https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/cb827ff2ea92aacd73a7c753da49071b.pdf b300bfe0dfdbf9a641328a4d2ed24306 PDF Text Text - ell fci \_ flHAPTER V A LONG WAYS FROM HOME: j f 10 , ,. 0 , 1~~ Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, A long ways from home; A long ways from home. - t Afro-American <l'p iritual / 1 M- I OVERVIEW c;::::- ':':le d i srti.rt io n of c::ro:1clocr rill Ja~.fg._4Jly8vide:-:t :.:-: ,.: ; '- ~s 1 f n nres'si f ma ms z WJ f s 1 s_______.. because poets of ---------------same age do not always achieve recognition at the same time. chapter 11 the We have looked at James Weldon Johnson, for example, but we mention him a g a i n ~ i ~ In fact ~ for freasons to be shown/4-Johnson overshadows almost the whol ;f _/l ack poetry . al ~ . Melvin B. Tolson, born before Hughes and Cullen, will be viewed ~ ai'ter t hem in the so-called postJ enaissance period, tJince ~ the primary aim of this study is to ..__,, *citeN the most si gnificant _,I names and events in the development of th·,e • poetry,) e1m err• a ~ riticism will remain minimal. (~,o·Ly= ~) From this point Aon, ) lac_fr pee.ts M and Black$ ~Tlle./.Wjtlt !"1':'"":: b~ ame1t,cur c.to,li,'!, ~~r n o..,.1itfil s,•<-,,.flM "': Regin being 'lriewedJ\al~ngside all oth e r r . A-tl"o-Al"\tH u."~y~ ·r-~& - M A_/<P_P raisals of- C tApoetry ii I 1 a-; become a bit more difficul~ since up until the second decade of the 2Ot - nb �we. ... a. v,ewed ~'Y century, ,;nack poet~lilallA...,._Aas somewhat of a novelty. a we~1h..e for ---•• ,t1ub jec't$ for "curious II whites or . , a few dedicated Blacks. ~~~.rses.fed J• 11 , ""' 11»&-airsAL r a ·: .lSlli- very little armament with which to fight critical or literar y "lynchings.n Their models were essentially white (some cont temporary/lack poets continue this practice~ and so were their critics. g;.rsowie. d dtve~stcin.1 11 p.--011:deJ In the 192 they lHIM~one of many "exotic"•·•• 4 WJ,\bored and thrill-seeking whites, I ••••-1•-•.r" In the postJ,tenaissanc~ their skills were often directed towa;rd.l integration and various other social pri _ . most incisive and j.\'1:ltiflli\a ams.) The blow to 1iii-_JJ.ackpoets\iS a dis{,- respect and rejection that parallel the general treatment of Blacks. Criticism of jlack poetry is invariably political 'I and racial "iii • be. · tr /4 just as ?lost of the poetry is forced to and. -p..o'fis't ~ Some poets lament~this because it implies t h at protest and anger are reserved for them. It also says t hat the whole range of huma n behavior is somehow placed off t limits to the Afro-American poet, criticized by whites for not being "unit hi, versal" and by s own {:!_op/.tl I ti :,...for not being )Slack" enough . Needles s to say, it is a dilemma of some magnitud~ and no amount of words or lamentations will answer or solve it here. We do comment on these matters, though, because they begin to appear as serious i unavoidable -/4- plagues to the?ack poet from this period on in our study. ' ... �J. 1 Lhi:1!! el tap1D¾l8U1~1~.• ~. Many poets (Mari Evans, Lance Jeffers, James Emanuel, Ray Durem, Dudley Randall, ~ Zack Gilbert, Bob Kauf an, ~o butdidn~~;t ov+ oLon-ies unTi en,, others were pu :i.ng in period cals Frank Horne, and • ~ foeuwhohad been publish ing books during the years b f ore 1960 (Hayden, Gwendolyn Brooks, Conrad Kent River s, :1ughes, and others) brought out new works sometimes reflecting different themes and attitudes. Poets who had been publish ing substantially in periodicals or anthologies before 1960 will be noted in pa*ng. There will be no attempt to give individual attention to the ~cores of? 1960 sand '70 U:. ack poets writing and publishing i n t h e • II Literary and Social Landscape ,Y<I ~, 1"' '. . ':•· Ni gh t is a curious child, wandering~•••• _, MFrank Marshal 1 Davis 1930 I n 191 I tr.e pop lat i on of/ lack America was 9,ijfy978) \ 14- Langston Hughes was a boy of ten and the NAAC!?s one year old, By 1930, h owever, thefa ack population uon~d ="increased to 11, 891,143 (or 9 t t ~ ~ajor migration of Blacks to northern .-1/tAJJ e-.,_ A fl industrial centers W::QUJai ha u°I\taken place; rac4:-eJ:- riots 1 , ~ ~ __________ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - ...__ t11 4£.,,..0,-,./f:l ,n,{~ - · �and lynchings f . l 1 continu~ to be among the most fearful prospects for/ lack men. Booker T. Washington had chronicled the hardsh ips and bitter disappointments of Blacks in his Up J'rom Slavery. > The new "freedom" was short== lived and illusive, Washington observed, because the ex-slave bad no skill, no land and no place to go . ''Emancipated II Blacks were not farin g muc h better than their fore parents. D1 ois had be gun to raise some of the broader, global issues of/ lack oppression and place the.J(lackJxperience in its proper perspective i n ,., The Souls of Black Folkf. During the second and third decades of t h e @ century,_/1-ack sch olars, acti vists and writers continued to record t b e )D-ack j 'x perie nce with tell ing accuracy and drama. Additio nally, a number of ch anges and de velopne nts i n )tlack co:--iniuni ti es se t o:ff a ch a in reaction of cross-exa11'li nations, intense debates , calls for c:-ianc;es and t he cbarti n2:lof ~e-:.r directions. of 11.ar.k."°'lttf Accordingly, t h e studentt:1ust u nders ta nd t h e o:r the tines i n terms of· Q 1. Tb e decline of Dunbar ' s inf'luence amone poets. 2. Failing support of Booker T. Was½ington' s "accomi mi datio nist" philosophy. 3. 4. The continued disillusionment of survi vors and heirs of ;t;ee 1Reconstruction. t "'--' The development of white hate and intimidation groups (Ku Klux Klan, etc.), , r! oOa �C 5. The _ I 1 91 presentation of "stereotypes 11 of Blacks in the mass media and creative literature of the period. 6. o,vJ The "Jim Crow" laws or the ~outh, /\job discrimi f nation and general segregation in the north. ~ The splits and confusion in the/ lack community due to the "new" mid le class; the appearance of ,( '.,{ - West Indians in Ame1l ~a and class alienment according to color stratification (i.e. , light f skin, dark~skin, near white, etc.). Much of t h e literature of t h e period deals with t h e t h eme of 11 passing or f miscegenation. /\ 8. Race riots in various parts of the country between \ i::_ ,f't 1905 and 1917 . , .:C-11 ~ ~ 11 gs•s: at' America -...____..,., , science and industry were developing rapidly. -t~ Indications of t h is were tech nological warfare and the automobile. ~ radio, Th e "new / sych ology" was taking hol~ and t b e realis m of the previous literature was bowing out to naturalism. Th is new mode is seen in the works of such writers as Theodore D~er,,and William Fauikner. Interest in local color t: dialect, which had dominated the later portion of the /\ century, was also dyin ~ and the~ lack American was "re~ iscovered" by white writers as a subject for r .e alistic fiction, drama and poetry. White writers who published popular e accounts of/ lack life included DuJose Hayward, Sherwood �Anderson and Carl Van Vechten. characterized American society. Revolts in interests and manners Black critic James A. Emanuel points out iq2ot s, th --~ that during many~hi tes ·went to Harlem to ":forget the war and engage their new Freudian awareness by escaping into exotic black cabaret \'~-rr-o Q~AUIJ~·tj,ti'q J ugbes records t his exotic indul8ence in li:fe ✓ The Autob ioeraphy o:f ,l.n > Ex-Coloured Man.1/Drama...o:f the period was dominated by Eugene 0 1 neill wbo won Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. ~ / Two o:f O'neill's ~ plays (The Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape) symbolically dealt with the psychological involvement o:f Blacks and whites and suggested a transracial mixture o:f :fear, hatred and admiration. j r, ] Si L &lib b12 D! icl,;; ::tor orif~•-11, • e-o'f/..e • .w&i!r"-fi' ~ ilpin ~ z:Jh e starred in The Emperor Jone • r 3 I I . _ .ffeviews _ . ~ '----" I ~111""' ..........,, f ~Gilpin' s performances ( "naked bod~ ••• dark lyric o:f the :flesh") _ _, typi£ied preoccupation with the exotic savage M a trend that had continued :from Jack London (The Call o:f t h e Wild, The Sea-Wol:f local color: ~Page, Harris, Cabl ~ and t h e white writers o:f J ii 3 However, many &Me writers, like O'Neill and Dreiser, had begun to shake �off the mystique of the American Dream and deal instead with ih ~ "illusion. 11 Such was Dreiser's theme in his novel{- An American Tragedy ( 1925) • The founding of Poetri: ,/2. Magazine of Verse, by Harriet ~ Monroe (1912) signaled the birth of the )(ew ../oetry movement in America.~ ---------J ·cci:?r- In 19151 the anthology! if.I ti ?] -----=--_P_o_e_t_sl ,~~ J~ ppeared to l .!-1\aissident factions wanted to dispense with traditional forms. -Wtl!M!'J- Imagism was in fluenced by Ezra Pound's theories and French Symbolism as well as ) 'riental and ancient Greek poetry. Ch ief spokesman for the Imagist poets was Amy Lowe1; who was joined by John Gould Fletcher and Hilda Doolittle, among others. During the next two decade s_, the group waged a successful battle a gainst the dissidents~ but t hey also ret iorked traditional forms and cornered a new reading market for poetry in America and England. "':'\ Poet Vachfel Lindsay, an advocate of using rhythm and the \!,, reading aloud of poetry, is credited with having "discovered" Langston Hughes. Black poets who participated in t h is "revival" of American poetry were the innovator Fenton Johnson and the . anthologist William Stanley Braithwaite. The most significant development of the period, however, was tbe,P4ck cultural £lowering , principally in Harlem, ~ has become known as the Harlem Renaissance, the Negro Awake,l ning and the Negro Renaissance. Central to the ;:,(enaissance" (critics differ over whether it should be ~alled such) was the ~ �migration of southern Blacks to northern urban centers. With the working-class Blacks also came (and grew) the f lack telligentsia, artists and activists. Current f lac k creativity or scholarship cannot be understood unless t h e Harlem Renaissance is placed in proper perspectiv8.J because the Harlem period is the most important bridge existing between slavery and t h e ,,,,., modern and/or contemporary era,_, . Hence, it is necessary t hat we sketch out the important political and artistic de velopments 1 /la;~ up to (or happened during) theARenaissance. A partial listing of these developments must include: Founding of the Guardian by Monroe Trotter l'i (l901). Founding of the National Association for t he : Advancement of Colored People (1909) and estabi, l ishment of The Crisis. 01 Founding of the Urban League (1911). Founding of the Association for the Study of ] Negro Life and History by Carter G. Woodson (1915). Establishment of The Journal of Negro History by Woodson (1916). Black troops' involvement in World War I. Great ,)figration of Blacks _t.Q__ northern urban center~ / ~ /) 1916 1~ 19; ~ the tre d~continued through the /) middle of the centur] • '--' The recording of j 'lack achievements in all areas; lack scholarship is brilliant and sustained -~ (d �throughout the entire period. The writings, especially, of W. 1 I ·F· nf ois, Charles s • .Johnson, Alain Locke and .James Weldon .Johnson. The high point in the influence of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (Garvey, who came to the ~ from .Jamaica in 1916, preached a back-to-Africa movement . He was imprisoned in 1925 for mail frau .) Founding of Opportunity, A .Journal of Negro Life 1 (1923) 0 Opportunity and The Crisis published much of the new work of t f!e /\Re'naissance ··-··-••11LLM&!!!l-'l!!¥1!!1£!1£-&• writers and offered annual prizes{YJ The flourishing ofjlack j usic and musical dramas (Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake do Shuffle Along, 1921; Louis Armstrong, with his own band, opens at the Sunset Club, Ch icago, 1927; Duke Ellington opens at the Cotton Club, Harlem, the same year). The postf war Pan-African ;t'o ngresses (Paris, 1919; t I London, 1921, 1923; New York, 1927; Df ois was 1 primary organizer.) .James Weldon .Johnson edited the first ~century American anthology of/ lack poetry, The Book of American Negro Poetry) in 1922 . .Johnson ' s work was followed in quick succession by fi ve other poetry anthologies,;;> 11..,'1-~ ( ~ Negro Poets and Their Poems (Robert Thomas Kerlin, 1923~ 2lb �An Anthology of American Negr o Verse (Newman I vey White r and Walter Clinton Jac ks on, 1924); '-:) fn Anthology (Clement Wood, .1924 )/ •~• Caroling Dusk (Countee Cullen , 1927) ' ) -..,_Tegro Songs: £. ~Of ------------------=-~ Locke , 192 7 ), G our Negro Poets (Alain note also was F·f· Calverton's An Anthology of American Negro Literature (1929)J which c onta ined 6 C ;.l:'..en and Loc rce 1-!ere t ·wo 1t_-'7 pages of poetry ., a :~:ajor fi g 1res of t': e Ii 3 )i& nai ss anc ~ al on.:; Hi t'h Q- a.u~€ :IcKa:: , Johnson, H sh es,- and -_, Jean Toomer. JI- Locke edited the anthology .:wQla.:,;;,,.~ heralded and chronicled the new filack mood and achievements: The New Negro : lt emains a classic today . He /4n Interpretatio n (1925); !_! "Ar ?r-c1dv(.eo also ba~the equally important A Dec ade of Negro Self=Expression (1928). A Rhodes ~ cholar from Pe nnsylvania, Locke received a (A. Ph.D. in 1918 from Harvard and is still considered• • *l •~fortj f/41.k-" -- most interpreter of_p..aok creativity of the ARenaissance . Cullen published Color, hi s first b ook of poetr:r , when he was @ and w~-:. instantly recogni::$ as one of the best young poets in America • r1cKayA Culle n Mhei,,eJ to of English poetry. ~ ....----:---- s-r,,.,,t t he s ft Jl11 tradition Considered the best "formal 11 writer of the naissance period, Cullen was "1eticulous and careful in b is (VJ.. poetic workmanshi13A J-'e - •••• !3oifled J'A, t h ose ■ wh o CL im b-e~ rr7he Dark Tower II to '!