ darky using almost con4i:cally bmg v0rds as the best wasp,tradtion demands \,,;...,I of its educated house-niggers. 11 (Maybe, one might ask, Tolson W8/l!I too ~ " for the Bnglis( breme Nevertheless, the poets of the ~ academy apparently loved Tolson and more than one of them tried to get J:ltiiili; deserved recognition before Carlos saluted Tolson in his fourth book of Patterson; A1len he died. Willi Tate wrote a now famous int~duction to Libretto; Shapiro introduced Harlem brought Gallery, launching Tolson into the same curious fame that Howells rrt 1 3 81d J ~tanJe:J 8a to Dunbar lillllii8ili 70 years before; Robert Frest,~dgar Hyman, ~elden Rodman, John Ciardi, and Theodore Roethke, all tried to "bring Tolson to the general literary consciousness, but with little success"(Shapiro}. Libretto or ~ fl ta· z P .Tolson 1 s severest critics usually jhave Rendezxvous has been out of print for several years and many of the younger Black poets and scholars have not read i t--as is the case with Sterling Brown's Southern Road(l932} which has just been reprinted. anj casual look a But, coking a olson 1 s work · will confirm reports that he is not digestible in a single reading. ~en before the erudition of Libretto and Harlem Gallery, Tolaon accustomed himself to the allusion. weapon is the literary Indeed, his strongeet or historical reference - -the mark of the library poet, the learned person. In "An Ex-Judge at the Bar" Tolson is at his finest~,"f,? phil<is6p~, :;(,1o Po!!••oi. 1;e hwnor, allusion, ~ twabise and social commentary. • i.. ,_!;he juxtaposi._... ex-judge is at a "drink- �L,Q 36 ing" bar.';jic in oral powers, like most of Tolson's poetry, surveys the history of a . returning home to ~ 1111t ~ who, after q JI tS@Rl serving in the war and ,,-:-.,. become a judge, i s • guilt-ridden in a tavern where r-.. he discusses his life with the bartend:f_r• The opening couplet: Bartender, make it straight and make it two-p One for the you in me and ~ the me in you. • •• reflects the Black Arnerican•s dexterousness with oral language and Tolson 1 s rich background a s ' storyteller and debat e coach. The couplet contains the kind of musical, seemingly non-sensical statement that Black men love to exehange during fierce ver~;rr.ang rnatches--even though the judge is prej· ably white. ~,e-1-liiiitlee-~udge re-lives his war experiences and, in a vision, sees the "Goddess Justice" whom someone "blindfolds II as the lawyers lie and railroad defendants before Hu 'ti • jl!l!&f!o• ,-....._ But Justice "unbandaged 11 her,_ eyes and a Black man judge's seat," in the last war to "make the world safe for Democracy." seeking consolation and implying that no...,..one is perfect~ inally moved•--• self-evaluation, orders/'anoilher round of drinks: repents and Bartender, make it straight and make it three-One for the ~egro ••• one for yol.1% and me. "An Ex-Judge at the Bar--•--with its ironies and double entendres in the vary title--is a poem that slips away from the reader. One ~hinks, ne is never sure, that one has the meaning under control. refers to Ceasa•, Pontius Pilate, the Koran, the Sahara, 11 September Morn"(a painting by Paul m ~ e Flanders field and · ~renc or a ideai Macduff in ~hakeaspeare's play Macbeth. Certainly these are not t!ie,tt~ediants for a poem dir~cted to Chabos) ~11!11111:.,- �37 the 11 people." On the other hand, for the :ireader ready .._ do battle with history and world knowledge, Tolson proves quite rewarding. Dudley Randall( "The Black Aesthetic in Thirties, li'orties,and Fitties"--Modern Black Poets)states, with a strained air of s eriousnes / that: "If the reader has a well-stored mind, or is willing to use dictiona ries, encylopedias, atlases, and other ~ referencex books, 11 llll Tolson' s work "should present no great dif f iculty. 11 Randall had in mind, specifically, Libretto, a ppeared in Poetry along with the book's pre face. In this long poem-const1meted loosely around the ode form--Tolson celebrates Liberia's centennialtaillll2Jli~~.;...~~119'1!!1!'!1!~~t,tr~~~~ . t, . :,.~~~~,:;:m:cm=:;;a..~~~...,.~Dli:.,c~n Accordin5 to Randall, "Tolson used all the devices dear to the New Criticism: recondite allusions, scraps of foreign languages, african proverbs, symbo}.ism, objective correlatives. Many parts of the poem are through some private symbolism of the author, buy obscure, not because of the unusual words, foreign phrases, and learned allusions." Randall goes on to point out that Heading Libretto is like reading other 11 learned poets, such as Milton and T.S. Cit& Eliot." g However, rea Tolson is not exactly like reading other ....,.{:J:;tf.,:'e poets, for hi places Black infor11&tion in fron~: the reader. \d nethe ode into a musical struc t ure and celebrate~ack past. 0 0 btinuing a patter set in poems like "rtendezvous w.. th America" and ".JJark Symphony~ Tolson separates Libretto along lines oft he Western musical scale: Do , Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La,~i, Do. ~pecifically, Libretto acknowledges the 160th birthday of Liberia, founded in ~1847 by the American ~olonization Society 1ia for free men of color. "tlooted in the Liberian mentality as fact and symbol, 11 Libretto travec:t'es the kaleidoscopic range of African • history: the magnificent anc~t and _Medieval t· li(R &K kingdoms, European exploitation, ea.son for v a rious theories as tote question-mark-shape of Africa, the origins of Black stereopypes, Africa's contributions to the world, the impact of Christia.nit �38 , Islam and other religions. All this Tolson does with what Allen Tate calls •~eat gift of language, a profound~torical sense, a •first~ u e l and Gross(Uark rate intelligence." Tate also pondered, as Symphonyj, 1968), "what influence this work will have upon Negro poetry More than slightly reca in the United ..,tates . " o e in his 8Riiii¥ar tr of end Dunbar'9, ·J."ate ....-. says 11 For t.t,?:e first time, itf. seems to me, a .Negro poet has ass5.uilated comp letely the full poetic language of his time and,by implication, the language of the Anglo-Ami e rican tradition.rr M& t g Relentless~posing the one-word question "Liberia? 11 and re- existence in"fact and inforcing the ..-._ erudition an Libretto with The fifth stanza of Do, after rl J a ;r opens az•r•·•••• the recitation of what the nation is initial "Lib eria?" and accompanying w, addresses its citizens thusly: You are Black Lazarus risen from the White Man's grave, Without a road to Downing Street, Without a hemidemisemiquaver in an Oxford ~tave I Later in the S$.In.e section, Tolson excerpts a chant from "'l 'he U-ood Gray Bard of Timbuktu" : "Wanl;awake wanazaa ovyol .lia.zi Yenu Wanzun&!,I" 7 Ro be~ Hayden ha• been f.J.hJ ♦ (P\J (j .Q'iiAililiittiin e,,Eil\ the a. most skilled Bl::ae}E poebi&. crafts~n since Countee Gullen; but Tolson without a doubt has, f •■• sustained the most powerful poetry which adheras rigorously to the teneils of - moder~ .. His Libretto is the drama of "The Desert Fox" and the U-erman "goosestep 11 across Africa{xm£ Mi); of the snake, "eyeless, yet with eyes"(Fa); of "White Pilgrims" and "Black Pilgrims 11 who sing "o Christ" that the worse will "passt"(Sol); of "Leopard, elephant, ape 11 and 11 A white man spined with dreams"(La):t}. of a "Calendar of the Country" to "i'ed-letter the Rep ublic 1 s birth!" (Ti); and of "a professor of metaphysico- �39 theologicocosmonigology" who is also a tooth puller a pataphysicist in a cloaca of error a belly's wolf a skull 1 s tabernacle a ffl3 with stars a muses 1 darling a busie bee de sac et de corde a neighbor's bed-shaker a walking hospital on the walk) The symbols, the syntax, the grammar and the language tumble on placing Quai d 1 0rsay, White House, Kremlin, 1Jowning .:it re et• ••• in the catalogue while Again black Aethiop reaches at the sun, O &ree~.(Ti) The history of world wars, the gossip in high circles("Il Duce 1 s Whore"), the concontion of enumerable languages and book-buried erudition reveal Tolson 1 as a complex and difficult modern poet. The tragedy, rlandall and others have pointed out, is that as Tolson wrote Libretto and Harlem Galler:y:, white scions of the modern verse were turning their backs on erudition a more common, everyday language in poetry. Trapned in the middl~(he ~ Harlem Gallery for ~ Tolson continued to labor in the best tradition of the modern poetry to the disbelief of ~ ~ ZIIG) like Cunnnings,.-.. Hexroth, and Hughes,~nfluenced by Be-Bop and a free I l a n ~ s o n s sustained scholarship and complex allusions are by the addition of scores of footnotes which cite 81111[ the works of such as Br~den, ~ha.jlespeare, .c.merson, Tennyson, Lorenzo Dow Turner(Africanisms in the Gullah Dialects), J. A. RogerstSex and Bace), V. ~'irdousi, Gunnar Myrdal, Aeschylus, Boccacio, Baudelaire, and ~rs ~ Tolson I s care . r~"-"l.l;:.:'"fr"L~~ ..~ ' " 'tMl~~tLt"' • ~::~:r., AI/C;.;,t,11~'.,..., .... hundreds ~ltYm.-a.. ying example of the confusion that -sG·me ~im:dl! tA..-t occurs in the Black literary artist. When he first sent the manuscript �40 of Libretto to Tatetwho whiae 'l'olson was J1~11111111111J--,1sir ;:;;;;,;:;.1, he was note interested in S;a!Qier~~f!wn~th the 11 Fugitive 11 poets at Fisll) Et 11 g J:. ·r ate rejected it saying pro:saganda from a Negro Joet."(Flasch and Randall) Tolson then diligently re-wrote the manuscript to subscribe to the high , technical,_, intellectualF scholarly demands of the modern poets{Tate, John Urowe ~~~ ~ ound, Rober,.t Pe~ren, J\.in 1920, _n a~avidso Z'c and other~;• stumbled upolj. a cop}t of Sandbur 's 11 0hi<l3. go 11 but wa s Tolson h . warned by a professor to "leave that stuff alone" ( lt'lasch). ~ ~s" (Jaturathon : , ; poet, then, was stUJlted--causing him t o , . . . 30 years ~ Jt f i ~ h i s own voice. • .le r~- ~-~·"!..~"~ Harlem Gallery(the first of a p1anned~~••M") provides another In 1932,..._ he compl~ucript in Tolson 1 s ra1 by publishers. \"Jh had puWi13hed two ~ of Harlem \111\f'l..,_ s II ~ ~1lery was Iii · L • finall~~aa;.;66 as turned down 1966, Tolson, r manuscripts: Rendezvous and Libretto. Harlem Gallery 4 aced in Tolson's"tr tt during which he switched from the Romantics and VictQrians{and ~asters after whose Spoon River Anthology "Portatts" JX!CscL mod.