-)r ood over bein3 called poets. In addition to Cullen, other key poets of t b e !Ie:i4 eFs ., '• ,,,,,,, l\·wakening ~ publ ished b1p ortant '1olu~es or antb ologies and 2 t7 �int'e~d· added t o th e creative and criticaltflttrb=l;ei". Joh nson and :1 is broth er, J. Rosamond, edited The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925) and Tbe Second Book of ~ e:d. eliU;ia Negro bo'fh Spirituals (1926). McKa:~.r published poetry inAEngland and America. Johnson said HcKay belonged "to the post-war group and was its most powerful voice. poet of rebellion." He was pre-eminently t h e Hughes and Cullen won national reco gnition (and poetry awards) at about the same time. There, h owever, ~--;;t t h e comparison ends. Hugh es was one of t h e wide traveled of all the~ naissance writers. He was also the most prodi gious and multif talented, writing succ::£ul~ in all ""-=--- -_-_...,,. · Hughes, who when he died in 1967 was t h e ~ ~anslated American author, is known as the international poet laureate of f lack people. Joh nson recorded much of t h is creative outpouring in various ways. As a scholar, he is known for his anthologies and h is seminal interpretations of _!lack cul ture ~~s ic J e:ae:the f pirituals l in ~articular. 1-: ~} 1922 anth ology/ ~ Of great importance was bis i~ an illuminating / reface, h e cited t he four ma j or j 'lack artistic contributions to Amer i ca: V 1. The Uncle Remus stories, collected by Joel Chandler Harris. 2. The f piri tuals ( 11 to which the Fisk Jubilee Singers made the public and the musicians of both 3. The Cakewalk (a dance "poetry of motion"). nd Euro~ listen"). Paris called the 9 �I ~ 4. Ragtime { "American music," for wh ich t he @ i s known all over t he world). 1 Johnson is also noted for hiS work with t h e U.S. diplomatic corps, his pioneering fffit:Wi t h the NAACP and h is brilliant ~ employ~ent of / lack idioms and psychology in his poetry and discussions. One of the most unique voices of the Harlem Re naissance _ . w a s Jean Toomer, who along with Hugh es, Cullen and McKay make up Locl~ s Four Negro Poets. A complex of person,i, alities, talents and racial mixtures, Toomer was a constant enigma to critics and fellow writers. Alth ough h e admitted that b e was of seven racial strands, he acknowled ged._, imat "~ growing need for artistic expression has pulled me deeper -and deeper into t h e Negro gr oup." In 1924, Toomer's Cane was published. Set primarily in the deep south - ~in Geore ia 1~ 5 N\ it also deals with t h e urban i mpact on migrating Blacks. ~ Love, racial conflict, sex, violence, reli gion, nature a nd a grarian themes are all explored directly and allegorically. ,) Rae f pride, the lower side of Jilack life, and a romantic engagement with Africa were the main t hrusts of t h e f.enaissance literature. activists. So too with t h e painters, musicians, scholars and Garvey had set up a re eal court reminiscent of ancient African j 'ingdoms and had infused his followers with v isions of returning to the "homeland. 11 His "court" was resplendent with h i erarchical titles and lavish re galia for - - - - -- - -- -- - - -- - - - - - - - �~ parades. ships. Black Star Line was t he name of b is fleet of The prevailing spirit of tbe day was one of } lack indulgenc9i and many whites sough t for, and · got t heir share Bui. Nµi(,f of, it. ,<fne aladk- Awakening was not the exclusive property of Harlem. Po~ as Kerlin points out (Preface, Negro Poets and Their Poems), t he mood of change spread to other sections of ~~ the country. • • • • • • • • • • l ~ ~ a n thologies - published were The Quill in Boston, Black Opals in Ph il ~ delphia and The Stylus in Washington, D.C. Important, too, were the collections and studies of folk songs. Af'N oteworthy fr' collections for tre period included: Negro Folk Rhymes (Thomas W. Talley, 1922) Negro Workaday Songs (Howard W. Odum, 1926) Rainbow Round My Sh oulder (Howard W. Odum, 1928 ) Wings on i·"r:J Feet (Howard W. Odum, 1929) American Negro Folk Songs (Newman I vey White, 1929 Other brilliant and exciting poets and writers shared t he _;{e naissance sce ne~ -th ough they are normally over~ Hughes, Toomer, NcKay , Joh nson and Cullen. adowed by Some of t hese °'- writers ;rmost of whom did not publish volumes until "SM later period-' were: Arna Bontemps , Georgia Douglas Johnson, Waring Cuney, Robert Hayde n, Gwendolyn Bennett, Sterling Brown, OWen Dodson and Helvin Tolson. Prose writers of the period included Eric Walrond and Rudolph Fisher as well as Hughe s and Toomer. Bontemps, anthologist, critic, librarian, poet and novelist, �published in leading magazines of the period and won nu~erous awards for poetry . Brown pursued the fol,';;, tradition wh ile cultivating an ear and technique that rivaled some of t he best modern poetry. His debt to folk idioms and characters is ob vious in such poems as "odyssey of Bib Boy, - "Memphis Blues," and "Long Gone. 11 n 11 S outhern Road, 11 Brown contributed to per odicals of the and later published important critical studies. Dodson wrote verse plays and collaborated with Cullen on at least one writing project. and poetry. He 1 too, won numerous awards for h is plays Hayden and Tolson, both significant modern poets, were to be heard from in succeeding decades as critics and outstanding teachers. ~ ~~~. f 'f 60 e-- l~Den t h e stock market crashed in 1929, white patron4, zation of/ lac k artists ended. Black creativity and scholarship, however, had grown up during the ffi1/st three decades of the century, and important writing and musical development continued. Migration of Blacks to northern urban centers was stepped up before and after World War II~ witb many Blacks being attracted by shipbuilding and oth er war-manufacturing industries. Afro= Americans have participated in every U.S. military c onflict V Th e rr iti ng of poetr:" co rit~ nuedJ but publishing was slowed down. James (1973) , notes1 ~ o. Young, in Black Writers of the Thirties "Black writers produced less t h an one l �since / olonial days. During World War II and Korea, however, t hey were used almost exclusively as fighting troops (between . a,, 1943~ ptt¥S:, ,,JJ Jim CrowAas abolished in thefa med / orces). Nevertheless, f lac k soldiers, returning h ome fro m European and Pacific war t h eaters, still faced unemployment and lynch ing ; and in some southern citie~-vkre forbidden to appear on t he streets in military uniforms. Baldwin is one of many perceptive American th~ G\ writers to note t h at'>31~ck mftn, seeking t he fruits and . . realization of t h e American Dream, tried t hrough out h istory 11 to adjust and fit" i nto American society. So, in face of official American contempt for h is humanity and h is welfare, t he/ lack s oldier marched also with an "equality " of death into t he Korean War. 2 James Weldon J oh nson had opened t he dis mal period of t he De pression with Bla c k Nanhattan, a social h istory of Harlem. Black :Manhattan was one of t he dozens of studies on urban ~ ack communit ies~~1 h ad been begun by works such as Df ois's Ph iladelphia Negr':;_ - Social Study (1899). Like Joh nson, many of t he poets and artists tur ned their writing skills toward .t pe . recording of .J'lac k social problems and artis~· i ach ievements 18 Charles s. (.Joh nson's -:::~ ~ na ~ mericans, Wh at now ~ 1 Joh nson's Th e Shadow of t he Plantation, ~th _!31' 1934). Some ' volur::e of poetry per year·· "b et ween 1929 and 1942." V This turned out to be not so true in t he Viet_)<fam ~ar ~ ~ho s1xt ~ wh en a dead f lack veteran was refused burial '1n e a wh ite cemet, r y near h is h ome in Georgia • ___ _ _ _ __...__ ___ __ .__ - -- - - �of the writers were subsidized by WPA grants1 wh ile others <;t{Ll managed to obtain jobs as teach ers a nd journalists . A ;Jl;hers, o.UO like t he common folk, ln soup lines . It was~uring t 11 jtooJ, t h e period of 1930; 60 that wh ite sch ools or h i gher learning started accepting more B ~cks, as students and teachers. r Jf.1. -c :_t.; Generally, .Araeriea witnessed rapid advancements in science and industry. Radio drama became a cultural mainstayJ a nd the motion picture industry provided a new and exciting diversion. "'::"\ Baseball continued as t he "national past!,.ime" (for Blacks, it was the era Jackie Robinson). Jac k Joh nso n had already (in the previous era) dazzled Araerica with b is pugilistic skills. But it was the prize fi gh ter Joe Louis ( t h e "Brown Bomber 11 ) , however, wh o captured sports-minded ---- America with one of t he greatest records i n ~ b oxing h ist ory. Louis•• defeat of ~ Germ 1:_:= Schmeling . ~-'t \,.eN"'~ time i n U.S. h istory - L y orld of nations ~ ~ itler. ira~• siRg ~~ (1938) came - - _,, at a cruc i al ,<tmerica's rising mi gh t among t h e challenged on t h e battlefield by Two years earlier, a ·racist Hitler h ad refused to acknowledge t h e feats of America' ~lack Olympic track star Jes s e, OWe ns. "--' , In prose and drama, white American writ ers continued to straddle a t h ematic pat t 9tween realis m and t he American Dream. A distinctly "post war" gr oup of' writers emerged. Dominating the period were Dreiser, Sberweee ....____ -Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, Willa Cather, Thomas Wol fe, ort/eill, ~-- - - Faulkner, Erpest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams , J o~n Dos Passos , Katheri ne Anne Porter, Er ski ne Caldwell and Carson HcC ullers. Usinc \ • �symbolism and all e gory to attack war, decadence and t be a tor.tic b om":J , American -writers often took as n~odels such Russi .'.;.n wr iters as Chekov , -Dostoevski and Tolstoi. I :~ny employed : : t rer ..: 0-!: c o~sc :. ot .3 ::cs:: tech nique -a style ini'luenced "ne,;-1 psycholoQJ 11 o:r ~ 1e t he and Irish writer James Jo:rce ~ wbich allowed f'or uninterrupted explorations on the t h ou ;hts of c!1aracters ·who 11 streamed" t he ir references. A si milar n ood pre vailed in t he poetryM much of wh ich dealt wi t "'. 1 social decadence, war and the mechanization of t;1a.n. E. ~ . Cummings, known for h is t:rpot graphical tric kery and general linguistic and syntactical experiments, was one of t h e most relentless critics of bureau cracy and war. Such t ':1emes h a.d also concerned T•f • Eliot, considered one of the greatest modern poets, in such poems as 11 " The Love Song of J'. Alfred Prjtfroc k" and The Waste Land. Irnagist poets "H.D., 11 ., PArsued Th e t h eir development via such voices as Ezra Pound and Harianne I-Ioore. ~ A____...._= ld lcLe is-h , u _art Crane, John Crowe Ran-&em--, Allan. Tat&-, ' ;.,, cJ Historically,~ lack_/usic had been marked by white imitation exploitation. . There always e · ·--~-- · foU 'white" musical face t hat t U0-- - ~ ~@e;&:&1lffl' need to create a -C-o lil!' Americans at large. From the minstrelsy of plantation <;"lays to the sophisticated operettas and musicals of the twenties, this pattern ran u~ �During t he modern period, f e: Jop became t he musical broken • Wh ile t _.e bi e:; :: . \ heir to )(a gtime, early fazz and Tin Pan Alley. f/ ,;,,,r (!eK a{t:and 11£0~ composers-M l Basie, Ellin8to n, Fletcher Henderson, '' \ ...______ W·f • Handy, Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, etc. - 1 continued t heir 1 1 important work , different k inds of experiments were going on among other musicians. From these new for mations and probings came some of the giants of modern _p ac k ,Music: ..,.,J.files Davis, Charlie "Yard Bird" Parker, Lester "Prez'.' Young, Sonny Rollins, Gene Ammons, Art Blakey urns in Africa), Ornette !I Coleman (see Four Lives in t h e B LIIJA:-:-,\I (Af'ro-Cuban), Business) , Chano Pozo - Dizzy Gillespie~ _ !abs Gonzales y op poet I Paid Hy Dues ; 1967). and singer: o From t h e musicia ns and t h eir supporters emerged an undersroun°:, 11bip " language. Th is tradit i on, of tal king in metaphors and encoded cultural neo~ logisms, h ad begu n during the,./enaissance. Often, too, / lac k Rs vocalists were featur ed with the musician9 i3:@PI ( atul 1 I cf these a ( Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holtiday and Bessie Smith - wh o died in 1937. \.;; /V\ The mi gration to cities also sa~ t he continued rise of urban or b i g~city pues. B:r 1960 , h owever, t he ;{1ues h ad gone t hrough several important periods of de velopment. Some names associated with the moder n period were Louis Armstrong , Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Bill Broonzy, Pops Foster, Eddie "Son" House, Robert Johnson, Johnny Temple, Roosevelt Sykes, Elmo James, Bf • King, Leadbelly, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Josh Wh ite, Sonny Boy Williams, HowlinJ· olf, John Lee Hooker, µ1 and Big Joe Turner. These men - - - -- - - -- - -- - - - - - - - g nin ' Hopkins t_ / i'r.,n',ied t eal\ h e flame~ • tJHlf\b y �w.f. Handy. Leroy Carr, Blind Lemon Jerferson and Several notable/ lack literary explosions occu.fred during a,.. ,~ 11 ( c10 " the period between 1930 :eQ.. Important werei the publication of Native Son (Richard Wri ght, 1940); the publication of For People (Margaret Walker, 1942); the appearance of Invisible G,""encJr,Lv n 81">e.C1 ~~,~ • ,✓¥1a.n (Ralph Ellison, 1952) and i:aAwinning of the Pulitzer/ rize My for poetry II ] ] j (;___950) -/@-nnie Alle~1 • Native on, a novel, featured a/flack protagonist named Bigger Th oma~ who sym~lized (and in many ways contained) the anger, rage and pressures felt by urban Blacks. The book was the first by a)1lack author to make the best : seller lists-jand was also a eook of the Month 6lub choice . ~ ,! During t h e same periodJ • Wri gh t, wh o died an expatriate in France in 1960, published several other novels, sh ort stories, books of essays and miscellaneous prose. appeared. In 194~ Black Boy, his autobiograph~ Wri ght is significant for many reasons, fore most among t he m being t hat he was the first j lack writer to deal, a., accurately and on ~par with the best fiction writers of t he day , with the philosophical and psychological complexity of the p ack urbanite. In doing t h is, he opened a new range of possib ilities and ~lped free .flack fiction in many ways. There were other excellent fiction writers during this period: Rudolph F ./ 1 er, Zora Neale Hurston, 75 1 J -. ___::_, ; McKay, Hughes, •••Bontemps, Ann Petry, D ois, Frank Yerby, Eric Walrond, w,Ui4171 f)emby Chester Hime,~and Sterling Brown. Wright, however, was the first to for ge and sustain a major f lack art piece out of mythical and racial materials. �~ ::;:win., whose reig~ succeeded Wright I s, made h is entry in 1953 with the publication of Go Tell It ftn the Mountain. Hi s other ~~Cl~f~~. 7 work includes Notes of a Nati ve Son (1955) and Giovanni's Room (1956). A1 il. r(\(;\ r"\ et · ~ AWalker, ae_ 1ii !__:J &: 1 !£ who teach es liters. ture at Jackson State College , was @ years old when sh e wrote "For My People"f one of the most famous,.J'iack poems. Her book by the same name won the Yale Series of Younger Poets award in 1942. Rich in cultural folk references, / lack ph onology .and social history, the slim book brilliantly traces t he h ope, humor, pathos, rage, stamina and iron dignity of t he race. Tbe winning of the Pulit~er_h ize \ by Gwen~ l y n Broo0 (and Ellison's accolade • )~ d the world that j lack writers had mastered t he "ultimate" English literary craf'ts of poetry and fiction to a degree into question. no longer called their abilities Ivrany, /lack critics feel, h owever, t h at t h ere 4, before Annie Allenf e;, were excellent volumes received t h e Pulitzer / rize. should h ave These critics say f lack artists, like t he.Jlackfa perience, come periodically into fas h ion (e.g. , Harlem Renaissance) ~~ to be tolerated at t he whims of white literary bastions, despite their proven abilities. The G.,,tndolyn citation of ~,Brooks (who published A Street in Bronzev ille, ~ 1945) was a citation of the )D.ack ,Experience , h owever;kdespite .7y the fact that the prize was not a major~ i ; . ; in the 1 _/lack community. searching and f Bla~ks, caught up in the post~ ar mood, job~ quest,.or social equality, were not reading �much poet:y.fEllison, who has not published a novel since Invisible Man (1952) remains one of t he most controversial figures in American. Jiterature~ much of the controversy arising from what he says outside of fiction (see Introduction). Communist-oriented papers genera_lly condemned Invisible Man when it first appeared. They held that it was a 11 dirt -= t hrowing 11 ritual for Ellison-~who combines naturalism and complex sym (V\ bolism in t h e book. Black novelist John Oliver Killens also gave it a ne gative review. Generally, h owever, t he work is considered, by jlac k and wh ite critics, to be a gre at novel M perhaps the greatest American novel. It won t h e National Book Award in 195~ an~ i n a subsequent poll of "200 j ournal i sts a nd cr i t i cs , i t was judged t h e most dist ingui s hed single wor k of fic ti on since World War II. ~ r . - Anflamed by t he spirit and example of t h e Harlem Re naissanc e , -g/- OJVJ f"'CLY fl" , lack poets of t h e pre ~and post war years continued ex citing G""mdt,L1ra experiments. 1illlllB~ Brooks recalls t h at a brief e ncouragement .from t h e "great II James Weldon Johnson wh en s h e was a ch ild spurred h er on her way. Some of t he poets of t he~ naissance, h owever, quit writi ng altogeth er or be gan writ ing in 4other J o. nso n r eported in 1931 that Fenton Joh nson had been "silent" for ten years. Poet Bontemps also ·wrote novels f t h e most famous of t hem being Black Thunder (1939 ), an adaptation of the 1 831 :Nat Turner-led slave re volt. He edited and wrote, and sometimes collaborated with oth ers ·o13,anth ologies and biographies for young readers. With Hughes, he ed i ted The �Poetry of ,~ e Hegro: ...,1764J1949, c c :1s it..~ c r e c~. a breal-(___::throush in modern/ lack lit erary activity. One of t !-ie };a ndful of/ enaist sance / lack writers to survi ve into t he .ie ~:enties, Bontemps died in 1973. / a,. 17.)'f So~e have cal led t he period ~e tween 1930 the a ge of Lanss ton Hugh es in/ lack letters. I ndeed, Huc~e s remained pr o·~1inent and prod uctive thr ouch out t he t :.:ree per iods -'~naiss,~ e , 1930~54, and t h e fo nt emporary era . ;)uring t '.1, pr e ,-1, ahd post$-1ar periods, Hug:ies conti nued to · turn out ever:'"·· e t b ing fro n news pa per fictio n columns (Jes se B. Si mple) to juvenilia to plays . Eue;hes i n poetry, like Wrie;½t, Ellis on a';'kBaldwin in fh'ose, faithfully recorded t he_jlac!r mood. =~the others, he also predicted t h e social violence of t b e sixties. Poets and other volu~es of the period includeO: Sterling Brown, Southern Road ( 1932); Culle n, T'De :Iedea and Some Poems (193.5); Hayden, Heart-Shape in t h e Dust (194 0 ); Naomi Long Mad ::;ett, Songs to a Phar,tom lUsbtingale (1941} ; M ,}! 1th H. BingQ. DiJmond, We Who Would Die (1943}; Tolson, Rendezvous America (1944), y b dson, Powerful Long Ladder (1946); Cullen, On These I Stand (posthumously, 1947}; Hayden, with n . tfyro~ 0' Higgins, The Lion and tbe Arch er (194 8); Tolson, Libretto for the Republic of Liberia (1953); Selected Poems V or Claude McKay {posthumously, 1953}; Ariel W. Holloway, Shape Them into Dreams (1955); John C. Morris, Cleopatra and Oth er Poems (1955); Alfred Q. Jarette, Black }Ian Speaks (19.56); Beatrice Wright, Color Scheme (19.57); Mary Miller, Into the • Clearing (1959); Percy E. Johnston, Concerto for Girl and "' �Convertible (1960 ); Oliver Pitcher, Dust of Silence (1960);~ G·Jendol:rn r ooks , T'~ e Bean Ea ter (1~ jici:Ff&FijJ; 81& ltJt )! ~ 2 ? ?ssn Tis "' writing and/or translating during this period were Dudley Randall, Samuel Allen (Paul o.nd Vesey), Margaret Danner,1 Rich ard Wright (wh o also wrote poetry). (□ I a, t g;; :Ji Black and white poets exchanged ideas and socialized_ _ Ii - , · st J cl Ju ! I§ j I •ff=••~d -••-11111112•1111111112111111LS•t•z-11g~i-•..."s111t••••·1111■2,a i I c O ~ ~ny of the A~rna~ were introduced to publishers and t he reading public by well-known white poets or critics. Such a practice was to come under fire, during the late '160:fs andlf701's, by some ~ lack poets and critic; who judge .._/ lack writine . favorable to '5e-e work. .f'ee.l that whites -eot1ld not Reviews of the period were generally lack writerc who showed great finish in their Hayden, Walker, Brooks, Tolson and Dodson were among t he poets who rece i ved h i gh praise for their technical virtul osity. Steph en Vincent Bene't wrote t he fo~~ rd tob For Hy People~ Allen Tate to 7 l!'.!E j:!bt Libretto I or the Republic n-.hon rt.<eiued of Li eria and Hayden won Hopwood/ wards twice.~ accolades fri om jJJIJJII. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse ~ re garded as the white American olympus of poetry. One of the most important anthologies of the post~ naissance ',,µi/ period was The llegro Caravani (1941 ~ edited b y Brown, Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses Lee. The best inclusive anthology of / lack ---=--:--:- 41'l - literature, it remains today --0ro 0€ th~~utstanding textboo't!,· 21.0 f%_ fr �Brown also published two important works of criticism, The Negro in American Fiction and Negro Poetry and Drama, both in 1937. And J. Saunders Redding publish ed his critical work To Make a Poet Black in 1939. ft Wo.4 estcu,tt, hed 1 i•sfl I I .Jn 1940 !!f Pbylon/\wi th D+ois as editor(~ 1954, Ir., I· t h e venerable W•f •f • as American soldiers prepared to return from Korea and television glared to consume the world, the Supreme Court decision of May 15 closed the book on one era of lack American history and opened up Pandora's box on another. Wright's Black Power (1954), a commentary on his experiences in Africa's Gold Coast, may have been more than of just a hint "A~ w~a~ _"::!:_t..o .~on:~..~ · c;f{ffi;.;:would witness some, but not all, of the ingre, t ~--ients of Pandora's box., lil'"1.ac k woman i n M ' t gomery re f use d to eive~her • Vf. when a ,,...., ~on seat on a public bu5 to a white man, a new era of )3lack struggl e was born. A successful boycott of buses was led by Martin Luther Ki ng , Southern Christian Leadersh ip Conference. hordes of young .Bl acks (and some whites) be gan sit-ins and various other "in! s" 1 as the Freedom" cry reached a new pitch. This was t h e ges ~ tation period for the Congress of Racial Equality and the · And o.U~~ wl,',Le.J Studen~ Nonviolent C<\o rdinating Committee. ,j"hite youth took l? to television and swayed to the rhythms of Chubby Checker, the • Jf'' \ ~ ~t Chantel s and the Five Satins. But as America "twisted the ) ight a':;;'a; " another and different mood, expressed through a �diff e r ent v oice , wa s bugging the r im of t he we were not y et "Beyo nd t h e Bl ue s . rr,, eam . 11 And 11 III THE \JO fl TOTEM Good mor ni n ', b lues, blues, b ow d o y ou d o ? /() di_}. j()R.);!µ y /u:;J 1 _I_ Leadbellv N\ - The Comin g Cadence: - -- w Pr e'£i0na i :::sa nc e Vo ices .._;,, s t .. e 2C ,. .. ce nt r:r con ti nued to open its - e 1ilde r ec. ( s 0::1 ~3.:" "s h ocked " ) ~ l'tlt,.~y :"e s , all. UC£ I. /v ta fM!li\.c}'lan.;es we r e occu1tl n[.; M not t~ - le a s t o.r.:o ~ :::; t 'l: er:: i !1Jtl a c . . oetr:-r and t he arts . 1·· i t'ti t}'l e i ::1cr a s e i n t ~e nu:-::'Je r of p '.Jlicat i o;1s tak i n 6 t h e ir wor k to t he p i on e r i nG effort s of D n~ar, Carrothers, Camn½ell, ( du Cott e r , ~ ) an othe r s ) , ~ ;.ac k (tl 6.1'\ l)4'C _,,, pat e !~a 7 i ng t:1eir ~ rt flTJ oe ts could at leas t a nt ici l r e ad 1J7 white editors. : :a.·-:7 of t~ e 'r' p oet s ·riting i nt e fi ct a nd sec ond decades of the cent ry 1-1 ould ne~ e r e l i ghts of t .. e . eard f ron a g a i n~ ½ t a few would ar 1. a i1 Re~ai s s anc e . e co .~ Nl.nC,fd ovtr- Th e p oet s -1 J. 3 i "mi n or" a sur i- _r i ~i ng d i Ye rsit~ of styl es , li n~ui s tic i b e nts, the n es, te m~ e r ame nt s a nd a ce cate Gories, n. ~1d came fro'."1 pract ~ ~r e v er~r cor ner of the U:'.1ited S tat es , the ,.vest I !"ld i es and -Soatr America. '\ i 1 • o nz th e early poe ts ~,er e Kelly :-:iller (l 8 63/V1939), Leslie :!'i r.c .{ne:.,. Hil l (1 SON{_ ), (1 380j l960 ), Charles Be rtrar.1 Joh nson Benjamin Bra~l ey (1 SS2J 1939), Raymond Garfield �~ Dandri dge ( H38 2J 1930 ) , Otto L~ Edward :recal l ( 1333.!. ? IV (1 836~ ..t.Y ~,.__ 1 _,,, • - ) , Angel i na Weld Gr i :::~c~ (1~30~1°5~ ), ( 1330/2 ( J ess i e Redmo::d Fauset ~ Boh a nt nJ ◄!!•••-• ~ - J a !::es (1 322,.!1961 ), F al ter Everette !-TawL::i :'} S ) , ~Irs . Sarah Le e (Brow n ) Leo n R. Harri s ) , :2f f i e Le e News ome (1 835/2 i , Ha lt er Ado lp.-~e +-o-b_e_r~t s 1 (1 886~19 65 ), Eva Alberta J e s s y e- (1 397~ ) , Geor [;ia Dougl as J ohns on (188 611966), T e odore Ee nr ~,. Sh ac ke l ford ✓ (1888.!1923) , Ros c oe C. Jami son (1 886! 191 2 ) , Ch arl e s ~ i lson N fl/ ,,,_., ) , T:rs . I-' I ae Smi tb Johnson v(l 190J / ), Andr e a l885/4 ri ef o c1s95k z ), Ben jamin Ebe~e z er B rr ell ( 1~92Q ) , J oseph Se a mon Cot te r , Jr . i illiam Ed ga r Ba i1(~ ~ (1 895~1919 ), Clar i s s a Sc ott Dela nJj (1 901/2 ~ 2?) , and s cores more. Najor poe tic contrib utions wer e ma d e by James Hvl c! on J oh ns on , Fenton J ohnso n , Cotter , Jr. ( cu t dO"wn iefepf \t \ ~L4 0 deve l op h i s pro:iiise ) a1id a feiv ot her s; :ret it i s i mpor tant that we a t l e ast ~ ~~ 0 lq J 5s 1% Br own a nd ~ o:ne of the l esser l n C ~ s of th i s per iod . Redd i nG feel/\ not11i:::: of i:,. fr portanc e, beyo nd the Joh nsons , occ u7'ed i r. t!"!e fi r st tw o de cades . But; fo r pur poses of ou r study a nd co nti nuity , He must note t h a t t h i s was no t a per i od of i :iacti v ity amo ng poets . n ic all:r , t here was s ome e.x pe r b1e n tation. Te c}:, i However, :r..ost of t b e poets e i the r h elp ed ph a s e out tJ"!e dialect 1 ~osue or rr ot e h armless pie c es on nature , love , gard ens, de ath and ~u~an sorrow . Ot hers wrote h arshly and b itt erly of t h e war . , Hiller , r:athe mati c ia n and s ociol ogist, was a l e a d ini; �/ lac k spo _csman of the d ay and onl:r occasionall~r rrote poetry . His prose 1. e e and . n Sa.t i sfi d II provided fuel for oe:-:: 'I f rthcr discuss i on of co nte m orary racial issues. ~ stanzas, of it i s r e mi nisc en t of Fent ,0n ._.Tob nson (''.T i red" ) &eSL,e~P.irx.k <::J and l"1ar 6 aret Wal rnr good s tud ents Co nsistinc 1 ( "F or Hy People ")., ~i ll produc~lan:r ile he was pr incipal at C eyney Trai ninc for Taac ers (later Cbe~n y tate Colle ge ). 1-:ordswort:.'1 , I: l ton and B 1rns . ch ool e at tended ~ a rvard taug t at Tus egee; ': : . n d ,1 1is 1 1 t e rary i nfluences an ,,,,.rt~ -aJ?-e Lon gfellow , Hi s p ' lis he d 1-1or s ar e Tre ~- ing s M. of O '"'ressio n (1 , 22) a nd Toussaint L ' O:rdrt r e -/;.A Dra r.iati c Hi stor-:--- Roy L . ~11: , poet a ..1: 1/e d cat:., is a prot~ i:se .... 9 2 ~ ) . 1i1. ...M of t:: c s eni o ~il~ 1 "Wt.tq« I\ ~; ith '·fas:-:: i ngto .-ty::ie f0el:l.. ::.~s a' 01 us teat 1..,e i l_ 11 - , t race relat io ns . J ~·h 1s o n : ,,... l is 1~ 7 71; , n J-.,, - ! laced !:e tel_s ::os t 6 ri ';)inc l:: s no ~ i c tly ," a poe t c d i s t i _la t i o:1 #,c,.arl~s ..... strenc t :·:ourn t e travail of ..::~ race ." ~ - i-."' --. t 7 :o f eels~ tiJ·:~~fro-Ame ):;Wj~~ constrai ed o ~press i on to 3 i7e ~-: i :-: -:, i n: _, n _,, ~ , " ✓ - - d 1 -i ,, s - as a!'l • oetr:- i s a .d s 0ri a~, J. --- nr--1 ..... - - <.;:.. _ fSr' 'C,J ),..,I o .:e ri ::: rork in �""'1 .... -. ... ~!- 1 T_ti C" ..:_ c c r::::i . 1 -- ......, r..._ .,--, ,. - i ,- " ~-v, ~ t"l ~ ~:~.:~~p:~ ~;~l~i~e~-~~ ~<1qW; .. .J ._L,....., .... ...,,.. l.. Dandr i d::;o ' s poetr~r i s -"I _ , ... \ ~.. ,, '-- _,,. , , ~ ~~~c.K;i.,.~~\.,tL :e s _,. ..._, ~ '- !'ac i o. :1. .; ~ c o:--:,t '::i "': c t o :S i J 11 8-d ·; ~_:: : es: I •~ to ..) --.- c t 1_,e .; r :. if c "for sor.: t'-- t ::::. 11 J.?;)S:!:0:1t::r eD:~(}ttcred '•:r t he ab or ted Reconstructio n and contemporary vi olence a gai nst Blacks, h e asks: Or can it be you fear t he grave Enough to live and die a s lave ? "Zalka Peetruza II recalls McKay 's 11Earl e m Dancer II in that every part of t he woman is dancing "~ save her face." A native of n Cinci~\t,i, Dandridge suffered a stroke when he was O years i' old_, whi cb left bis le gs and right arm paralyzed. Thereafter writing most of b is poetr~r fro m h is bed, b e published The Poet a nd Other Poems (1 92 0 ) and Zalka Peetru za and Other Poems (192 8 ). Dandridge also wrote competent poetry in dialect and ¢ I ✓ 1 I U was a disciple of Dunbar.1/ Bohantn and McCall contributed poetry to various magazi nes . ✓ If • A teacher from Washlngton, D.C., Bohan~ did not publish a volume. Neither did NcCal 'ly wh o be came ~ beC.fAlJSe OP,an editor of the Independent aft e r PECOIIM'1g . blind typh oid. A Angel i na ~rimke pub lished a three-act play (Rachel) in 192~ but her poetry remains uncollected . Born in Boston , s h e was �educated in various schools ~ several states, and later taught English for many years at Dunbar High School in Washington, he1t Jfr-e~"-"'~~ D.C. More than slightly& 17 llag/\Gwendolyn Brooks,,r• L ■ nGadt ;• Ar poetry contains some of the most distilled language in modern i.