~:-:-:~....;..;,.--.-~ the 20 year; period Tolson s~d he "read and absorbed the techniques of ..t:!.liot, Pound, Yeats, Baudelaire, Pasterna~ and, I beli.-.e, all the greail moderns. God only knows how many "little maga') zines" I studied, and how much textual analysi~f the 1iJew Uri tics." ,. A staggering poem, Harlem Gallery "is a work of art, a sociological commentary, an; intellectual triple intellectual, scholarly, and ~er~a~lasch) !~meets dai:i _ ,~ of il)I modern poetry, but at the same time is "impossible to describe." Yet it is Tolson's crowning �41 achivement in more ways than one. First it continues his fascination ,,-........ with Black and general history. Second, it t 1 pursues Tolson I s intense (\ i n t e r e s t ~ psycho-dynamics of the Afrot-American character and a.a:i►-,r:; he is particularly concerned with the pligb.t of the twentieth century Third • , provides one of Black artist,hencex Book I, The Cu.rat~r). the most powerful and authentic links between the Harlem ~enaiasance and the Black Arts Movement of the 19~0s and ~70s. The Very : ,. t i t ~ r l e m Gallery gives it a Bla~k ~ i n~ and the f a c t ~ 1 J . . ~,ij,ceived and initially drafted ~filOPiLsi launm ea mzif:u;i:;1111 Renaissance indicates that Tolson Wllr labored over the years-~rom the stand point of memoq, technique and subject matter) in the after-glow of the literary flowering watered by McKay, Cullen, Toomer, Hughes, Fisher, Johnson,.;and Locke. Fin~lly? \ the characters in Harlem Gallery are Black: the r, Doctor N Guy Delaporte:t{president of Bola Bola ~nterprises), Black Orchid(bluee-singer and mistress to Delaporte), the half-blind Harlem artist John Laugart, ' Black Biamontf(ghetto-promoter of the Lenox policy racket), and Hideho Heights (the light-skinne~ poet of Lenox Avenues). The Curator of the Harlem Gallery is an admixture(continuing ft ~olson concern beg~ in Rendezvous) of races ( 11 Afroirishjewishl"), m octo roon who passes for Black in ~ew York and white in Mississippi. He ms a digestion of the humor a n d • pathos Blacks see in those of their race who attempt to "pass." Tolson noted~ that since thousands of lightskinned Blacks passed over, there is a standing joke a mong Blacks whi/Ah asks "What white man is whiJe? 11 Harlem Gallery, then, is designed to parade the Black " l ~es 11 (ultimately . . eve ryman types) through the gallery of life as it is..-~...- - ~ t h e ~ of the literary geni.us: Tolson. ::,pecifically, the book is a huge answer to Gertrude Steinf's charge that t h e suffers from nothingness. 11 All of his poetic life, Tolson ht pbsli to reconstruct Black history; t2 sh1u ~• 1 peep) e tbet :liiiAo 1'5186k f'.U:!fi1 tag• ,Kare • Now, in Harlem Gall e ry, he was coming with �42 speed and poetic precision from his corner of the syntactical and sem{)itical - ~~~·ing to do battle with Steinis charge. In the lntroduction to Harlem Gallery, Shapiro explains in part the reason Stein would herself be so ignorant. Whites do not get a chance to read about Black achievement since"Poetry as we know it remains the most lily-white oft he arts. 11 Libretto may have pulled lthe rug out from unde r the poetry of the Academy -los:ztme ., , but "Harlem Gallery pillls the house down around their ears. 11 ssaif~~ iot t fl ra.c1d others for "purifying the language, 11 f7) Shapiro peised Tolson forfJ. "complicating it, giving it the iift of tongues." Tolson certainly gave Harlem Gallery the "gift of tongues. from the range world He usesf languages; but· sustained.._ and coherent than in Librettot• and 11 4o\4'll:r-:~ story-line t • language are more accessible in Gallery--with its interpolat~ of rich Black speech and musical terminology into stilted langua e aa UC• academic , and...,_ form. Set up musically, with each section bearing the name of a Greek Alphabet, Gallery shows Tolson again displaying his amazing technical virtuosity related Black merger of the ode form with ~-=••~ orally-derived.• ~ blues, jazz, Spirituals, folk eJdcs and~ oral narratives ( see "~atchmo II in Lambda) or " The Birth of John Henry 11 in XI). The verse pattern in Gallery owns some debt to Do in Libretto with its tapered typography and irregular line organization which either._ forces the reader to speed up or slow down to catch the rhyme. Alpha opens describing ~C(...O.., the spice of Harlem~ · "an Afric pepper bird" before the Curator tells us that I bravel,from ••x•••••• i asis to easis, mants Saharic up-and-down. ~ 1 h e grand sweep and.- intellectual storage of Tolson~thered from line to line, between lines, i the margins, around and throuQ:hout the poem. ~'-'Curator Recallingch the verbal jousting in "An Ex-Judge at the Bar, ..,18-ss sses his �43 "I-nes s, " his "humanness" and his "1/, grone as" a n d ~..- ililllllli-111o mixes with the pepper bird's reveille in my brain, where the plain is twilled and twilled in plain. The academic stilts or the ~ f ~ understanding{Beta): are short:aded one needs the clarity the comma gives the eye, not the head of the hawk .wollen with rye. Like Hayden' s"Middle Passage, 11 &allfery views the FF-■rilt·-••n· physical and spiritual predicament of the Black man: what has he gone through, I ,,t..O how much more can/will he take, how long? how long? The answer~~e::a::ml!fild~ .f that man m~y have to endure suffering forever--b~ to survive. The Curator is ___ §' 11 Ii@► others ..,,.... have suffered and survived. The Afm,o-Ame rican a· Ox and their suffering#. So the "Afroirishjewish Grandpa" of the 8urator tells him that: •Between the dead sea hitherto and the promised land Hence looms the wilderness Now: although ld.B confidence is often a boar bailed up on a ridge, somehow, the Attic salt in man survives the blow of Attila, Croesus, Iscariot, mid the witches Sabbath in the ~atacombs of Bosio. Certiinly this survival theme is close to the heart o f the Afro-American and the artist. Artists are often among the first to plea for c&emency, for ,,,.,,--. free expression, for ae-vtruth. The ~pirituals and the vast body of Black folk expression reaffirm the Afro-American ' s f aith in man an ~ uest for survival. �44 Acknowledgii:ng this aspect of Black expression and strength, Tolson(and Hayden••• ••:;:Jli•••"---•••••~•-1!'.•"Mean mean mean to be free. 11 )in• corporates the rich blast of Black folk materials. In heaven(Lambda), Gabriel announces that 'I'd be the greatest trumpeter in the Universe, if old Satchmo had never been bornl' And the birth of John Henry is an .epic birth--akin to that of Jesus, Buddah, Mohammed, and others. t John ilenr and a hammer of thunder the ea les and ~ ,titReciting a soul-food menu at birth, a John Henry ™: want . j~.QIUe::rfM¥2 hocks, 1_I ,.a a . }}o..t...Qf fiJ?Sac:ffi:§} jolts, > cabbage and green; latter of and beansJ 1 -'atTolso~$ in synchronizing the Afro-"'merican and Westem heritages."J/li.(,, ort is still the literary all,.,ilion juxtaposed with history or religion(as in Libretto); but he loves to a s c e n ~ u n t ~ n of academia and then suddenly drop into the midst of ghetto-~ as going(~ from t thoughts that tilt like "long Napalese .Jeyes" to a "catacomb Harlem flat" grotesquely vivisect::.~\~~j•j·m~croscoped maggots) •••• 61':;t;tie r-:- "Elite Chitterling Shop 11 ~ h e "variegated dinoceras of a jukebox" (singing the "ambivalence of classical blues"). Mean- while, Doctor Obi lftmmo, "the alter ego" of the gallery, speaks '6!> Across an alp of chitterlings, pungent as epigrams, •••• ~~. ~octor @n I ill, sun, the theme of survival and fr ee expl'ession: �45 'The lie of the artist is the only lie for which a mortal or a god shou dBi □ Tolson•s ever-present biology ingredients of mm<•••bioloy, sociology and psychology--extending into the artis s the three S's--sight, sound and sense) recur in the poem(Eta)-.as the seven panels of man's tridemenAiona~ity in variforrns and varicolors-since virtue has no Kelvin scale ... since "mother breeds no twins alike, ••• and since no man who is judged by his biosocial identi~y in toto cab be a Kiefekil or a ta~tufe, an Iscariot or an Iago." I ' Hence Tolson extends, sometimesftamouflou/1,,., his ideas about man's similarities 1111 -. differences. To be sure, he is saying that black men abd white men~ different: but that the ~ifferences are not significant enough to keep them from working togethe r for the mutual good. This particulr stand, which laces the work of Hayden, Tolson, Hughes and early l.l"VBndolyn Brooks, to the i f is not one that ~~ remain popular among poets who subscribe~ Black Aesthetic of the 1960s. Nevertheless Tolson dug underneath the hysteria and the ideological neatness to probe the time-honored questions about man. Psi(a much-anthologized section of Gallery) finds Tolson doing battle with anthropologists, the D.A.R., the F.F.V(First Familes of Vi~ginia), Uncle Tom, 'fhe Jim Crow Sign, the Great White World,and Kant, in an1i.'attempt to answer the question "Whef is a . .? " and "Who is a White?" Tols~w~ains great satire; and great wisdom in satire. To be misled by his incredible and dazzling word play is to miss the essential ~olson who warned the coming �46 }] ~ - · n tha t , although UncqJ~s genera t io ~ 11 dead 11 , they should beware Suspicious o~ fame and wealth and desiring to of his see no man placed over.(in ~~•••••,••s~pril"dge), Tolson remarked after JI.John Laugart 1 s murder, tha t among those things remaining was , ••• infamy, the siamese twin ~~ ~ ~k, 0 fJ::;£L-~ (3o-'(.t.M~4 ) ~'3 /..::::._do not b6w whaf would have been Tolson t s fate as a poet had he come to his o ~ was comfortable style as a young man in the Ha~em Renaissance. ~ I ie fift7• when he sent !a: T a ~ ; n u s ~ o r Libretto, .tt'ifty, of course, is q u i t ~ r a poet to be/('b • ; his craft-- I MHtt or to have his work over-seen by a critic. Nevertheless Tolson, not admitted.f (as Shapiro noted of Black poets),to ~ i t e company of had to get f his voice 11 together 11 a:Mt · J 2 I II available to ci wale• &f "Fugitives 11 attempting Tolson 1 s feat-- centers for modern poetry. Few poetry among Blacks had, in fact, declined in 4lerest during the forties and fifites--and there is much evidence that Tolson generally intimidated other Black scholars and intellectuals with his vast knowledge and great talents. QS] part-time 94 ' Lik~'Y'Poets of other generations, he was ~spendin ap.poe-r: o---1. -lCIDi~students and eohool-relatred workm. Randall has pointed out that unless > influence OJl Afro-American poetry. , ~ ~, (.k,.