<-iflt,,Ut,.trl,1 American literature. ,r»d?f · t , precise and poignant, she writes of love, seasons, darkness and high spirits during her maturing y ears ~ 11 eg , n the phrase "the)'ew Negro. Although she had ----- been publishing poetry in periodical~ her first big break came when she was included in Cullen's anthology \ Caroling Dusk (1927) . houJ~e/) Not until the sixtie./~would such lines as t h e following take on their full political /cultural significance: ,~1y , beautiful still fin ger, are y ou blac k ? And why are y ou pointing upwards? In 11 The Want of You/ eve n t he moon and clouds j oin i n "the crying want of you. S • 11 Long overdue is a detailed study of '¼,~e.Lt~O.. I 'It Grimke.4111 But she is included in the best anthologies of Afro: American poetry and literature. Critical comments on her work 3 2.. ( can be found in t he work of Kerlin, l_:( B~, who c~o.W1.c:mn3ec:J he.,,. wort.A~ ..., and Brown1 A"ir?ny and quiet despair "I. e.~cefon4L ~ AUs · 3 lent student i college and for sever~ years ,___ _ __, / i_ ' literary editor of the famous Crisis magaz n, Jesse F uset ~--- ~ also served as an interpreter for the Dtf ois-inspired Second Pan-African Congres ~ in London. A native of New Jersey , she attended Cornell (Phi Beta Kappa) and the University of Penn sylvania, and published four novels: There is Confusion (1924) , Plum Bun (1929), The Chinaberry Tree (1931) and Comedy , American �St ;:rle ( 1933). Her poetry appeared in numerous periodicals during the twenties and thirties. "Oriflamme, 11 Her skill is evident in her most fa mous poem. Inspired by a quotation from Sojourner Truth, the poem views the/ lack moth er "seared with slavery's mortal scars" but vows that her sons are , p Still visioning the stars! Black poets apparently spent time reflecting during t h e period l/a1~-r- - between the beginning of the century and the ARenaissance. So much of the poetry takes us into their private lives '-sometimes into racial tones and sometimes not. Some of J essie Fauset's verse, for example, mirrors h er knowledge of French (sh e tau 6ht the language and translated into English several West Indian French-speaking poets). This is seen i n t h e titles of some of ~e poems and in other places where she interpolates French words ~~he~poe.Ttiy l:S into t h e texts. Generally her tone is quiet A. neat and well written. Hawkins (a native of North Carolina) ,sraduated from olle ge in 1901 and worked for many years in t h e railway mail service. I n "Credo" h e announced : 4rl'rn:t I am an Iconoclast. With obvious irony, Hawki ns goe s on to claim h e is "an Anarch ist,n (see Brown) and "an Agnostic. 11 Additional irony and cynicism is seen in such poems as "A Spade Death of Justice." fs Just /. Spade" and "The In h is rus h of language and boldness of subject matter, Hawkins anticipates Tolson. His Ch ords and and Discords was published in 190~ and h is work appears in �-The Poetry of Black America (/t:3.off, 1973) and Kerlin's ~ anthologJj which includes critical notes. Brown also comments on Hawkins ( a "foreshadow II of new "Negro Poetry 11 ) . Harris, 1-Irs. Fleming, !{rs. Newsome, Roberts , ~ :i 'i # Jessye, Shackelford., Jamison., Wilson, Mrs . Johnson , Raza.1'; ter i A:ro , Burrell and Bailey were among oth er poets contributing to various periodicals of the day. Harris brough t out The Steel Makers and Other War Poems in pamphlet for m in 1918 . He served as e'ditor of t h e Richmond (Indiana) Blade and publish ed sh ortt stories in The Century. 11 Tbe Steel Makers 11 is emotionally and technically a kin to some of the work orfwhitman \ Walt Sandburg . Jand Ct.\-lL It praises t he steel2,w orkers M among wh om Harris himself numbered at one time . In another place, Harris asks the white man to accept him since , despite color and feature 1 differences, "'t Th e Negro's t h e same as the rest. Harris' work can be found in Kerlin's book.1/Yrrs. Fleming publish ed Clouds and Sunsh ine (1920) in Boston at t h e inceptio n of the /enaissance. Mrs. Newsome, wb o writes pr i marily for children, did not publish a volume of poems until 1940 (Gladiola Garden). 1 Among the "earliest Negr o.es to employ free verse with artistic effe ctiveness II were Raz af'ker i efo and Will Sextpn tw ..;~1#.o fq.)b,r o-.1,00.s "-Sexton contributed to various peri odicals, as did Razaf 1 e i efoJ whose work appeared in The Crusader and The Ne gro World. through the t heme of the day, Sexton announced : I am the New Negro. Carrying �Taken from "The New Negro" .- this line will be seen again in various places and temperaments> including •Tolson' s "Dark 11 Symphony. In "The Bomb Th rower II Sexton plays tbe role of "America's evil genius" and sardonically proposes a reversal of the ideals of J'emocracy. Razafkeriefo, born in Wash ington, D. C•.1 to A.fro-American and Hadagascaran parents, /only/_hag/ an elementary education. He asks, in "The Negro Church ," for "manly, thinking preachers" And not shouting money-makers, after declaring (in the ma nner of a Stokely Carmichael, Halcolm - X or Rapl Brown) t h at t he church has great "power." Preach ers, be warns, s h ould work to Tlf'i t t h e Negro" 1 For this world as well as h eaven. , i In addition to anger and impatience, t h is poet also expresses race pride and praises "The Negro Woman." If it were left up to him to pick a woman for "queen of the hall of fame ," h e would "select the wonderful Negro woman. 11 <fhurrell, wh o con~ tributed poetry to ma gazin~ , ech oes Razafkeriefo in "To/ Negro }ioth er. 11 In four e4. gb =e -linef stanzas (using iambic octa ~ meter) Burrell celebrates the mother. () ...xa ~ grace and fortituden of t h e )fiack Recalling that greatness of f lack h istory, he asks fu . ; ..Jt2J\"O ~&fth.. mother to V,~i \ :? f ) ~,;;t/ '1;;, ~ - 11 Create anew the captains or the past; (_I in your soul t he Ethiopian power, • • • The preceding two poems call to mind Hughes •s \"The Negro Mother," Watkins' - -- -- - 1 1Ebon 1"laid and Girl of Mine," Hrs. Joh nson's - - - - -- - - - - - 11 To My �11 ...._ Dodson 's "Blac k ?-Ioth er Pray inc , a nd oth er moving tributes to t h e Ai'r o-Ar.ie r i c an woman • <//,.1 il s on • s "S o01e{ Grandmother, 11 .._ b ody ' s Child" is not 1300d poetr-:ir 'but its subject is. :_e worked as a printer and t be atrica~ performer a nd serv ed ti me ~---- whe. tte in t~1e Hi s souri Stat e Penite ntia.r:r dna i.11 .._, 4/ . !ei!s .t,i.:., .e,._:: e pu t ) S?:-: a.c ~rnlford was a i.mti ~re togetbe1"' a s 111all b ook of l1is verses . ?h iladelph ia Art 1-l useum. Hi s bo ok ~-Iy Cou ntr:" and Ot,~er Poer.:s ~ was publish ed in Philadelph ia in 1913. Jamison publish ed ~foo-o Soldiers and Oth er Poems in South St . Josep~1 , :I5.ssouri , in 1918. Jamison writes ab out "Castles in t'be Air, nEopelessness II and 11 ~e Her:;r o Soldiers. 11 something of t':1e flavor of Dunbar's 11 11 l ove , T1--: e latter poe m ':1 a.s Colored S oldi ers" and salutes the bravery and coura 6 e o:f f lack troops wh ose grandly r ise. 11 These troops, ~ America instead of seeking 11 11 souls on points out, fou ght for veng~ de for t h eir wrons s." I\ A native of i•Iissouri, Bailey's only volume o:f poems @rhe Firstling) was released in 1914. r baseball L( vi a ..Q..h t lstian s ym )Olis m) ga~ "The Slump" ma kes a. analo g ous to t ._e hardships of / lac k life: J Well, we're all at t h e b at ~ and warns t h at the nball may b e h urled" as a plea. "Hr . Self n is at t he bat but 'f There's t h e Beggar and Gatei - nd a wh ispering voice from above call nstrike t h ree." 9v0....,.ftt!essye wrote moving poetry but is much b etter known �for h er work in developing and l eadi ng professio nal ch oruses. Born in Kans as, sh e r e ceived musical training at Wester n .. Uni versity in Kansas and Langston University in Oklah oma. - Hoving to New York City in t h e twenties , she c.onti nn1ee. wor k~ wit w/ I\ .....,,.,, fi gures -H-ke Will Harion Cook, J. Rosamond Johnso n, Hall Johnson and oth ers. In h er famous concer ts ar ound t h e world she bas used work from Por gy and Bess, Joh n Work 1 s compositions ~ a nd tha.t. of t h e men listed above . Her pub lish ed collections i nclude 1-~y Spirituals (1927), The Life of Christ in Negro §.giritu~l ~ (1931), Paradise Lost and Regained (Hilton•s work adapted tofo ac k songs, 1934), and The Chronicle of Job. (a fol::: dra:-:~a, 193 6 ). I '.'.'1porta:-it fo r t:~e sar.ie re aso :1s ::-ioted i q or discussio n of Alex Ro gers, .b<i.-VfJessy e successfully comi )''~ . ~~m bi ned t h e . poetic and t he musical lancuage (t:-i ouc;h t h ey are so s i milar to start with !). Her poem 11 The Sinr;er 11 recal l s t he ·work of Corroth ers, Dunbar; t:oh nson_j Jamesl , a nd numerous oth er poe ts wh o ha ve brid ged the gap between t h e two art f orms. One is rer.ii nded of Johnson' s "O Black and Unknown Bards 11 in i_'j:,.YJ:. Jessye' s statement t h at t he singer's "speech was bl unt and manner plain. 11 Like t he "unknown bards, song was "but t he essence of t he heart. 11 11 h is unlettered Her poems, published ' i n newspapers during t h e twenties, sh ow f li gh t h eartedness a_ V but _,, • sincerity and /\sense of convict ion . She writes about "spring " and t h e "Rosebud; ' and wh ile sh e i s not singularly distinguish ed as a poe t, li er l i fe's work is a n indispensable float in t h e grand parade of creat ivity i n �the arts. ~ iht In choral work, H!i.aa Je ■■ sto' is especially noted for her direction of the Original Dixie Jubilee Sineers, later named the Eva Jessye Ch oir. ,,------. hµ. of aHi: ■ ■ I 11 Pt 1 For a thoroueh discussion '&/,life and works ( along with th of h er co temporaries)) see Eileen Southern's The Husic of Black Americans. For poetr:" s_elcctio:1s , see Kerl n. !It During t h e period of t he ~Renaissance, poets such as Georgia Johnson, Jessie Fauset, Anne Spene r I Alice Dunbar = Nelson, Hill, McKay, Jame s Weldon Johnson, Dandridge and Cotter 1 (Who had achieved reco gnition before r- 1923), continued t heir output either t hrough magazines or book\ publication~ Much of this work is recorded in Johnson's The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922, 1931 ) 1' ~:3:::lin' s Ne gro Poets and Their Poems (1923, 1935) and Conter.iporary Poetry of t h e Ne gro (1921), a nd in ot:., er sue:."} co ...:l'i~a t:to ~s a n per ioc.i cals. A~~e Spencer was born in Wes t Vir ginia and studied at the Virginia Se minary in L:tnchbur gJ where s __ e h as spent most of her life. (she recently relocated in California~ fllttt ua, for a long tim~A\rt;arian at Dunbar Hi~h Sch ool in Lynchburg . This poet's work h ardly ever reflects racial or political con cern~ but s he is one of t h e most technically1sure of all J lack poets. She writes about women, love, carnivals and t he workings of the mi nd . In its brevity and conciseness, h er poetry anti cipates t he work of Gwendolyn Brooks and is loosely a kin to Angelina Grimkf 's (though vt h e latter's work is raciallyl flavored). Her poetry also bears some kinsh ip to t he 1I magist • sch ool of - ..,I �poet , writing in t h e early years of t he century. Elements of a.L>t1 t h is particular t echnique a nd style can~be see ~ in Hayd~n.. . ~ ~. ~~ 11 ( The Diver , n ulJigh t-Blooming Cereusf , and others:' . ,4 "At Th e Carnival 11 we s mell sausage and garl ic t h at i Sent unh oly incense skyward and are told (in an echo of t h e ronantics) t hat ~v 1-vhat ever is good is God. 11 Dunbar 11 laments "h ow poets sing and die! eulogized J lack poet in t h e same class and .K. ea t s. tt-e~mos t ~ ib!!EBapoasu l!S 11 al.Y w±i,h and places t he Ch atterton, Sh elley · · moving poem, i·t seems , is "Translation/ where in two lovers r.aver speak., I But each knew all t he other said. Calling :::ier t h e "most original of all Negro women poets," ft □ lllaa Brown advised, in 1937, t h at 'h er '1sensiti-re, and keenly d be "collected for a wider audience." ut ~s o , no one h ad undertaken Brown's su ggestion. Al\n-e Considering her span of ye ars, ..,_~ Spencer (somewh at like Hayden) has not been prolific. Her work can b e found in se veral antb ot logies and periodicals of t he twenties. Critical assess ments are given by Kerlin, Brown and Johnson. James Weldo n Johns on, we not ed earlier, published Fifty Years and Other Poems in 1917. ----7D: :: .JlJr 'r~ncluded dialect as well as conventiona~ itandard~English commemorati ve pieces. Not h i ghly original, the work was one more step in the long and fruitful development of perhaps t he most important f'igure in the h istory of f lack poetry . It seems Johnson was involved �in as many things as could have been hu;nanly possible. After ht\ VOl.vfn'lt.l\ f his 11 1 (\on Broadway (with ligh t operas), h e worked for t he re-election of Theodore Roosevelt, served as United States Consul (a reward for his political work) in Nicaragua and Venezuela, published (anonymously ) The Autobiography of / n Ex-Colored Man in 1912, wrote editorials (for more t h an QQ) secretar:r~general-L wor .dng i n that post for ~ \.:'.:j) N\ ye ars . A deeply psyc .olo 6 ical wor1: , Autobio 6 raphy dealt wi t 11 sue"": an explosive contemp orary topic J -the theme of passing- Lt hat Johns on /V\ -----= IV\ would not affix h is own name to it until it was reissued durin 6 the ;(enaissance (1927) with an introduction by Carl Van Vechten. The conventional poetry of Fifty Years shows Johnson to be politically at the t hresl"' hold of t h e "awakening." ¥: Sri ti; V Brown stated, incorrectly, that Johnson's "Brothers" was t he most "vigorous poem. of protest fro m an~r Negro poet up to h is time." We know that Whitfield , Whitman , D ois, Hawkins and others were just as strong and forceful. Fifty Years was highl:r praised by Braithwaite ("intellectual substance") , Bra er Mf.thews ,'~h ould be grouped with t he noblest American commemo l (i\ ~ t\ ~ ( rative poem~), and other influential critics. This first book ti. strength, ~ irility M and robustness t hat would mark '-- Johnson's future writings /V\especially God's Trombones (1927). The poems are patriotic {"Fif'ty Years/ which commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation), nos talgic { 11 0 Southland!"), descriptively amorous ("The Glory of , ' ~ or"), the Day ~ as in Her Face"), strong and v~rile ("The Young Wa~ �.