·g,,-.~ IP' Criticism of Tolson is sparse. Joy Flasch 1 s Melvin B. Tolson,i~ the d interesti g--he will not exert am ·o I )l,. w~ ~e.t.pot. fl": Twayne United States Authros Series, offers good insights into Tolson 1 s techniqu~ l • Barksdale brief criticism in Black Writers of America. article on Black poets of th•e• Randall decades following the Renaissance ttPortrait of the Poet as Rancont eur, 11 is -c Negro Digest, X!l, 3.{janua ry,1966\f54-57). '.J, C Se also "A Poet's Od:is§.e-Y n an interview with Tolson(conducted by M. W. King) . Anger, ano. Beyond'-\l';lbb~. �47 poetry and life provide# a rich and rewarding jolt in the wr~ctivity of this perioctf: was the first ■111•.. ,. For My People(1942) of poetry by a Black woman since Georgia Douglass Johnson's ,_...'jj,.-cili...... twenties,,1-:1fp~d in theme and technique from the prevailing mood of poetry by Black women; and she had the rare opportunity to hobnob, during her most furtile years, with such )i,hicago-ba sed . ~ riters as Richard Wright, Frank Marshall Davis, Fenton Johnson,ALangston Hughes.rn? J! J 1 I l •• Like other writers of the era, her ex- periences included the Depression, World War II and McCarthyism--along with various racial and politically radical perspectives on contemporary life. Margaret Walke r was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter of a 1•1ethodist minister father and a school teache r mother, both university graduates. She attended church schools in Mississippi, Alabama)and Louisiana ~ before-tliiplll!!l!IJlilmma•-=•~ receiving her B.A. • from Northwestern University in 1935--and then going on to work the next four years as i"typist, . ,-::,, newspaper reporter, editor of a short-lived magazire,and with the Fedelral Writers' If Project(like Hayden) in Chicago. In 19JA she entered the University of Iowa(after short stints as a social work e r in Chicago and ~ew Orleans) whe re she received an M.A. in 1940, her thesis being a colle••tion of poems. She finally obtained the Ph.D. in creative wr·iting from Iowa in 1965 after submitting Jub i lee, a novel, in lieu of the dissertattmn. Jubilee received the Houghton Mifflin Literary Award in 1966 . • ,h_p~ and ha• been transla t ed into several languages. During the :im&i:i2i4%o L:: k in her work at Iowa Marga r et Walker(Mrs. Firaish James Alexander and the mother of four children) was ,.professor of English at Livingston College in North Caroling, recei-wd the Yale Younger ~oets awa r d in 1942 (For My People), was awarded a Rosenwald Fellowship f9r Cr~ative Writing served as visiting professor a"t' Northwestern University, (1944),~and became a member of the English faculty at lackson State College where she is currently director of the Institute for the Study of History, Life, �(since 1969). Arthur P. Davis says and Culture of Black People that "Miss Walker is a better poet than she a novelist, " and one can hardly quarrel w i t h ~ him. ~ddition to For My People, she has sustained a good quality of poetry in Prophets for a ~ew Day(l970) and October Journay(l973)--both published by Dudley Randall's new Broadside Press in Detroit. Although some of the poems in Prophets for a New Day were begun in the thirties and forties, "most of them, 11 according to the poet, were written during tre sixties. So brief comment will be ~ t h e m in Chapter VI, "For My People," the ~ boo~_p:rr1zzbl5 poem of •l t~:::.,~J !coked a•9 was f i r s t ~ -- in Poetry in 1937 while the poet was living and working in Chiby Owen Do in 1942) that she was winning the Yale Younger Poets Award, Miss Walker recalls that she "had not even sumbitted my manuscript and I just thought he was crazy. 11 Of course, she had won and the dressing included a sensitive· & i('._ Forward by Stephen Vincent .l:3en,t who . . . pr\')sed her ":::itraight- forwardness, directness, reality," and noted that such qualities are "good thing':! to find in a young poet. n Ben~t also observed that: It is rarer to find them combined with a controlled intensity of emotion and a language that, at times, even when it is most modern, has something of the Slrge of biblical poetry. And it is obvious that Miss Walker uses that language because it comes naturally to her and is a part of her interitance. Indeed "inheritance" is the key word orns?atr 1 9 1 I and juices of Margaret ~•alker a I unlo~J~\he fruits p o e t i a ~ H e r own vxperiences, as the daughter of a religious parents, of growing up in the South, of being nurt•red on the oral tradition, of fiaveloping a ca reful and sympathetic ear for the foihk expressions,~ served up a.gai~ through the poet's �49 "honesty, 11 "sincerity," "cando~• and !tremendous technical abilities. Margaret ~ ~ f;.lllPl~ ~ Q,, Walker•s verseA» notAthe oblique, obtruse,~learnedAEgV·:~ sometimes ~ 4 A • / ),. - - i n Hayden and Tolson. And she is quite at the opposite end of the ~ spectrum from the lady-like lyrics of her predefcessors: Anni Spencer, '.::J Gwendolyn ~ennett, Alice Dunbar Nelso, {ii. and others. Indeed her work is startling, as a womans poetry, when measured against the tradition established by Black female poets. She certainly bears some kinship to her furerunne~-sisters--especially ~Frances Harpe'l in t.llllillll!!!!ll~theme and usage--but her langtiago/-"' luz:. line7and narration ~ore .,.J,k'. ...,. to the work of Masters, Lindsay and Sandburg(on the white side) ,,-..... and Fenton Johnson, James Weldon Johnsonl,,..._ 'Cb-lifgJUe Hughes, and Frank Narshall Davis ( on the Black) • ._ Nikki.; During an exchange p with~iovanni (f. Poetic Equation: Conversations Setween Nikki Giovarmi and ~rgaaat Walker•, 1974) Miss Walker AQ&i 11; But to get back to this business of language. In the twenties and thirties, for the first time we had the use of black speech from ,,...., the streets. We were responsibl-e for that particular urban idiom going into the American language. Nikki Giavanni answered with thi ~ e arcement: It was the first time because we were becoming urban. l think one o~e of the things we forget when we start out critiques is that we could not have had a street language earlier. Speech had been plan,- tation and southern and rural • • And as we moved to the cities during the migration period, we developed a fstreet language. "I think that• s an important point, 1' Miss Walker noted, moving on to indebt her~elf and the whole modern Black poe~ folk tradition to Langston tiughes. So~1 ~ at Margaret Walker, the southefrner, gleaned from Blacks C, South(North) the kinds of rich linguistic complements neaded to draw magnifice t port»aits in For My People. 11 sets the tone of the book and establishes the poet i s �50 ,.--.. intellectual, aesthetical, philosophical and historical considerations: and em loyment the acuis ion owledge of her past; the exhortation of her people "'l' ~tru 1 ers Us" ·( out of th.Jr.is blackness we must struggle fortbf, 11 ) ; tl::e celebration, specifically, of the Black folk heritage and language; este:am for her ancestors("Lineage":"Why am I not as they?"); and the embodiment of religious ( especially supernatural )c tr in both its style and its content, 7[ '1ii:ii7' 11 e and spiritual needs. Revealing For My Peoplett is a majestic poem cont.aining the now-famous Whitman sweep of words and ideas • ~~ orderin~he disord~r: For my people everywhere singing their slave songs repeated; their dirges and their ditties and their blues and jubilees, praying therr prayers ~nightly to an unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an unseen power; ••• I Continuiing from this first stanza(note the similarity to Fenton Johnso~As) the poem §p&W views "my people" adding their "strength" to the" years" and the ,now years. 11 It sees them, as it a ~ a the and spiritual history of Blacks, as "plamates" in Alabama "clay and dust~"; as "bl.a. ck and poor and small and different 11 ; as youths who "grew" to "marry their playmates n and "die of consumption.j"; as 11 thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New Orleans"; as "walking blindly spreading joy"; as "blundering and groping and floundering"; f as II preyed on by facile fo r ce of state and fad and/ novelty, by fal s e prophet and holy believe rni and ttas all the ads.ms and evea." ~ l l y , in the last stanza, she give a «_ringing cry~ ~ m,,f'll ~~ Let a new earth ri s e. Let another world be born• Let a blood~/ peace be written in the sky. Let a second generation/ full of courage issue forth; let a people Ia~ing freo/dom come to growth. Let a beauty full of healing/and a stre~gth of final clenching be the pulsing in(our spirites and our plood. Let the martial s~gs �be/ written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now rise and take control. For My People is a small book{Only 26 poems) but it is one of the most ~ influential by a Black poet. 11 Dark Blood" follows the opening poem, "- reafffirming Margaret Walker's belief in the "forms of things unknown"-- as Wright might put it. "Bizarre beginnings# in old lands II constituted the "making of me. 11 ~ sands, trast 11 " ;-i"' to suns": 3 --••• bscious, succulent imagery unfolds: "sugar fern and pearl," 11 palm jungles, 11 "wooing nights, 11 in con- the "one-room shacks of my ola poverty". But the "blazing I::,r of the poet I s conjured up birthplace will help reconcile the pride and pain in me. Strongly reminiscent of the Renaissance poets• infatuation with Africa, but ending on the realistic note of the poet's localized "poverty 11 , ~ Blood 11 certainly meets with Benet I ~ 1 s ~"reality. "Dark 11 T h e ~ the doubt, the scent of sacrilmge--,dtl found~ from Dunbar forward--~IJl't'1.4-'tV"f''' ~ iF Have f3een Believers": JliMJtils&1~ ••. believing in our burdens and our demigods too long. 1 And now(recalling Dunbar s "Sympathy"), the "fists" of the believers 11 bleed 11 against the bars with a strange insistency. The strength, ,li L begun in the first poem, is carried through "So,uthern Song" and Sorrow Home." With incantation and incremental refrain "Delta" tells of the colledtive "struggle. 