-I/"' / ~ - -::J race-proud (angry) and didactic (~ rothers ")) and fundamental .s and reli gious ( 11 0 Blac k and Unknown Bard/ '). The last poem, more i mportant for what it records t b a ~h ow it is assembled, ~ /\ is an artistic tribute e:f t h e makers of t he / piri tuals. Using actual words and names from .fpirituals, Johnson weaves in t h e strength and artistry characteristic of the~ songs h e loved '4 and to which he devoted so much research and listenine time. Oreat aJ:, he says, is produced b y These simple ch ildren of t h e sun and soi l . Johnson knew, too, t h at these makers would not e O b lack s i ave singers, gone, for~ot, unfamed , if work of t he sort h e was doing continued in t h e '!J ands of those t o wh om he pas s ed t!1e torch . Alt _ ou,)'} Fift:r Years is stron0 , solid work , it is l at er t hat Jo!1n:::on ~ cones .!1to :1j_s own as experi~1entalis t and pac e s et ter. Ge or 6 ia Joh nno!i al s o ,;rote race-c o:1s c ious 17-rics . $; ~ t\ ....___..... e.r ii? t!1 ,3mes ay,e s« c,:;csted in h er ti tle s: . . . The _:eart of I q,-i) Woman (1918 ), Bro nze (1922) and An Autumn Love C:rcl~ "Skillf ul and fl'::)t," her poetry deals primarily 11ith loneliness, sorrow, seasons-" unre quited loveJ and is intellectuall.,,rt b ased. T:'1e first . w}~ gnition as a r i lack woman after Frances Earper to ach ievekreco poet, she is explicitly racial in Bronze alth ough allusio ns to 1 Sh~ J'lackness sometime:appear in h er other work. Yet~ seems to know something about the heart of all women (and men) when she says the singer's songs ~ 1 Are tones that repeat �Th e cry of t he heart 0 Till it ceases to beat. 0 "The Oct~roon II deals with a woman who is tainted b ecause she is t he victim of One drop of midnight in the dawn of life's pulsating stream but who finds h ospitality in the )!lack community . His Critics/ 11 humble fold"- Lpresuma.bl y t h e Tb is poem recalls Cott ~ The Mu la tto to / f Sr, '.s i' wh ich depicts t he multit racial predicame nt of one {probably Cotter h i mself) made up Of Red Han, Black Man., Briton, Celt , D and Scot, but wh o loves t h e dark-s kinned, . curly;:::haired race t hat "puts s weet music in my Qi eot'J t lJ,.. SOU~ - ~ tension in "To My Son,!" •xj~h~ p s a similar .-.zbc~ ~ b etween advising her son t h at ._. "dusky pall or shadows screen t h e h i ghway of '-- sky" and encouraging him to "storm t h e sullen fortress II founded on racism. In addition to writing such powerful and lasting jl.,"!l!:(h " ~ rJi••••• was of service to young writers for several Poetr-."1 , ~r-~4i.ra......i.e,■ decades. A female counterf part to Langston Hu ghes, s he h osted regular and spontaneous writers' meetings in her h ome in Washington, D.C • ., wh ere she moved after receiving academic and musical training at Atlanta University and Oberlin College . A native of Georgia, she was employed in government service most of h er adult life. For critically introduced selections of her work, see Barksdale and Kinnamon, Johnso ~ and Kerlin. Brown also supplies a good �asse s s me nt . We s h ould note, i n pas s i ng a nd by way of introduc tion to Fenton Johnson, I-I . Binga Dis mond (1 891~19.56)1 wh o did not publish a v olume of poetry until 1 943 (We Wb o Woul d Di e ). Di smond , like Johnson and Frank :-:ars!la ll Davis1 was one of t he ma ny writers of t ~ e period wh o -1as not p:~y si c ally prese nt i n Harlem duri ng t .1e fa naissan c e . a nd , a trac k s t a r Dismond was b orn in 1 i r g i nia (as was Frank Horne ); studied pb ysical t: .era;-:r a t Rush r:e d ic al College after attending Eoward Uni v ersi t:• Acader.iy and t l-:e Uni ve rs i t:r of Ch i c a g o_. c ipation in t .e/ n•1" (T~e Hidwest ' s pal't · qtvt~ o..oect..tHJ..~~ enaissance r>. a.s"-b ee'fl~rpm f.J 1; · r11 1 ½M~ml 6$1 i'L ) Dis mond, ·t-rb o Hrote so., e crisp and po i [;:.1ar:~ poetr:- of lo·.-e a nd protest, is more i r.1portant t o us dt rin.::; t :~i s period for _1is journali sti c ~-1 or {. :'Ti t:1 Jo~._son , :1e edited The c _. a ::7ipio n (starting i n 1916) for se veral ~e ars. ::a0 azi::e They The Fav orite :ia 0 a z i ne ( nTl1e World ' s Greatest :-=ont .. l:r 11 ) w:i'eG~ 1 tkt.•·-- t'Fu _ 7 1 iii& published Apoems and art ic _es . Johnson h ad se ve ral of h i s plays perfor r.i.ed in Ca. icag o ' s Pekin The a tre ~-rhen !1e u as ni neteen a nd is genera_ -:r seen as 0¥1t t he raost creativ e link~ , etwe en t:1e poets of Dun'!;ar ' s era awd I th H l n a:i.· s s ~~ a nc e . B or ·n i_n C. i- c a g o ~ ., 1:.,. •\. J1 r-., eco no ..-t~c a.:.. ~ r ' : /'} e atte nded t ."e cit~-rf s r).a '.'!e s a k e : l i·,rersit:r and tau gh t scho ol for a year in t 'b e So 1t~1 . ~~e priva tely pub l i shed t h r ee vo l u~IBS of p oetry , one (A Litt le Dr eami .G, 191?) in C'h ic ago, and two ( Visi o ns of t i e Dusk, 191.5; and S on~s of the Soi l , 1916) in !.ei·1 Yorl5 w:1ere _ e l ived f or a s h ort time. iarr iet 1-Ionro0 and t "The !Tew ;oetry 11 groupt b ad estah lis'!-:? ed oP' �Poetr:r (1912) L 1 :: is l: o,;1e tow n, n :1d Jo .nsor. i;iade co r.tac t w:.t'"' le er . I n 192 , i"'h !;-, "" P"'· lis'•cd Ta _cs of Darkest A:ccerica ~ A participant in t b e "poetr~ rev i val" i ~ ~~ort stories . A nerica, Joh nson :.-~ ad b is wor { a ccepted for Poetr:rt and t :1e an-t .. olo ,. . i es Ot:-iers (19_6, 1917, 1920) , T!: e :~ew Poetr:r a r. An Ant bo lo;:;:r of American Poetr:r: _ L:.rric A,. er ica, 1630Q1 93 . I ✓ and tl"'at F~,it say i n,:: 1/ oh nson was , 1 timat e l ~r t _e poet of "des·pair" :1e ~ was t:1e onl:' poet ri ti ng i n s ch ~ rnin ( as Br ow ~, Reddil~ G, Jo -,~s on , ~-ac;ner , a nd ot'~ers :::a-,-e done ), cri tic s l o~ J?resented~ t of t l': e 1,ia n . ~ a nd :J ~:1 ':mr.:; ; !!e did orrow fro l"!l :~nsters, Li 1dsa7 t:::!.3 allm-red ~ir: to v oic e so:::1et}-:ii::c relat i v el:- ., e•,ri n / °"ac ., poe tr:• .r'- Ee\~ro·; i ditg an a·:e nue h,(experi. eni;t e<c:h«nge. bfA~1 tf:'j1a c :~\~do~r[~porar i es . But in p oe ms such as "Tired , n "Th e Ba nj o Play er, 11 11 Tbe Scarlet Woman" and "Rulers II b e displays mu ch more t h a n "despair . " Reflecting , a.s Brown noted, t h e "two extremes of Ne gr o poetry after 1914," Johnson can deal with eith er t h e )rawling urban blues or t he down- h ome , "we s h all ov erco~ ' motifs. Because h is work d oe s not co ntain a co nsistent sp irit of h ope, 8r sj-a..-.t,g .;::::::___,... Weldon Joh nson s aid 'h is riessage mirrored ideas nforei r;n to any ph il os ophy of life t h e Negr o in America 'h ad e ver preac::1ed or pract i c ed . the 11 Johnson t hou gh t t is was 11 sta.rtlingtt de spit e 1 "'oirt~ about t h e same time as Fento n Johnson's wor k , of •f · Handy tbe b lues era-~ a nd t be work of W sometimes calle~ a civ ilizatio n "father. 11 ( 1.3 73,; 1958 ~ wh o is Fenton Johnson is "Tired II of ,_ , h as g i ven b i r.i 11 too many" ch ildren and �no ch ance for t h em to share i n t he American dream. Eo proposes to h is wife t h at t h ey Throw t b e ch ildre n i.1to t h e ri ver: and observes that ••• It is better tfdie t han it is to q grow up and f'ind out t h at you are / colored • .'l~ ~ Johnson writes about roustabouts, prostitutes, va ~ants, ~ aborers> eu~J IAu"i,u,11\tWtl \CIMJ/ ; · aai strong will) and is, as Jay Wr ~h- -~id~ of Henry Dumay poet of t h e dispossessed. (and it1211 11 11 t he He is also t h e poet of t he blues ...__, ' • 81col!l!wo1 'ui 1,ui!c@i bh&b HtLc 1.s!l:&63 JIG a fi68e!0..I ubi1g. 'Io In breaking away from traditiona:,.Pack poetic dictio n and form, Johnson not only received influence from t h e wh ite experimenters lr.M" of free versek he borrowed h eavily from t he b l ues and, at t h is leveli must share some of the accolades usually reserved almost solely for C: @?i.Hugh es. 0 It is now widely accepted that the b lues do not simpl:· preach resi gnation. To the contrary, t he blues, telling about heart ache and personal failures, carry h ope in the singing and the going on. Hargaret Wal :rer is only one of t he many poets whose work seems to reflect t h e influence of Johnson.A/Jo we really believe t hat Joh nson meant for t he ch ildren to be t hrown in the river f ,/n+ ore than we take the bl~es singer literally wh en he promises to "lay rrry h ead down on some railroad track 11 ? Johnson's "note of despair" is one mor-e 'brilliant ~Vlhl\Loqic.o..L ' distillation of the strange l)ill!J&&m1~if\web T.ua>_....~ ,aia'1 tu i!lii,i!liOP produced t he sorrow songs, the j pirituals, the ditties, jokes, r hymes and / �blues. At t h e t ime Joh nson wrote h is poetr~ Handy was com posing some of h is most famous blues songs ( 11 st. Louis Blues, "The :Memph is Blues, ff 'Yellow Dog Blues 11 ) and arrangi d ().// blues pieces Travel<;'· 1er, ~ 11 ..__.. ~ 11 aditional I I nTrain' s A-Comin," "Let Us Ch eer t h e Weary "Come on, Eph ," and "Juba." And in t h is list alone s locked partial answers to much of t h e work of several Afro-American writers: .._,Hughes, Walker, Tolson, Wrigh t, Brown, Jayne Cortez, Gil Scott-Heron and numberless oth ers. It is possib le t hat critics looking at Joh nson were ~ ,~re~ pared for b is irony and poetic assimilatio n of t hemes and ~ jfv,evious.Lv \ feelin gs Ptivhzi]F3IXJs~gloss~d over by Christianity and oth er anesth etics. I n nRulers~n Joh nson dis cusses a "monarch II on "Lombard Street i n Ph iladelph ia , " wh o "was seated on a t hrone of flo ur b ags . " Near t he "monarch II two y oung b oy s with guitars l play ed "ragtime t unes of t h e day . " Clearly t h is 11 :nonarch 11 (a p ac k ~l ab orer~ in reality) is being serenaded and saluted just as any oth er -ruler • would b e. -...,., -._,I of t h e b l ues ( "~a.gtime 11 ) . He presides as a prince Joh nson 's work is i n most anth ologies of Afro- American poetrY.';) and critical assess ments of h i m have already been noted. For more t h orough discussions of t he poetry-blues concep\ seE}.._ Steph en Henderson's_,U~n_,__,___-= ~.tl, "tt-t°til ~ t h e New Black Poet r y / .-,. i 1L i or;rapty ~A ];ftit,Zi ._ At t h e dawn of tbe .:. ar leci Renais s a nce, t here slimi'.;ol..: ., e of poetry eared a :~ Se amon Cotter, Jr . "'!!!!_'JJ~~~~~ pr ecoc i ous s on of the Cott er alre ady disc us s ed . ~ t be Young Cott er di ed a n earl:r de at!J wh i ch cut s~ ort t h e wor k of one of the �most promising fi gures in Af'ro-American poetry. Born in Kentucky and frail fro m childh ood like Dunb ar, Cotter :1ad to end his colle ge career at Fisk University wh en h e de v eloped tubercul4x3\• . An i nnovator, as was h is fat h er, Cotter s h ows a s h arp awareness ( in The BAnd of Gideon, 1918 ) of t h e pli ght of Blacks and an even sharper ability to express t h at pli g~ t along with oth er sentiments and feelings. He ech oes Much of ;(lack poetry's concerns in "And Wh t Sh all . I Sa_ ' ,~1ai n i'·1(s ic 11 }L::,i,... j ef.per-,rne,,13 anticipates \)lf!Y of' Hughes 's p,{ ~ .s tl · 2!•·/\in The Weary Blues, "Jazzonia, 11 and so on- Lwh en h e recalls t he "dusty earth -drum" M which hammers fallin g rain~ Now a whispered murmur, 0 Now a louder strain. Bearing t h e i mport of much of the "exotic II J la.c k literatur e of t h e renaissance, Cotter neverth eless sees in t h e b eat of· t h e (_!) ~-#"Irr---. ')r ,:,._,;i ~~or f~f S l e nder, silvery drumstic ks a rejuve nation of life as ordered b~r God, "th e Great l'Iu sicia.n. a/ -= ,-- \/ Cotter b e gan wri ti~ poems lih P e a tee 9',a g er. Eis tech nique, _ ~rrton ~ ~.,,,., ~oh nson ' s, combines t h e b est of tro.di tional Western / t>e,.wY' poetry with t l1 e neu wave of free v erse. ,) love, "Ue gro Soldiers , @ --r own illness. 11 His poe., s a.re ab out reli~ion, ..flackness, justice and h is "Is It Because I Am Bl ~ • seems to ha ve looki ng forward to a l 960~ een "soul II song of a sit:1ilar title wh erei n t 'te singer sa:rs (r; ~ Sometb inG is h olding me b ack! Lawd , is it ":-:iecause I' m Bl a c k ? I n ~ ~ooen Cott er asks wll:r wh ite s a.re so ar.1azed tl'., a t e ca. n 11 l!, kt. �"stand II in t~: :: ir i r:porta.nt :1e eti ncs, l ook tirnrn st r ai _:,__t in t>e fn.cc , a r:d 11 spea~c t !1c ir to :::.::,t:{'A:j Cott erR work app ears L1 '=''~0 3 ook: of Ame rican ~Ie.:;ro ?oe t r:; , 1Je~ro Caravan ., :1:erlin ' s study ( 1 The stamp of tbe African mind is upon" Cotter)., and T:~e Poetr:" of Black Americ a . Al t b oue;b Kerlin submits brief critical comr.ients., a study of t b is young poet's work is sorely needed. He[iert\ alsotseveral plays and unpublished sonnets. Ci)c PR01HETS : LThe Harlem Renaissance \ ._, if .... A wave of lon ging t hrough 1/ my b ody swept . ·. Claud e i1cKay c--- The Harlem Renaiss ance fsee s ection 'f of t b ls eh apter) ~ is normally seen as a dec ade-length (1920 1 ~ 30 ) of cultural and artistic activity in what James Weldon Joh nson cal_ed t h e Ne 2,- ro cultural capit~. There is h arriless dis agreement as to wb er. t _e~naissance actually b e gan and h ow long it l asted. 1935 . Some say it started in 1925 and ran until Others gi ve t be first time span_; mentio ned ab ove. Still others (includi ng Wa gner., Black Poets of t h e United States) (1 ~,.,, ~~ ~- ._, .,... •at v"' t '.,. . c "'t' er .;- od{/ ,_ e t Trcn .. v • . +-v 1d ~e +-Tro •,•or ln " - ,. •.7!)