11 Strains of ".tielievers " course through "~ince 1619 11 where the poet again re-traces the Black odyssey: f. How long have I been hated and hating? The speake) illon~o see the rich "color" of racism, poverty, ignorance, violence and - 1 "- "brother#• s face," assails laments spiritual deselation. War, poverty, disease and other iei;iii.heirs of ~he Depression are the themes of "Today" which speaks of "ch ildren sc a rred by bombs," "lynching, 11 and "pellagra am silicosis." A di fferimt "stride II of this poet is seen in the second section of �52 11 For My People. 81 Kissie Lee," • "Rall uh Ha.rnrnf "Teacher," 11 f"Molly Means," "Bad-Man Stagolee," "Poppa Chicken," ," "Two-Gun Buster and Trigger Slim," Gu:a,the Lineman," "Long John Nelson and Sweetie Pie," and "John lienry" are fresh treatments of authentic stories Black communities in America. "A hag and a witch," Molly Neans had •n-•••11110••& ~even hw bands and Some say she was born with a veil on her face •••• The incremental refrain,#( 11 0ld Molly, Molly, Molly,"etc) gives dramatic and psychologycal power to the poem as Molly's -work with the "black-hand arts and her evil powers 11 are catalogued. Stagolee, ap uarently "an all-right Till he killed that cop and turned out bad, ¢ssibl had killed 11 mor 1 n one" white man. The "bad nigger" Wid date blade he wore unnerneaf his shirt. ••• isappe . . Stagolee, s ysteriously ) though his "ghost · still 11 stalks the shore of the Mississippi River. . ~Poppa Chicken was a pimp who, in the~radition of Black tr··j#-Black ~ , "got off light" for killing a mal)fJ Bought his pardon in a yearj; ••• ~7-•M~~Black prototype, he had plenty women( "gals for miles around"), .expensive rings and watches, fancy clothes, displayed a coolness l "Treat 1 am rough"} and when he walked the streets I 'l'he Gals cried Lawdy ! Lawd ! Kissie Lee i s ~ a throw back to Hard Hearted li,mn~ld water on a drowning man.I •.:)z "pour trim~ • She could shoot glass doors offa the hinges, ••• Rallph Hammuh recalls ~ Dolemi te, Shine and others. He was so "bad" that ffe killed his Maw The cul~ural folk types ol f~ight •••• ~;:,:.;.,.·~•.--...,.1 much after the fashion of "'Slim" and other characters in Sterling Brown 1 s Southern Road. Margaret Walkeris contribution, �53 community. Margaret Walker places her in Mississipp i wher~ h~/,A~ 1 As a Big Boy type(Vlright/~ . . feasted on "buttermilk and sorghum. 11 ,... ~ others), he assaults the wor1d through pr:j!sical ...,_ proweas.ilt ! e i . . , . ~ vz t I ; s the best cotton picker, stronger than a "team of oxen, • ~~ champion boxer) anchor down a steam bo8ftt }'li th by the~ ' . II II one 11 the A)O • and, A,_taught ,,,r (/N-iJ_ A,,::J ~itches II how to 11 cunij.e r, 11 "-.until a 11 ten-poun 1 hammer" split , appropriately, open. 11 T h e ~ · e p rf.m.ary form of the poems in this section. The third sect!bon of the book contains six sonnetsl, ~, stanzaic pattern and line-stress ~ ~ ons to these pieces. 11 Childhooil 11 recalls that of all t ~n~stilences that invaded the lives of the poor, ~ including the "hatred" that "still held sway" • 11 '>~ • • only bitter land was washed away • Hhdr~s II are to ld that their labors are indi@ified { ~ h· of deep-woman concern ••• feminism?) they grow old~ they will find that their bodies, in this world of turbulence, will give 11 peaee II t ~ "leave them satisfied. 11 re, Ending, rightly it seems, with .'-, "Struggle Staggers Us," For My People reminds Blackf that there is room to "stagger" but none to halt: Struggle between the morning and the night. This . . . marks our years; this settles, too, our plight. There a~e few volumes of poetry published since For be considered as Black--mn My Poeple that can sense of the word. From the red clay of the children•s playgrounds to the teeming treachery of urban fusilages; from the quiet fear to the piercing cry of the hungry; from th to the iconoclastic and the heretic; from the , healthy racial ohauvblb.sm to the good dose of modesty and naivete--it is all here. A wonderful sensitivit and a rich bank of poetry fo~ all times. �the Renaissanet:1/ P A,,1ink to Walke contact witb_»••-•~•-...WiilliN'8P )• Mt Margaret li k e Hughes, Bontemps, Fenton Johnson and Gwendolyn Bennet~, as well as with later ~•:11 Dodson, Hayden, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret M Burroughs and ,.,z Danner, Margaret €""2 ·~ Tolson • .-. For My People . , i n the end, the rich digestion ~(synthesis) of the main currents of the Renaissance and the aesthetic considerations being debated by Locke, Cullen, Johnson) Brown and Redding. . . Margaret may have .-1:ttu. A'.Jl"W~~,.J the volume ol poetry ~ - many of the olde r writers want#ed to write. Without "unrealistic" about her plight as an Afro-American, being st b lance~ pictures of the she ul rown, avoided even a,. in • Southern Road, Africa-- Hayden> ~ both -<>rilliarif p poised in the wings ~~~ the eagle I _..,."' uired fortunate a. signal from the sj claw. " More critical assessment of Margaret Walker's work is needed. Barksdale and Kinnamon make important comments in their anthology. A Poetic ~quation tGiovaimi and Walker, 1974) is extremely helpful in getting to the grit ot the poet•s ideas. Ther e are seminal comments in Paula Giddings 111fA Shoulder Hunched Against a Sharp Concern••: Some Themes in the Poetry of Margaret Walker," Black World, X.X:.I{December, 1971), 20-25. See also Roger Whitlow• s Black American Literatu r e, James o. Young•s Black ~riters of the Thirties, Blyden Jackson's essay in Black Poetry in America, Donald Gibson's Modern Black Poets, Emmanuel's and Sross•s Dark Symphony, Negro Caravan, Arthur P. Davis's From the Dark Tower, eg. ~ugene Redrnond 1 s "The Black American Epic: Its Roots and Its Writers," Contemporary Black Thought{Chrisman and ,,-- Hare), a.rSte}Dh.en Henderson•s Understanding the ~ew Black Poetry, and Addison Gayle's Black ~xpression and The Black Aesthetic. �Friend of Margaret Walker 1 s,anli the most celebrated Black poet of all times, Gwendolyn Brooks rontinues to make her home in Chicago where presides as she t h e ~ - - - - matriafJ:'ch of the New Black ¥oetry. She joins Tolson, Hayden, ,..--...... ~ ~ Randall, Margaret Walker and others as poets of "transition "--those who helped continue tp.e li terat,,p: light of the Renaissance into and through the Depression, World War II,alli Civil Rights and Black Powerism. Bom the daughter of labofiaass parents in Topeka, Kansas, Gwendolyn Brooks was reared in Chicago where she attended public schools, graduating from hnglewood High.I School in 1934 and Wilson Junior College in 1936. Wilson represented the final step in her formal education and in 1939 she married nry Blakely for whom she had a son and Brooks early(l3) and by the time she w~s in her late teens she had published two mimeographed community Since the early 1940s her poetry has appeared i publications: Poetry, Black World, Common Ground, Saturday heview of Literature, Negro Story, Atlantic flilonthly, and countless others. Miss Brooks jolted the literary and academic circuits when she made several significant shifts in the 1960s--one primary one being a move from tlarper and How to Blac~ Broadside Press--but m about these matters in Chapter Vl. Her fi17st book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville(l945), won the Nerit Award of Madamoiselle magazine and her second volume, Annie Allen(l949) as well as Po~ir&'s ~unice Tietjens Me~o~ia Wad garnered ror her< oveted Pulitzer ~rize~l~~o ecipient of \19 6) $1000 award from the Academy of Arts and Letters and two fellowships for study(l946 and 1947), Gwendolyn Brooks : s eae, M men,- 'eba--. is so long it would take a special pamphlet to rndt over a dosen honorary doctorate degrees, and ai.. tations She has received r..•••--i,..;ili,Q_ special arts and culturtro uncil.$ been named the best this or the best that(and ilila among the JW:k 100 influential this and the 75 most important that) in �.56 compilations, :art regional) and national acknowledge:gients. ,-:;lllfif She has won the i'Lt +J-exiiliCJiUUTZIDPN• .JI A at Poetry Workshop Award, given by the Midwestern Writers' Conference(three times: 1943-4.5#), the Friends ~ t r .......-Litera ture Award for Poetry(l964), the Thormond Monsen Award for Literature(l964), and in 1969 she announced that she would award two prizes of ~250 each to the best poem and best short story published each •year by a Black writer in Negro Digest(now Black World). Institutions where she hast aught ~ C 0 lwnbia,v-•au 11:lmhurst, and Northeastern, isconsin, and many other public and private schools. For some, in 196e however, her crowning achievement was her selection s Poet Laureate of the state of L11inois(suceeding Carl Sandgurg). ~electe.rl foeJU[J(l963), Other volumes of poetry are The Bean .t!iaters ( 1960), -!hthe J.'J.ec ca( 1968), Riot(l969), Family Pictures(l970), Aloneness{l971) and The World of Gwendolyn Brooks \1971, · 7 LL poetry and prose). Special publicati ons include A Portion of the Field: the ~entennial of the Burial of Lincoln(l9b7) and For Illinois, 1968(1968). The poet has alse written some and much-p · Maud Martha .-C.ove1(1953)J Bronzeville lx>ys and &irls(l956). JWli,,.~r work as an editor has been equally impressive: Broadside Treasury(l971) and Jump Bad: A New Chicago Anthology(l971). re-Black ijpyeroent: He~ oetry is most readily accessible in ~elected Poems which contaias her A three earlier books and a Nvw Poems section. Selected~ Poems shows Gwendolyn Brooks• brooking the stream between the integrationist-plea-bound writers and firm, acrid and adamant voices of the 1960s. 1 Sometimes called the "most careful craftsman since Countee Cullen," she was(and to some extent remains) indebted to the modernist school of Amer ican poetry: Eliot, Pound, Crane, " oyc,(influenced, as she says, by The Dubliners), Stevens, Frost, and Auden. Reading these poets and the Black ones (Dunbar, "a family favorite, 11 oJt ' .......,-z,i, Hughes., ~Johnson, an • / U4 provided her with significant development and significant choices. The results were a bewildering �57 ~---' ~~lML array of technical proficiencies,Ailllt thematic and psychological overlays Usually f 'in her poetry. M::im:Jta~orking with lilhat George Kent calls ip p ropriate "distance," this poet carefully sculpt4.,i ll91l poetic gems from the granite and the cheap rock of urban Black ¾merica ' s experience: tenement housing, .returning unsung war heroes, joblessness, consumption, murder, end poverty, love, man-woman relationships, womanhood and motherhood (especially), nobility of the economically-pressed and deep religious devetion. C0 mmenting on the effect of the distance and what Miss Brooks (Blackness and the Adventure of Western Culture) 1 was able to lUinx perceive and JUI.% achieve with it, KentA3ay~t a she ~ ••• such modernist techniques as irony; unusual conjunctions of words to evoke a complex sense of reality( atin Legs ~rnith rising ~ "in a clear delirium"); SEtUeezing the utmost from an image ••• ; agility with mind-bending figurative language, sensitivity to the music of the phrase, inst4ad of imprisonment in traditional line beats and meter; e&perimentation with the possibilities of free verse and various devices for sudden emphasis and verbal surprise; and authoritative management of tone and wide-ranging lyricism. ~one is struck, in reading, watching, or talking with the poet, dlS by intense, yet relaxed love-afftrr with words. Mer prose is poetic; her manner is poetic. In Report from Part One, her autopiography, she discueeas her life as poet, mother, wife and traveler. There a r e valuable insights into the woman who shifted from "Negro" to "Black'' in 1967. • Report also provides her own explication of at least a dozen poems. About poetry writing she says: is involved in whe writing of poetry--and sometimes, although ®iW¥ing 1.·t 1.·s a magic · process, 1.·t ---~~ f seems go into a bit of a trance, self-caist trance, because you really have to 11 brainwork" seems unable to do it all, t o £ do the whole job. The self-cast trance is possible when you are importantly excited about an idea, or surmise, or emotion. �58 Certainly the ''trance" Jlllali ty is found •-~~wendolyn Brooks_ One has only to compare ~ a poem like "the preacher: ruminates behind the sermon"~ Street in Bronzeville) to "Malcolm X"(In the 1v1ecca) to see the staying power of the q mystic, the seer and yet ~ ...-pj fluence of the poetls ~■ a the entrancer. Bronzeville r ez /~pture. It came in rxtf+s• reading a ~f}:,aant 1945 under the in- and experiment~----~ James Weldon John on had helpfully critiqued her w:>rk and the results, she that she became a precise and critic. The acknowleges, A.1TTO r~urer, more couple in the 11 ki tchnette building 11 are products of involuntary planf:" who smeil I- 11 dry hours and the "yesterday's garbage" in the hall. fifth child has finally emerged from the bathroom We think of lukewarm water, hope to get it. The memorable poems in Bronzeville are "the mother," "the preacher," "of De Witt Williams on his way to 1'incoln Cemetery, 11 BJEiJcil "T~ StJNDAYS -.!,!the baJJao ~chocalate Mab~e OF S.A.T-IN-LEG£ SMITH;A~'mooe,BJ HEHB, It elections from a series of sonnets called GAY CHAPS A'1· THE BAR. The mother recalls abortions: you got that you did not get,..- and pledges her love to th •e is a.l. .!:!:ven though she knew them "faintly" she "loved" them "all. 11 Taken from their ''unfihished reach, the aborted lives "never giggled or planned or cried. 11 Rw.minating "behind the sermon" the preacher--revealing deep')tJ ning levels of concern and psychic distress--wonders how it feels "to be 9od. 11 The 't god of fflo.e world the preacher discusses from the pulpit is perhaps not the god of the "real II world. Consequently "ruminates" on whether anyone will Buy Him a Coca-Cola or a beer, Pooh-pooh His politics, call Him a fool? Being god has to b:. 1.~1rY., ~ i , J a hand to hold." De Witt Williams i~eJ?iPctefi. ,the refrain: the preacher 11 �59 sw_eet "11 Swing low swing low sweetg •• t chariot. f Nothing but a plaing black boy • ..-.- we knowf he may have been anything other than 'e)p1amn. But if he were just "a plain black boy" we will celebrate the places ~ he ,rte f I 1 71 ( r hung out(pool hall, show, dance halls, whiskey s t ores) and was 4zr:iriat knownl47th street, under the ( . "L",)v'M t fo~ De Witt's journey is the Black Americanl\odaessey depicted by MJ B Wright, Baldwin, Claude Brown, and company: Born in Alabama. Bred in Illinois. tie was nothing but a Plain black boy. Satin Legs Smith is another cut off the block of the Black ~xperience. him, Miss Brooks Ill joins a host of Black bards, known and "unknown", who uilili•ilB!i...acknowlecfged the importance and ..l✓.J ~obably like_ inflV~e of folk £ulture.,c 11 i De Witt Williams, ~th comes from~ "heritage of cabbage and pigtails." He is reminiscent of Poppa c.;hicken of whom Margaeet Walker sings. The anal~gy, in the opening lines, is to fa cat wh o is "'I••"- . "!awney, reluctant, royal." Rising in the .moi;:ning Sa tir:1114& S:::Z *•• i 1Ji Legs relives himself of '',shabby days 11 " ~ when he : "sheds" his pajamas.Jdt tie bat~, puts on the best body scents,and goes to a wardrobe that, when listed, sounds like a replay of the whole era of • the ijoot-suiter and the Be-boppefAdiamondJ, pearls, suias of yellow, win' "Sarcastic green," and 11 sebra-striped cobalt,"; wide shoul-der padding, ballooning trousers that taper, hats t h a t ~ umbrellas; and "hysterical tiesffl He is enmeshed in his image and blots out the reminders o f ~ poverty and ugliness. He "hears and does not hear"; "sees and does not see." Loving his music and his lady, he takes his date tc ; tw:m k "Joe#,1 s .ri;ats II affter which he retii.res ( at home) to her body•--i"new brown bread ••• so ft, and absolute. 11 It is a moaai~-=-study complete with the down-hown versus Promised Land theme. �60 ~ The ~egro Hero ( 11 to suggest Do:trie Miller": a WWII Navy c. white meni 8--' cook turned hero) 11had to kick"4'ilfw law into their teeth" before he ~ "save them." Being Black, it was not safe, even in the I"'. think and t~n of battle.when t~e ship was going down, tog come up from the galley and save the white sailors. Instead of jumping overboard and leaving them to their fate, like Shine, this hero invoked their "white-gowned llemocracy" Jd11111:prldrax~ and ~ a t their side despite the statement by a southern whiteman that: Indeed, I•d rather be dead; Indeed, Iid rather be shot in the head Or ridden to waste on the back of a nood Than saved by the drop of a black man•s blood. 11 ~ 1'gro Hero '·f\reflects the Black American doing his duty, believing in Christianity and LJemocracy, to the best of his American self. As a theme, it the idea was loosing ground ai among Black writers; b u t ~ would be some years before resentment of such ''heroics" would be blatantly. a I!! ~ <;Ctsa11i1?: I itJ ; t &rti c 09h4. Experimental " sonnets' ec ~ ,e 1 ai:I; in the final section of Bronzeville In "gay chaps at the bar" -Wili-.;f;i;;m;i=ti=.a-.-m,~!ff!Pe-~ the soldiers• traini~~ref)them-~ ~ ~; To holler do-wn the lions in the air. In "the pro gress" the pltrase is questionable when the soldiers hear the march Of iron feet again. C, The Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Allen shows Gwendolyn Brooks rustain~ laising her balance between the modernist influences and her own intuitional 9 pJtrasings and interets. Mldlll•llli Some might call it the least Black especia of her volumes since it contains the enigmatic and diffusive "mie Anniad. 11 And while her "children of the poor 11 series re-states the plight of the • �61 "unheroic, 11 she is nev e r t ~ withdrawn than in Bronzeville. continuin Yet the titles of both volumes signal her in erest in, and empathy with, llDl 11 every day people. 11 In ft about women( "the mother, 11 : her fi. rst volume, she had written extensively 11 chocalate mabbie, 11 "the hunchback") and she opens Annie a11en with NOTES FROM THE G:IILDHOOD AND THE GIRLHOOD. Her neat llOrds and stanzas deal with a neat life in "the parenta: people like our marriage. custards. 11 11 Behind a "white Venetian blmnd" sits "Jneas ant -rm••""' M•tliir"Sunday Chicken" is a humorous D¥Q2 comparison 17 isr carni11:or~s who eat human flesh and those who eat _ excavati.ng. chicken. Her fin." 1- o f poetic jewels from.,ai.•n•rwAW between the death of an "old relative, 11 and " the ballad of late Annie", too "proud" to find a maif' good enough to marry. The reader is encouraged _..._, to avoid easy solutions in •tdo not be afraid iai of n ,,.. It is brave to be involved, "' To be not fearful im be unresolved. ondesc An p eople in high stationsiJae bro gh~ lo~Jn "pygmies are pygmies still, v~ /t. S -Hitef\. sometime though percht on Alps. 11 l\ r others JI nthrtsHzjJ,p 11 feel they are better than g and Pity the giants wallowing on the plain. But unbeknowimg to the "THE ANN IAD 11 contains 11 per: cht II indi vi.duals they have 43 11 no alps to reach. 11 seve.n -line stanzas, adapted, so Miss .!:)rooks says, from the Chauc~rian Rhyme Royal. As a mode rn poem, it places the author in the middle oft he mode rnist tradition with other black poets: Hayden,EII& Dodson and Tolson. Any claim that Uwendolyn is totally accessible will have to reconsider wo~ lass, 11 11 11 faradisaical," "thaumat,~gic theopathy," "Peophesying hecatombs, !9lato," "Aeschylus, 11 "Seneca, 11 11 "Hyacinthine devils sing, ' 1 ''Mimnermus," "Pliny" and Dionysus. By the poet I s own admission, 11 THE ANN IAD' ' is 11 11 labored,f a poem thatls very interested in the mysteries and ma gic of technique." ,,..