..,.,.,. . "'- .L. .., (,- c, 0 iJ, ... ,,.,39 ) • ~ ; ..._ _, ~ j oets of t h eAt naissance- ~which included dance, painting ., sculpture, mu sic, t heater, literature., science and sch olarsh ipMI knew and read ea.c:1 oth er's works. Ironically ., h owever., only one of t h e leadi n 0 fi gures is said to h ave ,..., been born in Uew York City: . . . . ,C ountee Cullen (1903/~46)1 and �he w0;s rai s ed in the "conservative at mos pher e of a Meth odist ~tlf-b· parsonage, 11 the adopted son of a mini s ter. Hugh es " (1902J '"' 67) s pent much of t h e decade of t h e twenti es traveling i so did Claude McKay (1890~194 8 ); who wandered over "Europe and /V J::'~~ouv North Africa" j in many instanctis t ""a lone; way fro m h ome. 11 Jean Toomer (1 894f 1967), disturbed and h aunted by h is com~ plex eth nic background, was a mysterious fi gure wh o died the same year as Hughes in the anonymity of a Quaker commune in Philadel phia (obscure after h aving years before). '- gi ven up writi ng several tio.n/2,, " Often called "minor" writers of t ':1e Ren ai s sance, neither sterling Brown (19 01was born in New York. I\ - ) nor Arna Bontemps (1 902N .., 73) And neith er publi sh ed books duri ng t h e twentie ~ but t h ey did have poems accepted by such ~agazines as The Crisis and Opportunity. EcKay , label ed t h e renai ssanc e ' s poe t of a ncer a nd: rebelli on , Kn•-' "h is famous sonnet l "If We Hust Diei" wh ich win~s is chiefly,for l 4 down (up?) to t h e following couplet: Like men we' l l face the murderous, 0 0 cowardly pack , Pressed to t h e wall , dying , but □ fi ghting back! wrote it in 1919 shortly after that took hundreds of/ lack lives. ' as the be ginning of the l!I )Ii! ------- Many critics use t he date j enaissance . But McKay had ma.de �his entry i nto t he Harl em world of letters two years earlier (1917) with t he publication of two poems ("Harlem Dance II and ~ - ~ "Invoc a tion 11 ) in Seven Arts Magazine. He came t o ~ in kl APvov~ 1912 fro m h is native Jamaica, where he~Amuch European lit erature and philosophy, to study agriculture. Enrolling first at Tuskegee and later at Kansas state College, he finally went on to Harle111; where he worked as a porter , waiter and restaurant pro~etor. Before leaving Jamaica, McKay had established bis reputation as a poet of dialect poetry with his Songs of Jala i ca (1912) and Constab Ballads (1912), the latter work reflecting b is onef time e mployment as a policema n on t he i sland . In New York , h e gained quic k entrance into literary and political circles, establish ing a life long friends h ip with Max East man (who wrote a biograph ical note for Selected Poems ) (1953 ~. McKay counted among b i s friends some of t h e f luential l iterary and political fi gures of t h e day: '-' Joh n Reed, Floyd Dell (The Masses), Waldo Frank, Frank Harris (Pears on ' s Ma gazine), =~ c 1 s Gar ve~ (Negro TTorld )i and others. Fiery and f orceful, McKay was t h e sub ject of much attention a nd di s cuss ion. Alth ough he ne ver joi ned t he Communist Party, h e ~.-w·'-,~" def e nded its s ta nd in most of t he publications/\he wrote~ .... nif Tle Mus t Di e II wa s r ead into t he Congressional Record as an example of / iack unr es t and resentment. In fur McKay l eft t e Uni t ed Stat es i n 1919 , re turned for a brief period the fol l owing year, and left agai n to travel all over Europe and North! Africa for 5 l ears. He r eturned to America in 1934 ® �7 remai~until h i s death in 1943. HcKay's other volumes of poetry include Spring in New Hampshire (192 0, with a preface by the famous crit i c I ~A. Rich ards ); Harlem Shadows ( 1922) and The Dialect Poetry of Claude McKay (1972). Son 9s of .Jamaica was reissued in 1969; and a new volume of prose and poetry (The Pas sio n of Claude McKay) was published in 1973 . published writings, 1912!t{ in Chicago_, where ~ It contains published a nd un ""' 48. NcKay died obscure and poor ._, had gone to teach in Cath olic/ ch ools. His life, like t h&t of so many f lac k artists (Dunbar, Charl ie 11 Yardbird" Parker, Sam Cooke, Leroy Carr, Bli nd Lemon .Jefferson ~ ?t) Ito t'li... o.d.,tfid.n was lived with consurrw-te speed, fea~~o.nd tragedy . Though he lashed out at whites, his closest friend s were white; while he wrote defiant, ' angry and militant verse, h e denied t hat it pt-ecl1c~mtt1-t-. was inspired by - - - - - BlackiA tradictions and enigmas in h is life. to unravel t hem here. There are other conf, But we make no attempt Key s to much of McKay 's complexity , however, can be gai ned by reading b is autob iography (A Long Way from Home, 1 .37 , lS'? ), .J i s ovels \ { Home to Harle m (1928 ), Banjo (1929) and Banana Bottom (1933 ~, and h is many articles and short stories ( Gingertown (1932 ~. He also wrote a study entitled Harlem: ._,Negro Metropolis (1940). for McKay's poet ry is bis Selected Poems . T:e ~e st source I n many ways it is ironic that McKay is called t h e poet of anger ( Nathan Huggins 1 Harlem Renaissance) calls him t he "black Prometheus! '~ since most of his poems deal with quiet �topics s uch as mothei l..o) nature, nos talgia, loneliness, mental reflection, reli gion, world travel, and descriptio ns of c ity life. Of~terally doze ns of poems he published, only ~b out ten can be called "angry . " . ,,\ Of course., there is often seeth ing unrest (ll/jmewl4 I/ And I am sharp as steel with discontentF=l.J in much of t h e poetry t hat is not overtly violent. true of everyday j l ac k lif e. Such is And in this sense most / lack Americans could b e labeled "militant" or "viole nt 11 J - harb or i ng , ('I\ as it were, polarizi ng tensions ( "Baptis m" ) t h at make one defy all : ov1 I will comel\bac k to y our world of tear s, A s t ro nger soul with in a fi ner fr ame. Though one of t h e gr e at es t inf lue nces on) lac k t h ough t and art of h is day , McKay per h a ps did not know t hat h is writ ings i ns pir ed various s pokes me n for Afr ican nationalism: sldar Sengb or , Ousmane Soce and Ai. ~ Le opold t clsair e. And he i s today . Ii 1IJ . seen as t he ma Jor link between t he~~ naissance a nd t h e mil i tant writ i ngs of t h e 1960 s. Just as h is dialect poems (such as "Two-an '-Six") h ad ch armed a nd entertained h is fellow Jama ica r.s, t he disciplined anger of h is popular American poe ms incited and ins pired Blac ks, and titillated and fascinated wh ites. For during t h is period, wh ites around t h e world were indicating a new i nterestl .._ in Blacks ; a nd Blac ks , inspired by t h e growing national i s t feelings in s ome Europe an countries, found ready fuel a nd propaga nda in t h eir brother s of col or returning h ome �from t h e war. Ye 1} for all the anger, Nc Kay never swerved fror.1 h is use With Cullen-Lt b ou e;h not so of conventional English verse. religiously~ he avoided experimentation. f\,' The fol k materials of American Blacks, t he examples of Fenton Johnson and oth ers MI none of these see ms to have h ad much influence on Hc Kay . But his English is desi g ned to cage fury and passion in "sonnet: tragedie ~ n as James Weldon Johnson called t h em. Ab ove al ~ h e is a poet of passion, distrust, anger and h atred. We ha ve seen some hatred before in. flack poetry (Du~ ois, Gwendolyn a.: Be nnett ) but not q u i t e ~ we s e e i t in Hc .KaJj wh om Wa gner ✓ says "is par excellence the poet of b ate. 11 Such f e el ing is i,ta,,tY/ ! (j., e.xpressed,(?oems ~ "The 1"Jni te City, 11 nHulatto , 11 no ne Year Wllc-s:::J::-._-_,°'} ter, ' - - - -- -- 11 1 i!}ork I Love to Sing," and is not always the b ater. 11 Polari ty. 11 But lfo Kay He examines bate in t h e r. ands of whites ~ or as a product of Wes tern sickne s s a nd decadence, vented albe it on t he Blacks. The nobility of the f lack sou'!. lb is to stand above t his emotio n and not"-be de stroyed by it. Other t hemes in t h e wor k of :Mc Kay are t _.e i mpor tance of t h e e arth (and t ~e c ou'ntr:rs ide), disillu sionment ( see Du:-:a.s) with cit:r lif e , r ace D!'i de (c e ebrations of / l ac 1r. v irtue9 I ~ ( "E-1r1 em Dancer 11 ~ ' ast s. nd p~ird ti v is n a nd r oma ntic tr eatnent of Africa , Harl e n as spiri tua.._is m and reli g i on . :·lb i e 1-lcKay was not a n ex perif mentalist, h e did make t he sonnet form . a Pan-African c ross road, and unnoticed modifications in IMl.t.t As t h e fir s t _Jlack poet to --~sustai ned -A43>-P-e~tF-e~ use of the sonnet as a p olitical/racial weapon, b e mus t be - - - - --- - - - - �s i ve n cr ed it ( i nste ad of be i ng d i sparaged - Lc. f . Hu;~i ns) fo r /V\ turni ng t h is "wh i t e f orm i nto a veh icle of protest, love and rac e pr i de . We ob served t h at Lucian B. Watki ns opened h is s onne t to "The New Negr o " with CE~' He t hi nks i n black . ------ But in no oth er quart er, before or since HcKay, does a j 1ack poe t persist-Li nf using blues a nd tragic iro ny •.A"with t h e sonnet. M ' ( V\ Gwendolyn _B roo rn wi ll lat er i nvent h er me morable 11 sonnet-b allad. 11 And Culle n 's s onnet s certa i nl y must be taken i nto account. :n cKay ., h owe ver, endur e s with an ir onic i nco nclusiv e ne ss t h at ver ge s on t he 11 despair •11 .critics s eem to se e in Fento n Johnson. F or HcKay t h e sonnet is a f orm of t b erapy/4- a l i owi ng h i m to loose controll ed anger. ( 11 Eis is the .anger of a nati v e Jamaic"an h ome b oy 11 ) ca.u_gh t u p in t h e strait f j acket of wh ite literary amenitie l . He wa n..ts to be freed.. poetry -principally t h e sonnet. This open-endedne ss c an be #\-) s een i n "The Negr o' s Tr a gedy , and "The Lynch i ng . " 11 A! d freedo m comes t hrough 11 The Negr o's Frie nd , 11 "In Bondage, " As . a correct a nd carefully nurtured darling ..., , a,.J,1,w&... of .Wes ter n poetry , t he sonne t h ad been , in t h e annals of English /\ · ).i~•n. (.;"j:') li t era1:ure ·tf o;-_ c e ntl}ri s wh en }1c~YA nsf1!9 it.' Contai ning ~ ~ ~~ 1',el ~ .,M\,,c,, \\k'fM~ ~chf..-s li ne s ( inA,1{ t e tH• s tan za ic patt~rn~ , it is desi gned to pose -===----, a prob le m, squirm in it for a wh ile, a nd close in a neat. answer ~ve.lly ~~y l, :.-(1.f. s . wbichl\b e g ins with line nine, ~ the sei tet . · Presto! Just like s olving a prob lem in math e matics t 3tluU\ r, s no 4t ~°"" ~ 11Solv i iNS .-.,.~ : t e so easy ng " the _. ~ 11 solve " a lynch i ng . But be pla ces it i n t h e most awesome, · �gruesome contexts by equating t b e lynch i ng t h e crucifixion of Christ (see Cullen's The Black Christ and "Colors"), and failing to resolve the white man's moral and religious crisis. The blue-eyed women come to view t he body, but sh ow no sorrow1 And little lads, lynch ers that were to be, Danced round the dreadful t h ing in fiendis h (_ P glee. s Clearly this is not how Petrarch, Shakespeare, Spentr, Milton, Wordsworth, Arnold or Sanwana would have wanted t he pr oblem "solved." There was no answer ~ except for Blacks) "fighting back " her e a nd th er e.J- so McKay modified t h e conce pt of t he sonnet in order to deal with a real "prob lem." '/Afost --aiD So critics of /lac k literature and culture ha ve discussed McKay's work. His Selected Poems is available and h e is now bei ng repres ~ e ve n in wh ite "pres ti ge" anth ologies ,. ') on,\ y~ roo15.,....- ~ Th e United Stat es in Literature an 1·icKa;r to date is 'by Jean Uagn er (Blac k Poets). Another recent study (which includes prose writi ngs) is Arthur P. Davis'' From t h e Dark Tower: _Afro-American Writers, 190 to 1960 (1974) . Also see appendixes to most anth ologies,·t'NJ bibliography section of t h is work, and especially t he listi ncs in Black Writers of America (Barksdale and Kinnamon). Unlike that of t he "pure~ loaded" 1:cKay , Jean Toomer' s body housed seven racial strains and he looked wh ite. Evidence to support the fact that Toomer rejected h is f lack blood and "passed II cannot be found in b is major wor k: ~Cane ( 1923). �' Tci· t ·•,:,r i· s i t ]• .,., .l4 ... V - _... fl l"'l' o .J..,,--- '-' n1u ··c.,. , · ;an :...J ....., 0 .l .L .J.. - - ' II wri .1...1..en 1.· n 1°36 L, L, L ;,· a •1d '- - sad 1 ~· - •.' overlooked, in ifu ich h e tries to unite t h e disparate eleme nts of t h e American personality into one person. Apparently unh appy in childhood, Toomer never knew h is fath e~ wh o abandoned t he boy's mothe~ shortly after he was b orn.I in Was h ington, D.C. Toomer's possible claim to name and money b ad been t hwarted earlier wh en his moth er, t h e daughter of P. -~ · Pinchback, an i mportant Louisiana Reconstruction politician, had to reduce h er s ocial statu,s and re locate in the upper-class of Wash i ngton. lac k area It was,'Ch ere t hat Toomer found spirit and robustness: _ 11more emotio n, more r hythm, more color, more (~~~~). gai etyi" AAi'ter attending local public sch ools (including Dunbar Hi ght h e enrolled in one colle ge a.f'ter anoth er, never becon ing a serious degree candidate. From t h is latter type of life, h e went t hrou gh a series of jo s, finally gettine . i nto serious writing and putting poems and stories i n s eve ral avant- earde little magazi ne s. Too!ner also fo;med close assoi ciations with Uew York i nte llectuals: ...Hart Crane, Wald o Frank (t o wh om h e dedic at ed a section of Cane ), Gorha m P. Hunson, Alfred Sti eglitz, Paul Ros e nfel d, Kennet~ Burke and others. Later, wh ile workine as super i nt endent (for four month s) of a s mall / l ac k s ch ool i n Spart a, Geor 6 ia, !~e gained much of t b e material for t h e first and t h ird sections of Cane. After pubi, lication of Cane, Toomer's life returned to "psych ological disarray " and h e tur ned to oth er sources i n search of a sel unify i ng meth odology . Wi t b oth er intellectuals/ associates, he �delved i nto t he ph ilosoph ies of F. Hattb ias Alexa nder, P·f • Ouspensky, and, most importantly, George J. Gurdjieff--w~ose ,r disciple be later became. Gurdjieff, a Russian, assimilated aspects of y oga, religious mysticism and Freud, to produce what he called Unitism. won over converts. Toomer later e~poused t h e t heory and For a short while be also lived in a heterosexual experimental commune . married two white women . In quic k successio ~ Toomer After h is second marriag~ in t he thirties, h e quipped: "I do not know wheth er colored blood .flows through my veins. rr Earlier, h owever, h e h ad noted i n a biographical sketc'h accompany ing work b e submitted to The Liberator , t:m:'t'I have lived equally among the two race croups . Now wh ite, now colored. From my own point of view I a~ naturally an American. I ha ve 0 strived for a spiritual fusion anal agous to the fact of racial intermingling. Wi t.1out denying a single element in me, with no desire to subdue one to t he other, I have sought to let them live in h armony. or three years, h owever, Within t h e last two my growing need for artistic expression has pulled me deeper and deeper into the Negro group . And as powers of receptivity increased, I found myself lovine it in a way that I could never love the other. Although James Weldon Johnson complained that Toomer refused �(alle gedly out of contempt for racial categorizing) to be included in the second edition of Tbe Book of American Negro Poetry , it was later brought out (conversation between Sterling Brown ar:rl Jean Wagner ) t h at ill1f eelings existed between the two men . At any rate, Toomer's poetry and prose appear in practically every subsequent anthology of Afro-American literat ture. ~R t ormo o£ /influence L Toomer exerted mor e )t h an any other ~naissance fi gur ~ on t h e lack intellectuals of the era other writer experimented with literature o qui te t he way b e did . PDr,~ro,~l ~ No depicted Blacks r It influence s eems to ha ve occurfd between h i m and Hart cr·a ne. And Robert Bone ( Ne gro Novel in a. , erica) places Cane on ~par with t h e writings of some of t h e best American contemporaries: Hemingway, Stein, Pound, Eliot • . . . 