-.._ With Hayden•s lil1lm 11 . The Diver," the poem carries you deeper and deeper �62 into the underbrushes of self and psyche. Annie becomes Anniad, the poet•s way of giving another unheroic character in her work the stature of the heroic--this time the Iliad. When you think of Annie\Anniad) you W ,(,"xa7' .mi•~- Think of sweet and chocalate, ••• . • Gia ,.........__ Hay d en I s ...---d.i ver ._ t"""'I . • and percep t.ions 0111. is again Th e b lurre d imagery ••••g!l&:rJ.:1!!11111•.~1 anticipated in the line What is ever and is not. (Remember ~atin Legs hearing and not hearing, seeing and not seeing~) ~ Full of magic, history, lore, mythology, ~ supernaturalism, "THE ANNIAD" plunges through the II mental and spiritual spheres/~ "cres<lndo- comes," Surrealist and cynical • ..---.., Anniad is Reeded, hungry,Jllllli courted, and won, as she descends and 11 ascends the demi-gloom" of life, of now and then. Just as you were to Think of sweet and chocalate at the beginning oft he poem, you are to Think of almost thoroughly Derelict and dim and done. ~ as the poem closes. And, r;.;;.. l1t:it~all--after ~ all--a dream as Anniad stands Kissing in her kitchenette The minuets of memory. APPENDIX TO THE ANNIAD includes the now-famous invention, "the sonnetballad," in title and in type. The traditionfsonnet is enlivened--given a ballad stance and temperament; the young woman whose soldier-boyfriend is dead wonders what she can use "an empty heart-cup for." The achievement of Annie Allen, however, is THE WOMANHOOD and especially the five sonnets on "the children of the poor. 11 Childless people "can be hard" since they will not, like those with children, Hesitate in the hurricane to guard. I In-~- I ~ .,,, a mother asks what she can give to poor children. The fourth �63 sonnet, seeking perhaps to resolve the surreal dream, advises the poor to 'First fight. Then fiddle. 11 There is nothing wrong with rising "blood'Yj" For having first to civilize a space Wherein to play your violin with grace. It is the same• unmuted~ caii(I'enaered by Margaret .lker in the fi}lnal I"""") .... stanza of 11 -- ·or My People. 11 Beverly Hills, Chicagof" takes an interesting 1 .1. look, through Black and poor eyes, at the pe ople who "live till they have white hair." To 8ay Bev erly Hil ~ anywhere is to evolte images of splendor and richness, of glitter and high life. The denizens of Chicago's Beverly Hills "walk their golden gardens" as the poor sight-seers drive through the neighborhood. Here the "ripeness rote II though "not . raggedly. 11 Decadence is neat, says the poet: ••• fNot that anybody is saying thav these people have no trouble. Mvrely that it is trouble with a gold-flecked beautiful banner. The poem's theme is one that is dear to Blacks in their daily comrersations: that whites, especially rich whites, do not really live; that they are mannikins, freaks for the well-landsc aped~; that they are inhibited and not free in their expressions. These people, the poet reminds us, also "cease to be"~m~ ) Thei» passings are even more painful than ours. ~ y often live corpses, 11 ~ as it wer "till 1 11 their hair is white." The1J.also make "exccellent among the expensive flo wers. 11 Nevertheless the poor sight-seers have been changed, noticeably, b~ what they have seen, and the C change is noted in "little gruff" tone of their voices as they "drive on." The Bean ~aters finds the poet leaping back into the transitional breach where she does battle She gathers of II with probelms and enemies of the unheroic. ui the pride, passion, despair, disillusionment, joy and anguish ,, bean eaters and related gourmets. The book opens with an elegy to her �to her f a ther l "Ill HONOR OF DAVID ANDERSON BROOKS, MY FATHEfl 11 ) and, - . ~. ~ 1 reflecting debts to Margaret, Hugh.es,& J lb~l.e:ck musi~the Beat tumultuous spectrum of Movement,moves through ~vignettes and perceptions!8111E1i. "MY LLrTLE COOL, 11 BOUT*TOWN GAL," 11 i MEN, RIDING HORSES," "WE REAL S'.UB6 "A BIDNZEVILLE MOTHER LOITERS IN MISSISSIPPI. MEANWH ILE, A MISSISSIPPI MOTtlERN BURNS BACON., OF EMMETT TILL, 11 11 "THE LAST QUATRAIN OF THE BALLAD "THE CHICAGO DEFENDER SENDS A MAN TO LITTLE ROClt, saga "THE CRAZY WOMAN," and the powerful < 11 11 Tlfis BALLAD OF ) RUDOLPH RESD. 11 The death of David Henderson Brooks has left • A dryness ,'-;P.on the house •••• 'JJ11t,A.beence o f ~ man, who ''loved and tended, 11 gives the poet pause, makes her recall h ~ r i v a t e charity" of the old time religion into "public love. 11 The narrator• s 111 bout-to-wn gal II gallavants with "powder and blue dye" while he waits with the moon. Watching the western movies, the speaker in 11 RIDITNG" (not reminiscent of Brown I s poem) ~TRONG MEN, realizes that the westerns are products of hollywooa, that the strong men are 11 saddlep.~" Meanwhile the sp e a er s to deal · th real life-~~ .)Mfr It ~ 4 - l , v-,J ~ -r. ~ .. the fears, the dark, and s 'not brave at al 1. "k_ating beansf "mostly,f' 1'00 ~ the "old yellow pair" in 11 "TH£ BE1\N E~ putter around their apartment~ recalling their lives "with twinkling s and twinges." D e s ~ t h e r kind COOL" in which the poet comes to the dramatis persona of "WE REAL i.l.!Pf g ,a employs a Hughesian jazz pattern -----:') jagge d rhythms reminiscent of Beat poetry,.-.it Babs Gonzales and King Pleasure ~ ecit ~f the "live fast,Jdie youngn pattern of many uban Black youths: We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straigp.t. We ~ �Sing sin. we We Thin gin. Jazz June. We Die s:> on. The longest poem i n , The ~ean ~aters( 1'9RONZEVILLE MOTHER LOIT~~~ I N MISSISSI PPI• MEANWHILE, A MISSISSIPPI MOTHERN BURNS BACON. ~ 11 ) .. is a ') ,I\. of jounalism, day-drearniW, farry-tale history,and racial horror. lynched 1 The mother of slain 14-ye a r old ~ e t t 'l ill( n 1955 in Mississippi after allegedly making "passes" at a i..ihite housewife) toys over the rethe same time white mains of her son and her D111144~ dalpflge fai t , "mother" ( victim) . , ~ recollect!~ childhood a-.-a.t~ "Dark Villain 11 by the "Fine Prine __, pa.rauing the "milk-white maid" 1'dC- e,j. The white €escued 8P dares to doubt the need to l y n c ~ t t as she c.a:';i;;i,-~~~i...a.l..OiilciiJl!lil:r.i: sexually assaulted by ".!;ark Villiam. 11 The poems includes news reports of the crim S1IJd- the lynching ) as well as accounts of the trail and the "acquittal. mm I 11 In "THE LAST QU ATRAIN OF THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TI, LL!f .l.!Jrnmett Is mother "kisses her killed boy" while sitting in 11 a red room '' and "drinking ~ black coffee. n Unable to describe :aim the lynched boy 1 s mother• s grief, the poet gathers up e;, iii I Hp'Pli' -es e ~ I the blurring pain Chaos in windy grays through a red prairie. ,.-.... Again combing journalism, history and mythology with the ii: "contemporary fact, 11 Gwendo lyn Brooks portrays one of the high points of the Ci vi 1 Rights era in "THE CHICAGO DEFENDER SENDS A MAN TO LI'l'TLE RO CK." (rf ,1) People in Little Rock, the poet tells us in the opening lines, have babies, othe .,...--..._ etches comb their hair, and read the p apers l i ~ e r i c a n s . ~ She thenAkl!l"n!I~~ ~ontradiettbons and ironies in the "Soft women softlyrt who "are hurling spittle,rock." These "bright madonnas, 11 like those with "eyes of steely blue" �66 in McKay•s 11 The Lynching," become "a coiling ......--..... storm a-writhe. 11 The last line of the poem, The loveliest lynchess was our Lord. ✓ . has since been repudiated by Miss Brooks who feels that the great traged$ 1iJ" slavery a nd continuing dehumanizing of Blacks/ makes for more important • and urge t "news II than the J/r. tp;.__)IW\ ~ a•lffln...!lllfl cruci fi.xion of a white cJ esus. A~, A woman who refuses to sing in May because she feels A May song should be gay. is admonished., after she choses to si. ng a '' gray" song in November• 11 call her in ThAJffilll bi% u1:,tot11022 F 'fhe Crazy Woman.~' One o f the more well known poems Bean Eaters is "THE BALLAD OF RUDOLPH REED" who, along with his w ~ "two good girls 11 ,was 'f~DiJ.l:,t 1baken." Reed,, se eking the ~4 Rudolph Promised Land in the north and riding on the crest of the new push for integration, buys a h ome in a ~ i t e neighborhoqd because he wants to avoid falling plaster a nd the p-oaches · Fa lling like fat rain. inter not quite right for >tffi ~ housing ~ when thex moved in: a rocks and the Reed family experi 1:. nC6'j\ Jt vlholence)tAi firob ni~1' fit +lbc ft&t:1!8i But the times Jig riX?ilWlu are thrown through their windows the first two nights. The repetition and incrementation are almost ironic in the ballad as Reed, filled with grief ~nd anger when one o f his daughters iB finally hit with a rock, goes ••• to the door with a thirty-four and a beastly butcher knife. m#e attacks four white men before he is finallyLI: slain and kicked by neighbora who callf mim "Nigger. 11 ~ an unpleas~t story; but as a chronicle of the themes and consciousness of a poet, it places Uwmidolyn Brooks on t h e t h reshhold of the new militancy, some of which is unveiled in the New Poems section of Selected Poems. Poems like "RIDERS TO THE BLOOD-RED WaitATH" and "LANGSTON HUGHES" show her concerned with struggle and the �spiralling fury of social unrest. At the same time, she salutes a white poet, as in "OF ROBERT FROST",and conttinues her practic e of mining the unheroic for poetry in a section of variegated stylistic efforts like A CATCH OF SHY FISH• The 11 ftider" (perhaps a parS.dy, of the purple sage riders) lurch into the breach of human struggle and social chaos. They are t he freedom riders--seeking what is "reliably right"-conducting sit-ins, wade-ins, lie-ins, sing~ns, pray-ins and voter registration drives. Stokely Carmichael has called them "shock troops 11 of the current "revolution." One states: My scree.ml unedi t ed, unfrivolous. My laboring unlatched braid of heat and fro • I hurt. I keep that scream at what pain: At what repeal of salvage and eclipse. Army unhonored, meriting the gold, I Have sewn my guns inside my burning lips. And* he goes on to ••• remember kings. A blossoming palace. ~ilver. Ivory. The conventional wealth of stalking Africa. This rider recalls his p a st, projects his f'unure, and surveys the state of the world, from China to Israel. He is going to make the KX asked by Margaret: Democracy and Christianity Recommence. with me. And I ride ride I ride on to the end-Where glowers my continuing Calvary. With his "fellows, 11 he intends to see the battle through, To fail, to flourish, to wither or to win. We lurch, distribute, we extend, begin. u 11 bloody peace" �68 Yet, "TO BE IN LOVE" is also to extend and " fall 11 along a golden column Into the commonest ash. Diverse, explicit and splendid, the poems in thi s section achieve balance as Miss Brooks salutes two senior bards--Frost and Hughes. l<'rost has Iron at the mouth. And 1.n lm1 : llilut With a place to stand. ~)AJ r110w, much more than 'W' immediiate physical space, but ~ ~ a permanent position on the world• s poetry totem. As "merry glory," Hughes Yet grips his ri ght of twisting free. His "long reach" encompa~s ,,-... II peach, 11 11 fears, 11 "tears" and"sudden death." Hughes 1 s job is not :t done, A..a s a "headlight" he must press on, Till the air is cured of its fever. AtlliG=:G~poet returns to her garden~ on-heroes in poems about garbage men, the sick, ojld people, st e ra women, and 11 Big .bessi!" who 11 throWB heEr son into the street." Sculpture, precision, explicitness and terseness are key words too reQ t,_he poetry of member when approaching~ wendolyn brooks. Not primarily of the academy, but often sharing some of its virtues and f aults, she has been free to deal primairly with pictures swirling a~ound her during bhildhood and adulthood in Chicago. Sometimes her po e try about night life and the Bouth carries a forced feeling,pince these are not things she is in intimate contact with, but she is alway:s skillful and economic. Her world has not been "wide" in the way that Tolson and Hayden h ave been "wide." But it has been deep and multi-laye red, complex and womanly, tra gic and profound. ,,,...... Her poetry has not, at this writing,• inspired a book-lengbh study but she - has been the subject of much critical mtm~xrri treatment. Selected studies . will be l isted here since bibliographies are widely available. For example, CLA Journal, XVII(Septl!IITlba:' 19~3),{~~SSi\ltiesHn Brooks, Hayden and Baraka), lists a 12-page bibliography. She is represented in �every anthology of Afro-American poetry, beginning with IGlll!illllll,llll"Poetry of the Negro{l949 ed.) and in many general American anthologies of poetry and literature. Helpful are George ~ent's "The Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks 11 (Black and the Adventure of Western Cultu r e, 1972); the critical entries in Black Writers of America(Barksdale and Kinnamon); Arthur P. Davis 1 s From the Dark Tower; Blyden Jackson 1 s essay in B~aak Poetry ,.._____ in America(l974); essays in Donald Gibson's Modern Black Poets; Report from Part One, Gwendolyn Brooks 1 aut~biographyll972); and numerous other sources to which the r eader will be referred by checking any of the above items. �70 Owen Dodson's first volume of poetry, 8owerful Long Ladder(1946), fl. j I was one of the casualties of the dis-interest in Black poetry during~f~ta-~~~ --~war ye a rs. The Goo k did not go enti r ely unnoticed, however, for Time magazine described it .B. ot :ib I .km as standing "peer to Frost and Sandburg and other white American poets who are constantly recited in our schools. 11 Powerful Long Ladder O the midst of Dodson's suceessful} career as dramatist and te a cher. ½ His interest in writing if« youth in ~.brooklyn, .New York, whe re he and drama began in his was born and attended public schools. He went to .bates College, obt aining a B.A., and Yale ,..zhere he was awarded the M.A in drama. While a student at Yale two of his plays--Divine Comedy and Garden of Time--were produced. ~ince those years Dodson's work~ drama and writing has been prodigous. He ,-.. taught A drama at ~pelman College in Atlantaf; was I' tJt commissioned to write a play on.-the Amistad mutiny for Talladega vollege,~..-e. directed summer theatre at Hamp¥ton Institute, the Theatre Lobby Washington, and at Lincollj. UniversitYf• Dodson finally settled at Howard University as drama instructor, later becomi~g head of the department and remaining there until ~;u1 retiri'mi'N:~ in>1969. In 1949, he took the rtoward University E1ayers on a successful ~tate ~epartment-sponsored tour of Scandanavia and uerrnany. His novel, Boy at the Window, was publi shed in 19.50, and his short story, "The Summer lt'ire, 11 won a Paris Review p ~ appeared in the Best ~hort ~tories from that publication. He receiV:ed many other awards and forms of recoga General nition; ~·-•a111F111ii~rlosenwald fellowship Education Board fellowship ~ I a uuggenheim grant # travel in Italy(l9.53)•~ Maxwell Anderson Prize for • ,u I ~- to study and verse play. He alro wrote the libretto for Mark(f Fax 1 s opera, A ChristmaJI Miracle, and collaborated with Fax on the Howard Centenary op e ra. He has completed a numbar of manuscripts in poetry and prose which have never been published. One of his most re~ ~ ~tl::llllll!li9'1S 1~was The Dream Awake\1969), a cultural history of Black Americans, �71 released by ~poken Arts, and consisting of color films, records, textbooks, illustrations, and other mat e rials and interest. In 1970, his second which show the range of Dodson's talents VO 11:J verse~, f The Confession Stone: Song Cycles, ~as published ~a;:t"•••~the poems were written before 1960. About his work as a poet, Dd.dson reports with some dispirit in Interview with Black Writers(OtBrien): I have written three books of poetry. The first was-nt gg JI vPuld say--somewhat propaganda, but the third was filled with •••·-•stories, diaries, and remembrances of Jesue. They are really framed st · ■ in diaries by Mary, Martha, Joseph, Judas, Jesus, even God. This, I believe, is my most dedicated work•••• I have written and fought somehow in my writing, but I know now that the courage and forthrightness of writers anioets will change something a little in our di~apidation. That 11 first 11 wolume is obv:i,ously Powerful Long Ladder; Dodson does not have to depreciatea "rose?& for urjtii::a@ i:t;~ since it will hold him in r-. good stead as a poet. There is not one poe_fm in the book which cannot not be aesthetically or stylistically called• "poetry." And this is not a claim that many poets can make. Dodson 1 s influences can certainly bet traced to the American modernists. ¾d there is no doubt that, in his recurring despair, he shares sentiments with ~liot, Pound, Auden and Yeats. Yet, in his lilt and his language, he also pays his debts to Hughes, Dunbar, Cullen(whom he eulogizes), James eldon Johnson and the whole web of Black folk and spiritual life. Dodson•s note of despair, which pervades the book, is sounded in the opening poem\ "Lament 11 ) where the lynched boy is addressed: Wake up, boy, and tell me how you died: .,.--. What sense watJ alert last, ••• �(2 Belying heavily on his experiences and interests in drama, Dodson section he gives detai~ that recall other • In an poems on the theme: drank itself. one night, the Mississi the bridge from which xou hung th~ arms 1!.P, folded into mud like an old obscene accordion, the crowd_ dispersed one by_ ..on.e •••• The invisible Black viewer of the ~ynching , going beyond the actual act to the nature of death itself, gets curious about the last moments, and questions · the dead boy: ~ell me what r o you took, What hour in the day is luckiest? The narrator wants a sign( "the acrostic, the croms, the crown or the fire"), something to make his own way easier, bearable: • O, wake up, wake! ~everal strains of Black and modern poetry ID can be seen in Dodaen 1 s idiom. In "Lrui tar II he · rk, not the least among them reminds us of ~terling Brownf. has a "lonesome" wail and cannot "hold its own" against the Georgia hound. And the guitarist-singe:tr Ain 1 t had nobody :di\ To call me home From the electric cities Where I roam. An adapatatmon of the blues motif ...--..... in style and theme, it employs incremental �73 and the ambivalent drive-sulk of the blues troubador. somber tone of Dodson• s persists in poems like "i::>orrow is the only ..1;1'aithful One"("I am less, unmagic, black"), 11 "Black Mother Praying" {"black and burnin in these burnin times"}, "The i::>ignifyimg lJarkness," and there are tinges of it even in celebratory poems such as "?earl Primus" and "Poem for Pearl 1 s Dancers." But the grand statement of poetry is always lurking or leadingt 11 .1:'ea:l~ Primus " ): shawl on their backs," and 11 11 the sun is like pistoning her feet in the air." In "~ome- day We 1 re Gonna Tear ifhem Pillars LJown" a woman They ttook ma strong-muscle John and cut hi manhood off •••• The Blacks in "Rag Doll and Summer Birds" sit in their cabin(like "The ,--. Bean ..,;,aters") "waiting for God." The,. fire in the stove gofes out, the 4se,,,,,,. newspapered walls, "telling of crimes 11 curl I up and In the Blackness stars are not enough! Included in Powerful Long Ladder.,...are three verse choruses from Divine C0medy. D0 dson was the first Black dramatist to exploit the meanin~ of the 1''ather Uevine movement in verse drama. When a cult leader is gone, the drama contends, Wh~ people are forced inward to find a re a~cement. Divine Comedy is bizarre, with shifting uncertainties, horror, violence, religious extremism and racial intensity. The 9irst chorus asks ( ,c.,., ·.,....__.,. ,.. .H Cancel us. Let Doomsday come down ~ike the foot of Go A character called 11 on us. 6ne" notes that ~e are clear and confused on many issues: ••• A 11 Girl" I dance without legs. �74- "One II reminds us that War, war will bomb your eyes.