1,.,J,e.-. o.;,q,i-taltv pvbl;sl,e," Tb is is IJii4 surprising since Cane ..s old ~ than ~ copies. I ~ " '~ I '<.:.:/ As a wor k of art, h owever, it reflects oomer's efforts to ach ieve unity of b oth self and purpose. Called variously a novel, a collection of short stories/vignettes, a poetic drama, Cane defies labels. we In~ classroom~ ~ often refer to it as a Zlues l "lipic-Lconceptually"similar to the great nationalistic IV\ ~ sagas of t h e world: BeG,wulf, Siegfried, The Song of Roland, r~ r· haka, and others , ....:vwelded by / lack spirituality and t he -----,~L::;; Afro-American ritual. Cane has three basi c movements .1. N\ Toomer h ad b een interested in bot h music compos ition and painting- l wbich involve (1) Georgia and t he South, (2) Chicago, fl Washington, D.C. and t he North, and (3) Georgia agai ~ where �,w.t. In Toomer waxes autobiograph~. t h e first part of Ca.ne t t ere are numerous pictures of women, many of will be ripened "too soon." C)l-'A\ bttt7ffi--.JQLLUJ..a a_.v1 lHce Karintn a, In tbe second section, Toomer views northern urban decadence and corruption and t h eir i~i fluence on Blacks. rack In the third movement, a ne.1ve north ern educator goes Soutb (Georei a) to find b is African roots. He rather clumsily passes t _rough a series of rites duri ng which To~mer use.s &ll:1~1' s ymb olis m to h ei ghten t he man's tonPi1sto~ --......._ fear and,eo,1p1811 II l'i.....__ """""Nany of t h e stories are introduced by and interspersed with poetic sketch es. fi nal) section, "Kabnis~ The third , and i s s i milar t o a play . Karintha 's skin "is like dusk on t h e eastern" h ori z on; and immediately, at t h e opening of Cane, we find si,snificant symbols in the words "duskn and "eastern. 11 T°'.".1rou r;h:)ut t h e ~ book, Toomer Assays t h e plight and joys of Blacks t _rougb t i ~ and sometimes enigmatic poetr:r. Word meanings a.re gi ven double , triple, and even more levels, as in t h e "Reapers" s h arpening t heir scythe s for far m chores out also, perh ap s , for a massacre. Black b eauty is someti mes surprising in t ~e cont ext of wb i te barrenness and brutali t :{ {11 :;o~,ember Cotto n Flower1,r0 0 "Face n is an old, tired_/lack woman in Geor 3ia. "Cotton Song" celebrates t 'h e workson g , un ity a n ong field workers, and encodes revolutionary messazes: nwe aint U, LJ Day! a gi..rine t wait until t h Jud gnent n The nBecb i ve II is a ri:ctap .. or for t h e .zbetto, cor:pr 0ss ed , doned off, L~1poveris1°cd . cfrl, The narrator wis1~es 'he could rest �"Con7ersion 11 and Homan's li ps, needles. 11 11 Portrait in Geor 0 ia , " t he e lectricit:r of a Ea.rves t Song , 11 and t he cane scents a.nd pine From t h e pen of t~~e poe t spill t h e li,,e s M :Jroke n, mended, sorr.e ~ / 1?esun/4 of t l10 se'rerely damaged men a ,1d 1-1 one n w! o , 11.with ve sti ges of pomp ," carr y t ?:e ir ,f; Race memories of king and car avan \ and g o singi ng t h rou 6 h t b e "Georgia Dus«.." Ori Ginal, awesome a nd s us ta ined in craft s.-:1anship , Ca ne as p oetry is a classic of A.fro-A~erican literature. In the most i mportant poe m in t he . ook , "Sor.ar r t b e Son," Toomer encases 'b ot:: b is superior t e ch niques and t l1e conc e pt for Cane. ':!:1~ e s o:~ si:-1:s: ,· · Pour O p our t h at parting s oul i n song , b ecause h e knows t h e tradition is in" tact. '-' Just "pour II t h e song, b e as ks , p And let t h e v alley carr~.r it along . And let the valley carry it along . The songs of "slavery" will be transformed i nto ~ t dir ges, composi tions and epics (lik Cane ). And Toomer's was a fitti ng a-, observation i n t __e years trreceding t he b irth of big b ands (Basie, followin g t h e b lues (Handy and The plaint -e soul will soon be g one, but it will leave 1) 1 An everlasting son, a singing tree •••• Likened by some to a series of artistic sketches, by others �to a symph onic composition, ~ ot:.ers to t h e syncopat i on and vocal blendings of Afro-American folk music, Cane i accord inr; to one critic J -was at least two decades ah ead of t he era in M which it was written. Less i mpressive as j lack material but bril l iant as a :----"\ general work of art is " ~ Blue :i: Ieridian . " 1 Heavily i nfluenced '---1 by the modernist sch ool of poetry (Pound, Crane, Eliot, etc.}, , hE•nt.t 1 "Meridian" was overlooked for years and is finallyl\.a'rlt h ologizei~ ~Black Writers of America:)~ ____________ of Upwards lines, the poe m makes use of various r hyme sch emes, stress formulas, linguistic and stylistic marriages . a lot to Walt Whitman in its sweep and intent. muted shades of Sandbur g . It owes And t here are "Heridian+ " seems to be Toomer' s near-final effort to PArsuade t h e different elements of h i mself to 11 live in harmony. 11 ~ Eliot b ad knelled the doo:n of Western civilization in 1922 (Tl~e Wast _and)> and other poets had echoed him. Fenton Johnson, of course, h ad preceded Eliot with t h is proclamation. in Cane -- Toomer had intimated t he same t h ing -- (6a,' 11Nove mber Cotton Flower"). But it is in 11Heridian" that he warns of t h e impending downf'all of t he West 4' noti ng t ~at such f'ate migh t not be undeserved. The world is full of "cry ing men and hard womenn and We ' re all niggers now~-get ~e? Black niggers , white niggers , MI take D your choice. These omens of doom come in the first section of the poem. �But t h e second section heralds t be coming of t he new man (for Toomer, perhaps , an admixture of races a nd colors )1 wh o is spiritually a nd psychically elevated above race and oth er immaterial pr oblems . Tbe new man is a "blue" man , possibly a cross between a j lack and a wh ite man, and even sexual crosses are sugges ted. For we know all t hes e things troubled Toomer. 11 He was concerned as a teen'a.s er about hi s ~ nascent sexuality . " t~~ And b e declared t hat he was above b oth sex and race if~tneym1!41N'T or obstacles ..-~defeat. It is a ch allenge to t h e ~ curious student, h owever, ____, to unravel t he life and works of one of t he most complex geniuses in American letters. lvbatever the outcome, Toomer's i s an ach iev~ k .b e reckoned , wt.l•r His work can be found / l •l"" in most anth ologies of Afro-American literature. lisb ed Essentials ~ 11 ~ ~;; He also pub.l, defi ni tions and aph orisms n_/ in 1931. Toomer wrote more things1 but most are uncollect ed and remain at Fisk University . An unpublished see;ment of h is autob iography, Earth - Being, a ppe ared in t he January Sc..-} olar . issue of Th e Black Wr1ile Hagner' s treat men~ o not equal h is discussion of oth er poets of t h e ~e naissance, it is good. /\ :; Brown, Redding , and numerous other critics discuss Toomer's work in various places. "Jean Toomer: Of special aid is John ~1. Reilly's An Annotated Ch ec klist of Critic is m, -.J for American Literary Study , ~ l. IV, no . Toomer listings in l (1974). ~ c i · ~ ~ane 11 Resources See also WT)ZtldDI El] r Countee Cullen, another bri lliantf tragic fi gure inf lack r7..-\ ~ �poetry , s pent most of h i s life t ry i nG t o bridge t he gap ~et we en a 11 Christ ian upbri nc;i ng 11 and a npa c:;a n ur s e . n .__.. How can t _e educat ed Afr o- Amer ic an , Cullen se ems t o as ~, re ~a in true t o h is nat ive inst i ncts a nd f eelings wh ile be w:e ars t he mantle of Eur opean ,:!ie s pe ct abili t y 11 ? Th i s particular aspec t of Cullen ' s lif e and wor k i s oft en taken too li sh tly by critics wh o view h is h i gh l y st_rli zed poet ry as i ntelle ct ual ( a 1d lJ enc e not real) journeys i nto t b e awesome worl d of deat h , rel i c ion and color . Yet Cul le r. knew , as he s a id i t i n nThe Shroud of Col or, 11 t bat bei ng/ lack in wh ite Amer i ca requires "courage more t _1an angels h ave. 11 History , of course, sh ows t b at so far Culle n ' s name ha s a/.),' witbstood h eat fro m t' _e furnace of !!Baptis m" just 1:-Hre r:w.ny oth ers before a nd after. And such fi gures as Gwe ndolyn Broo ks, Carl Va n Vech te n and Eleanor Roosevelt~\\uded h is passionately search i ng and s killful effort to a.void be in 6 dev oured b y t h e dragon of racisr.i h e tried to slay . However, Cullen did not consciously seek aft er t h e unity s o des perat el y t h i r sted af ter by Toomer. On t h e one ha nd, To omer f elt f ree t o ex pl or e all facets of t h e r eli gi ous a nd r.iys tical world; on t Je ot he½ h e was committed t o a n i ntellectual a nd spir i t ual search of ~1 is African ori gins . Cullen embraced Christia.nit~ and de veloped t h e first major ~ l a c k tra gedy fi gure b y r ei ncarnating C~rist into a j 'iac k man. / "onl_ :: egotten /_!~ff' The "pure II and no ~ Black becomes t he new Ni'li, on a several-;bundred~marcb up Cal vary . Here, of course, Culle~ was close to McKay ; but in sustaining such efforts, i n rr..a king t he m alle gor ical, h e surpas s ed McKay . Cullen's already complicated perso nal situationsllalS'lltitNl. ......_,,, �aggravated ":Jy b is reluctance to deal truthfully with t h e details of h is early life. It is still unclear as to wh ether he was born in Baltimore, NarylandJ or Louis ville, Kentucky, t h oug. h e makes references to both ( 11 Incident 11 and "The Ballad of~ Brown Girl 11 ); or if he was raised by h is moth er or h is grand mother (up until the time of his adoption by the Rev . Frederick Asbury Cullen). Johnson (The Book of American Ne gro Poetry ) says Cullen was born in New York City (as do t he editors of The Negro Caravan) 'M' probably because this is what Cullen wanted readers to think. Possibly, Wagner notes, he was an ~illegiti matet ch ild and, out of fear of embarrassment, purposely confused This mystery, coupled with Cullen'sfllP* awr;ti,vbl4d .,.t:, Pe ~ ------s exual"-1«: ll 1 tmk h is desire to assume the persona of an t he ~ . ~ ~ bs.rd English romantic poet, h auntK"bl f precocious ,..tAthrougb out h is l ii' e1iii.\ ,..,___ Cullen's initiation into poetics came, as wit. Dunbar and IIueb es, in h i gh sch oolJ where h e won poetr:r contests a.nd published pieces in a student publication w½<l i e~ b e helped edit • ......__,. By t he time he h ad finis . ed New York Uni versity (P_ i Beta Kappa. )1 be h ad won several awards (including t he Witter Bynner award for excelle nce) for h is poetry and received a contract from Harper'f-s .....__, and Broth ers for publication of b is first book (Color, 1925). This marked the first timet, since Dunbar's death that a major publisher had brought out the work of a j lack poet. It also marked the first time in almost @ yea.rs that such a book h ad been published for a live )Slack poet. @ The most skillful �f lack user of English verse forms, Cullen achieved almost instant success. Color sold over ~ two years of publication. copies during t l1e first AM h e rec,ei ved 'hi s TI. A. from Howard during t he same period. He generall:r sided with }IcKa.y in not breaking away from traditional Englisb poetry. e~pecially admired the poetr:r of Keats and Sh elley. 11 noting that He Jo nson, he .migh t b e called a younger brother of' Housman ," said some critics argued t h at Cullen was not an flautbentic Negro poet. fl And Cullen, reminiscent of Toomer's position, straddled t h e fence on t he question of inspiration and t hemes for/ lack poets. On one occasio~ he acknowled ged h is de bt to the J lack tradition~ but_; on a nother, complained t h at t he ~ ack poet ought to b e able to "chant fl poetry spiritual or blues appears. 11 11 in whi ch no His ~stb etics were stated more ew-( __ , I\ concisely in 1927, h owever, in t h e _ flex ll2 _f_ _ • 'l'or•rd to Carol ing Dus k (1927), comp iled. an anth ology of Afro-American poetry wnie,lii he _. His comment was startline , especially at t . e heish t ,, of· the Harlem Renaissance and comine , as it were, from a )(ew ,, Negr o: As heretical as it may sound, t here is t h e prot bability t hat -Iegro poets, dependent as t h ey a.re ~ on t he English lane;uage, may _, ave more to e;ain ( fro m t h e rich backe.;round- of English and American _::.. poetr~ t han fro m any nebulous atavistic year nin 6 s towards an Af'rican inh eritance. Cons equently, Cullen called Caroling Dus k an anth olozy of "verse �by Nego poets rather t h an an ant oloi:;y or iie ~ro verse." But Cullen could no t alwa~,rs subscribe to t h is particular~est!1 etic111 f'or mucb of' h i s ow n poetry can b e labeled towards a n African inh eritance. u a ta,:istic· ~rea.r nings Exami nation will s h ow t h at such poetry is found i::i h is earl y volume (Colo_ ) as well as in b is later irnrks: /ft, Q}_d Girl; Copper Sun (1927), T:.1e Ballad of t· .e ....,r own ~ Ballad Retold ( 1927), T!.1e Blac k C1"r ist and Other P oems (192 ), The '.fodea and Some Poems (1935) and J~ is selected On These I Stand (1947). poems children : l The Lost (1942). ZooJU-940) ~ :~ e~ also wrote b oo ks for and Hy Lives and How I Lost T. e. f He translated Greek literature ( Tbe Hedea), wrote numerous lyri cs for musi c and worked on a draliJ.B.ti c adaptation ( "Saint Louis Woman 11 ) or an Arna Bontemps novel: Sunday. God Sends In 1932, s eeking to renew h is •iminis . i ng creati ve powers, __ e publish ed bis only novel , One Way to He a ven. s~. Hos t of Cullen 's poetry represents t Le vast influence of C _ristiani ty. _ e wrestles with t e Lord or o.sks God w__ y this event or t h at event occurs. Especially is t __ is see n in . 1 co nf l.ic t ,t'~er-e ,1,Av;A the co ntrad.i ctio • ns of wh ite h i s poetr:r of racia 1 11 Chris tian ity are exposed ov er a nd over . For a Lady I Know" depicts a wb i te woman in h eav en wh o t h inks "black ch erubs 11 servants) will do h er 11 c elesti al c~ ores. Is vhrth Its Sonn.: " ch ides "An erican poet 11 nscotts"b oro, +" ( or too, outrag ed by t h e pli ,gh t f of Sacco a nd Vanzetti ! for not defending / lack b oys -- e. t kangaroo d for "rape II in an Alabama / ourt. ThJdu cause, Cullen • says , is also "dt vinely spun . 11 In 11 Colors 11 t h e "swart" (i.e., �~ lack) man is .. anged on a 11 newer Calvary. 