- open. In the Star Chorus, .ta "Blind Man" others ~ Don.j,t leave the blind to wander Where the wind is a wall! Uullen, one of Dodson•s heroes, had suggested that Blacks were not made "eternally to weep"("From the Dark ~owera 11 ) and LJodson has a a-c "Young Man 11 say This shall not be forever. .., delicately_., for My Brother Kenneth, DodsonArecalls In the section rother. 'fiie somber tone and weightiness returnt as the poet) address',? his brother, a s ~ for some answer to the 11 11 11 ,, long tanks" that creep" and the "dark body of the ruined dark boy. • There was no repl¥: You gave me a smile and returned to · the grave. ~ In Interviews with Black Writers Dodson/'8fAa!!!!• that Culle did not die from disease but "was pushed into death 11 by "us because we did not recognize the universal (il& ~his Review ~erila) quality of what he wanted to say." ln his eulogy, "Coli::~~~lJ~-:,' Dodson bids farewell toll< his friend who died in 1946, ~ CO'!Kiff-r/ tn/-- • We h ea r all mankind yearning For a new year without hemlock in our glasses. Later in "Drunken Lover" we find that this is "the stagnant hour.'' And • Dodson's interest is seen in 11 Jonathan's Song": Jew is not a race Any longer--but a condition. Finally, Dodson closes the volume appropriately with "Open Letter" wherein he asks~ for tolerance and understanding in a time of war, hatred, domestic violence and racism. In "Jonatha:b. 1 s Song 11 he aligned himself with the ijews �75 being massacred in Germany: I am part of this: ••• "Open Letter II c a lls on the universal brotherhood: Brothers, let us discover our heabss again, ~errnitting the regular strong beat of humanity there To propel the likelihood of other terror to an exit. The war is almost over, he says, :t:u: a -as "planes stab over us." -- The word "hallelujah" can be understood in the langaage of All the mourning children and The torn soul& and broken bodies will be restored when war has ce a sed forever. -J! #Jc. Signaling~6".'brothers, 11 a tone and posture quickly fading from Black , poetry, Dodson challenges them: Brothers, let us ente r tha t portal for good V~hen peace surrounds us like a credible uni vers•. Bury t nat agony, bury this hate, take our black hands in yours. It was the "We Shall Overcome" call that would die in the mid-sixtiesm., though a few(Hayden, Hughes and others) would continu e to walk the r-.. difficult tight-Dope of liJ universal brotherhood. There are fine rhythms and keen perceptions in Dodson's poetry. His technical skill surpasses many Black and white poets who continue to backseat him. H onfession ~tone: ~ongs Cycles, though published in contains work done in the forties and fifties. Dodson has described it as being of Jesus. 11 11 f i lled with stories, diaries, and remembrances It is a strange "cycle,~ which moves among 11 ·r he land of the many written to be sung) are "The Confession ltone, 11 "Mary Passed this Morning,'' "Journals �76 of the Magdelene, 11 "Your -=>ervant: Judas," 1t1''ather, I Know Yoll%•re recast Lonely," "Dear, My Son," f and , 11 C,h My Boy, Jesus." The cyclesi\::... .111ta;=_ ~ , Biblical stories r~osastt v: { ~sus Christ and the crucifixion, updating them by adding contemporary langaage(Black idiom at times) ,,-- technology. In and 311K poem I of "donfession ..>tone, 11 Jesus is quieted with the words shushhh, you need the rest • .ln III Jesus is asked if he knows "Lazarus is back?n In V Jesus•s mother vows to save him from the cold and icy J-erusalem ground: ~et me rock him again in my trembling arms. "Bary Passed this Morni:gg" contains "letters from Joseph to ~rtha." Nl:IDber I is a411U1a poetic tele gram: Martha Mary passed this morning funeral this evening stop Near six oiclock tell the others stop Raising bus fare for you stop signed Joseph It is clear after a while ~n Dodson is reliving the life /'(! f Jesus through Black character'l ~•~the old search ~ for the II Promised Land motif(c.f. Wright, ~llison, Baldwin, Brown). In number2 I of "Journals of the 1"1 agdelenef" Magdelene vows even to "crucify myself" in order to be with him. Amen. Writing a letter to Jesus in number I of "Your .::>ervant: Judas," Judas Bays Dear Jesus ,I killed myself last night. The "cycle" is complet e d opening poem: of the 11 as Dodson ends the small volume with the 0h My Boy: Jesus" and the mother saying, in the manner preacher in Johnson's "l.,;reation 11 : I• 11 rest on my breast~ J �77 Of Dodson's freqently anthfologized peems, "Yardbird 1 s ~kull"(a tribute to saxophone player, ~harles "Yardbird" Park er) is one of the most enduring and poetically powerful. Parker(l920-19S5) ~ isAsaiuted by other poets and writers; Cuney and John A. Williams• ) ~ --... igur in to name just two,. is z 1 wa, a major,i;iiiliiil•IEl!s.illilL the developjazz ment of · , American musicf and rontempor a ry jazz *1 literauu~. In statement and style, "Yardbird 1 ~ r e s the pllychic and :rhythmic layerings and •anderings of 11 Bird 1 s" horn. When "'Che bird" died, Dodson thinks, so did "all the music/" and "whole sunsets" were deprived of this @neat musician·s voice. A skull become11 ~s~~ the metaphor for t~Forridors of .Kliil s fingering retra •e Bird* • s journey to greatness: to air, to a birds soaring~ to Atlantis, even, and Pl aces of dreaming, swimming lemmings. which sired the music, �78 Gwendolyn Brooksis winning of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950 ~ momentarily brought new attention to the peetic activities of over Afro-Americans. But, though her name hung like the deacde of the fifties, the period in fact was dominat~d by fiction writers: "specially the articulate expatriate Richard Wri ght, halph Ellison, and James Baldwin. Wright had established a tradition, and many were attempting to follow in his footstepKs--including John Oliver Killens, William Attaway, and Cester Himes."(i@:ftfjjaleand Kinnamon)~ yfffxaof 'l1he the fiction writers, and their accompanying dialogue with Black and white critics and each othe«>, helped #develop,••• 11 8111i national, almost global concern for the identit:y problems of American Blacks. 11 were writing and publishing, in various places, during the •• fifties,..,..!11'9!!:l!!:!i, the sixties and ground swe],l seventies. found in such antholo gies as ~ Negro Caravan{l941), _T_h_e-,-...,.....~----..---,~~- 949), American Literature Authorsll Blues{l962j., -.))~~ AF-~-----=;___ ~ ~ /!:!),.~~ ~ul:H~IC..J~~~(fl' ,w _..;;;..rn_1__....:,~-_;_:_~:;:_;;_;='---"-=.::..::....:::..:...::.::;:;;._--=~.:...::..=...L-_.:z:..!:.=..:_--=l~9-=-6=-2 l 19 6 3 ) • As individuals and groups, the poets continued to make r}{, av a ilable either to each other or to the Hughes, ~ poetry reading audiences of the perio J Hayden, their W> Cr.~ )'"' small Black wendolyn Brooks and others, who had established reput a tions in the forties, continued writing: Hughes published his highly exper~mental Ask Your Mama--12 tr'- r.esser.. , -lm. this Moods for Jazz in 1961). etyounger of ransi tional stage(Wright, Vannell', 0 1 Higgin~, Allen--Vesey~~ Randall, Durem, Holman, Jeff ers, Patterson, Atkins,Evans and others) either published through 1 little ma gazines or won various regional and national writing contests-C) primafrily through schools and colleges. L:,.; �79 Opportunity, The Crisis, The Negro ~tory, Negro History Bulletin,e~~~➔ ~ume:irous college periodicals, continued to provide forums-f·2'!,~g~ who appeared in The Crisis during the Some thirties and forties, for example, would include: Grace E. Barr, ~dna Barrett, Milton Brighte, Sophy Mae Bryson, Clarrssa Bucklin, Lillian Byrnes, Polly Mae Hall, Alice Ward Smith, Paul A. Wren, Walter Adams, Ethel Collins, Edith M. Durham~ tieynelds.mSJIS:: Other/\.4!J l :;::a II who published in regional magazines or brought out collections of their own works were: Noy Jeseph Dick e rson (A ~erap Boo~, 1931), Thomas Atkins\The ~agle, 1936J, Leslie M. Collins\~xile, A Book of Verse, 1938), \'Jilliam \ alker (who published 11 volumes between 1936 and 1943), Olive tewis Handy,, Claude T. Ea s tman, Nick Aaron Ford(Song s from the Vark, 1940), Maurice Fields(The vollegted poems of Maurice Fields, 1940), R.F. Boyd( Holiday Stanzas, 1940), folklorist J. Mason Brewer(four books of poems), William Holmes Borders('fllunde rbolts,1942), Anita Turpeau Anderson(Pinpoints:Group of Poems and Prose Writings, 1943), Aloise Barbe•r Epperson(The Hills of Yesterday a nd Ot her Pdams, 1944), Mary Albert Bacon(Poems of Color, 1948), Harrison Edward Lee(Poems for the Day, 1954), Willie .cnnis(Joetically Speaking, 1957), Paul Vese~(Ivory Tusks, 1956), and Arthur Wesley Reason(Poems of Inspiration for Better Living, 1959). Among white poets, the fifites were aglow with the fel!'Vor o: ,at movement: Kenneth Rexroth, E.E. Cummings, Lawrence Fehrlinghett i,,t A1an Ginzberg 1 "PlRd obhe1 ,,._ Hughes, and Bob Kaufman especially, played a great part in introducing the beats to ~ i c s of jazz and the jagged-lined interpretat ion of post-war blues of the "lost genera tion". Another influence on the beats was Russell Atkins• who, with n elen Johnson Collins;, �... Go founded Free Lance in Cleveland, 6h!ho, in 1950. An avant-garde little" in the development of ideas and magazine, it played techniques of the New l'L.itt,31 11 W Americ~~~;;o~e.da":;:,,of the sistties, r=the "style" life of Blacksff~erta-E.s,t' I i]Dw) as it always had, in the pacing of the literary and cultural concerns. The Be Bop poet Babs Gonzales,;;;ii'along with jazz-poetry narrators like . Pl ea sure, ,t::@'§eltae ;-~ 1_~ proroa . : P en-y 4-, • 4th e s t ance o f poe t s wh o rea d King i:ilhe their work aloud as well as sifgnaled a call for re-examination of the "ear" tradi tiona:t-~sed in the silent writing of a poem. As the fifties closed, the predise passion of Gwendolyn Brooks and the troubador's gait of Hughes hurled a dual,iet to be wiifie':Jchallenge at Black po ets, --- ,---- � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_07_32 Title A name given to the resource Draft of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, D. The Extended Renaissance: 30s, 40s, 50s, p. 1-80 Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B.