11 Cullen's onge st poem and treatment of this t he me is The Black Christ (pu~)lis'.: ed in France). It deals alle s orically with a lynch ing . A j 1ack man, Jim, attac ks and kills a white ma n wh o insults a wb ite woman. Jim is lynched, as southern law requires. His statel, ments leading up to t he lynch ing, and t he actio n oft e poem, suggest the crucifixion. Redding called t h e poem "foe ch ildis.1 mysticism of a bad dream." 84 !"tide ~ despite t h e poem's evasi vei ness and "mysticis m,i: lync ing is much worse t b an a 11 oe.d dream." Finally (th ough t h e the me continues in countless ot er poems), there is t h e famous ''Yet Do I Harvel. -11 Here Culle n applies t h e sonnet to the riddle of t h e Afro-American poet, concludi ng, after high praise of God; i,h ab ~ P C Yet do I marvel at t h is curious t h ing~: To make a poet b lac1;,\and bid h im sing! Curious, indeed, was t h e/ lack poet i curious ~oth for Cullen and t h e whites wh o lavish ed praise and gifts upon t li ese ·;ew and Unusual Negr oes. was also "curious. 11 And Cullen ' s fame (recallinr; Dun ar's) Here was a poet making waves with old, outdated forms of English verse. "fresh beauty. 11 Johnson said be 6 ave t h em This _is true.J but Cullen's wh ite audience seems to h ave gotten special pleasureSout of b is ability to h andle J'lack anger, Jlack grief and }§lack pathos in such a.musingly antiquated poetic cloth ing . Prevalent t h emes in Cullen's poetry, then, are race pride, endurance, lynch ings , cynicism and pessimi sm ("can deat!"} b e worse?"), �a primitive or romantic view of Africa ("Heritage" and ma ny others), religious and psych olo 6 ical conf lict , love a.nd death , spiritual freedom, personal or racia.l inferiority, doubt and fear, t he tensions created by b eing...)3lack a mong whi tes, and Christ as a sy 'bol of conflict and co ntradi ction. Cullen saw the plight of the Afro-Americans as true tra gedy in a Christi an land. This comes t hrough in ma ny of b is poems, but poi gnantly in 11Heri tage n: Fath er, Son, and Holy -Ghost, So I make an idle boast; Jesus of t he twice-turned cheek, Lamb of God, alth ough I speak With rrry mouth t hus, in rrry heart Do I play a double part. For t h e/ lac k American, trapped in Christian attire but lo nging deep inside for what Zack Gilbert calls "t 1-:at all-Black Saturday night,n it is indeed a tragedy. Cullen tried all __,. ~ i s life to reconcile a 1~hristian 11 education wit 1 a npagan ur ge.n Toomer wanted to "unite 11 __ is several parts. And IIcKay tried to find a nh ome n in t he desolate and sometimes conteri.ptuous place Elijah Huba.mma.d calls "th e wilderness of Horth America." HcKay went all t he way to Europe and }fort 1 Africa. made annual treks to France for several years . Cullen Blac k literature abound s with t h e tragedies · incurred WJ en j'lac k i ntellectuals relinquish t h eir "dance n for a "b ook. n Earlier in ''Heritage/ Cullen admits t h is deep need, felt by B acks can~h t i n wh ite �worlds everywh ere , to "Strip!" a nd . Doff this new exltberanc e . C_r fo Kay 's 11 ~ Come a nd do the Lover ts dance! 1~rnch ins '' remains unsolve d b:r t l1e sonnc t and Cullen 1 ,, w ~ is unab le to n a ke h is "h eart a nd h ead re know t' ,at ze d1 b eat 11 of h is i mpressiTe iar1b ic tetrat-, despite t he meters. . V lJ.. . ., i Cl II A c lass ic statement on th e inner , wor kings of th e mi nd of a f l ac k genius wb o must world. 11 twist and squirm" i n an alien "Heritage tt h as yet to b e seen on t h e many psycb oloGical • • O.-t wht~ h. -'"' AA ~'-w•omc.u,-rt",'t.'' ~~t.urtioti inio A~\~-.1 dimensions ~1.\1. t operates J t l 11 i T {s AL~ 0,dQvisiafiir19 ~ vrg•CQ1. - E-"-pLo ... t>-11\!Y\ 0~ T~,..,oht-t ?S vent• This and related t h e mes also perv ade oth er poe::-:1s :r Culle n . .-,llOo,,Q" ,+ 11 From t h e Dark Tower 11 is inspired by l: is column of a similar name in Opp ortunity . Alth ou 6~ not made e ternally to ·weep, 11 11 lac k artists and t ~ inkers were t l:e:r must ei t :Jer face destruction of t h eir pote ntial or wear t h e mask and "te nd our a g onizing seeds. 11 Cullen also writes a b out ti mid lo vers and .J3'l ack proi stitutes, a bout nany 11 many nbrown 11 c;irls (anoth er fa v orite t heme ) and t h e ach e of t e .auma n h eart. :Ie writes in t e e s h adow of Ke ats and Shelle:r and pens epitaph s to t b e m. His of tradi tional Engli s h verse for ms is not as a s HcKa y ts. But 1e does 1.:)ri ng a } lac k force and tellectual veracity to t h ese devices and tech niques wh ich h ad long h oused "w _, i te" h opes and feelin gs. He too x: t h e best of Keats and Edna St. Vincent i,Ii llay a nd ma.de i t wor d an ODwii~L~ b.'-il•"' : ; ;~ ~ tech nical"{ I ;;i:Ql(:J @ _.ti& Brown identifies '> is "gifts" �as 11 f'luenc:,r and brilliant i magery. 11 But h e is likened by many critics to t h e standard~English work of' Braithwaite and Dunbar . Cullen consciously developed misery~ apparently in an ef'f'ort to 11 suff er II like t h e romantics, so he could know wh at real innerf strife was all ab out. He had not seen the underside of ,)3lack life in t h e way t h at McKay (Banjo, Banana Bottom), Hughes (The Weary Blues) , Fenton Joh nson, and oth ers had come to know and understand it. into a pristine verse. or 11 He subdued h is anger and viol ence Most critic\ allude to the woman4)- ikeJ pris s; " nature of Cullen's work. Redding complained t hat h e viewed "life t hrou gh the eyes of a woman wh o is at once shrinking and b old, sweet and bitter ." In Culle n 's natavistic 11 or "primitive" piece; one feels t hat he is not really t here CJ/.)/ bimself t, much H-ke one feels in reading wh ite poet Vach el Lindsay 's poems oq Af'ri ca and t h e 11 Cone;o. 11 But Cullen remains one of t h e e~l\!~~meteorites of J3lack poetry. His passion h as yet to be surpassed,i even among contemporary Afro-American poets . Th ough h e does not convince t b e reader t h at h e would actuall ip ! 11 and do t h e an intellectual fury Lover's dance! 11 •• e does distill chronicles t be death -during-life 1 vortex (Davis calls it 11 11 alien-and-e:x:ile 11 ) that so many Africans in America struggle against. Wagner's Black Poets contains t he most up : to ~ ate and incisive critical assess ment of Cullen. Seel ,also criticism by Redding , Brown, Johnson, Huggins (Harlem Renaissance) , Bontemps (including Harlem Renaissance Remembered) , t •. e listings in t be Cullen section of Black Wri ters �of Ameri ca a nd 1'\\<t w~r 011 a i' lio:3raph?t" Ii:an:,r of C 1lle:i ' s u npu½ lis:.: e works are depos ited in t ~e library at At_ a nta n i ~ersit~ . James 1foldon Jo 1nson, ·wlJ om we h ave cau se to r.1ent io n a cain, ranks today as one of the r.iost distinguis ::! ed men of_Jnac k US JU JC &... ! G&i~ ti£ DC& Amer ican letters ? , e _lb Jt.Ci tr _Ml bl J"gLt; . PD tPili -'7111 ?fl .Wtali1ctisrsf]ij§QDJfft] :s ililll [teArts•jg "- Autcb iograpby was re issued in 1°2 7 :,w\, t.WYl, c ontinued to I D a.-• rarl i• t h e earli e r pse ' donym carr,r1 Johnson ' s~na ;.1eJ drop pe~ e2 ~ Duri <Z the t we nt ie~ Jo'hr..so , een so c ial o':) s ervations of ,.z(lacl A.. erica wit'!:: oetic de v elo me nt a nd output. Ji" Sdlbb!S _ ? Th e Boo k of Ar:aeri can Le gro P oetr:T ( l 922, l / 3 - ) ias one of t b e ._ i g:1 poi nts of ~ ~enai ss a n ce. I mp ortant for r.1ore t . a n j ust t . e poets inc luded , t . e ant .. oloCY represe n ted t:1e first sustained effort 11 t ii£!2.!? t .. _3 of a lac k cr itic to ide tif:r 1Tegro 1 elements i n poetr:" •ritten si nce Dun , ar. 10 i fir st ant. oloc:r of t'he ~ 1 fr -A:-1er can poetr:1" to ce r~.tur:r a nd t .e first e v er to 1Je p It ·was a_so e 1'~ _is " ed lis ._ ed in I:n:::;lis•-- One can safel:r s a:r t:1a t any seriou s st, d:" of .,l-flac1 critic ism 1as to ~:i e:::;i :: i:-rit~~ Ja ..1es Ueldon ,S say Lis s · L,itle (1-itr on the lle re Is Creative Genius )~ uc:;, s ted the _, di me nsions of' t e o._ nson . 01'::nson ' s co ncern in the a.nt~olo;::;:r . ari ous Llfluences on t e t :::e r.re ; ~e .t · f-!. oets, noted dist ;1 ctior..s ·~etwee, _ .@ �rootr :r . Di ~c 3 po ts : Wh at t ':1 e colored poet i n t je United States needs to do is sometb i n; li ke what Synge did for t t e . Irish ; t e needs to fi nd a form t h at will express {j) t h e racial spirit by sym ols from wi t .. i n rath er t . an b y s~n~ ols fro m wit. out, s uch as t ~ e :IBre r.mtil a.ti on of Ens l is h s pc lli nc a nd promm ci~ at i on . !:e :-icec.s a f or :1 t.. at is ::.'r3er a nd larcer t~ a n d alc c t , b ut u ~ icb wi l l sti l~ ~ old t ~ e r acial f l e vor ; a for ~ ex pressi n3 t ~e i c a c er~ , t h e i d ions , t h e pe e liar t ur ns of t :.: ou 6l'1 t, a r;.d tl1 e d isti ncti~.9"e l1ur.1or and patl1os , too , of t :~e a ., so '"'c· c r-i a'~., c o-" •· oi· c1.· .L~,., .:;,,.. - c_ L_, - ~ ,i t .. e d ee pe s t a nd ., i sl. e s t emotions a nd as;;,ir atio ns , and al lou t ~e 1ide st range of s •½j ect s and t ~ e w d e s t 3 cope of tr e atment. It was a gi g a ntic c:-i allenc e . it? Eas any s ucceeded? W Q Did a ny / lac k p oet rise to meet ~ 4..ll!-" Witb _ is broth er, J. Ro:Jamond, Jo .nson also co$ dited The Book of American r e:;;;ro Spirituals (1925) a nd Th e Second Boo K: Bot': cal arran(se ments b :r J. Rosarrtjqd . ~olu mes carried mu s i i Jo.in.so n htns g tried to meet �~~~allenge with God 's Tro m½ones: Seven :i.Ter:ro Sermons in ,,rcrse '-" 1 } lack preac~;er s • (1927), a rendering of t b e works of the ._.1 old ~time __, His pamph let 1927. Native African Races and Culture was pu½lis!·~ ed in A study of Harlem, Black :1antattan, came out in His auto io t rap.1y+ Alon6 T~1is Ha:•J app e ar ed i n 1933. A:1<3. a. social/political commentary, Negr o Amer icans, Wbat Now? publish ed t h e same year . 1930 . l ms His selected poems (St . Peter Relates an Incident of t .e Resur re ctio n Da:r ) can e ot:t i n 1,3 . Jo'~nson hfd 0- esta lished i mself a s ~ rol ific and exe r.1plar~ r:1.a ?:1 , a co:;:~-- i ~ nation of formidable talents, b:r t he ti:ne 'h e was ki lled i n a.n automobile accident in 193 8 . Aside from t h eir literary and soc ial value, t b e sermons in God's Trombones 1a ve , in t h e years since t h ir pu lication, 0 brought deligh t and instruc tion to many ~ ~ r i o u s6 '::',"J:;f,r ,,. ..._ which t h ey h ave been presented. t-e1d s¼,13 " ~or oth erwise dramatically I ~ ~ m classes.J we assi 0 n a sermon per ~stude nt and , allowing days for research and preparation, stag e t e works for a larger.J campus · or comrnun i t ~ audience. Just . ow muc~ of b is own ch alleng e (see a b ove ) was atte mpted i n God's Trom one s ~ ~-,A lie►«= is indicated by Johns on's Preface1 la I ,'h e b riefly r.-ives the history of_)3iack preacher s and explains w~y h e ch ose t h e trombone as t he central symbol in t h e work: / He ( the preacher] strode t h e pulpit up and down I in what was actually a very r hyt hmic dance, and h e b roug:1t into play the full gamut of .. is wo r l ( I der.ful v oice, a voi ce 'Mwh at shall I sa"t1'?--not .J of an organ or a trumpet , M Jut rath er of a - �tromb one, t h e ins trument possessing ab ove all oth ers t h e power to express t h e wide and varied range of emotio ns e nco~passed by t h e human voice J /V\ and with gr eater amplitude. _Ie intoned, b e moan ed, h e pleaded- Lh e blared, h e erased, h e t h undered. ,-'\ I sat fascinated; and more, I was, perh aps against will, deeply moved; t h e emotional effect upon rrry me was irresistible. /}, Th is s cene occured at a church Johnson atte nded in Kansas City. /\ \~1ile t he preacher was s trutting and deli vering, Johnson recalled t hat h e f jotted f down note s for "Th e C eation. '--' 11 God's Trombones -..; c ontai;:1::i seve r. ser .. ons a:1d one pra:-er$'\ "Listen, Lord. s er mons , each ta ken fro m a text in t he Bible, i nclude Cr eation, 11 11 "The Prodi gal So n, foah Built the Ar k, 11 and nThe Judgr.ient Day . 11 11 T.. e 11 Tbe Go Down Death 7r- / Fu neral Sermon," "The Crucifixio n, 11 11 11 "Let 17 People Go" Ilk Cor.ii ng as it did at t he h i gh point of t he Renaissance! ~ /\ 1927;;;- God ' s Tr omb ones was rath er odd in t a.t a less t h an osf' tensibl y r eli gi ous verse was be ing written by oth er poets. There were r eligi ous t hemes i n rnuc'l:l of t h e poetry - but none of t he poets di pped into t 1e same reservoir in t he same manner &,i as~Johns on. J o. nson was, h owever, able to fuse some of t h e jazz and blue s patterns of t . e day into h is work/4 t hough .aev pt ~ not t ha t noticea l e . The sermons are not in lack dialect) si nce Johnson said t hat t he Afro-A:-!erican poet must transcend t ha t for r.i. Tbe language is ,3e nerally t at of a ny w.1i te �American or Englishman. Wh at Joh nson does is instill racinl ◄ -~f:Jh ngJI' feeling and drar.iatic (ethni c) touch es taneity, btl@!! l • ~ repetitiont and forms. "~~IOOS l o;i;j ~,..free:: . verse erst Har garet Walker, ~B _, Bte:iw Hughes I Y,1"t-~r sponi eLemeJJ13 1 I and ~±1:::.S Brown ~ place~\all t h ese DM 1/\ in a more secu_ar contextl"'\ a.lth ou g~ Brown ....._ i nterpolatec!N I ~ A,. clamations I J I reli g ious expletives and ex-l, r~ ~ --/ . s-eme b is work. ~t e doub le nesa.ti~1e , 1a1.. ich cf 6're6.1"' Johnson makesNlse of, is not an exclusively/'3lack product. But we do find him interspersin 0 ~ lack sayings, usac es and ot :er idiomatic npices into t h e text;s\ of t h e sermons. It was the first time t h at a)t.l.ack poet b ad undertaken suc h a task solel~r for literary reasons. So t h is alone makes t h e wor k i mporta nt/4- not to mention its anth ropolOg ical and sociolog ical •alue.fT .e over riding achi e vement of t h e sermons is their e;rap., ic, full- low:1 images and t be ir inferential 11 lackeningn of God (see Cull en, 6 Toomer and others). ~ -:i.,,;i:b ~pe Th'5 analog:.r is more obvious i n "T':1 e Creation/ Go~ Li ke a ma mmy b ending OYer ~1 er ba by , Ct- Kneeled down in t .. e dust Toiling over a lump of clay Ti 11 ~e s:1aped it in &is own i ma gej It seems only natural t h at Jo!1 nso n would pay t h is tribu te to t .e )!lack mother;}- mostflack poets writing since, say, 1830, b ad done so. And b e 1ad earlier co mplained of Job n We sley Holloway 's "Black I-Iammies II in dialect, saying : for better poetry t h an t h is.Tl 11 Tbe b lack mammy is material From Johnson's nmilk-wh ite h orse, 11 ~ �t h rough phrases like long plunge, 11 11 0~ i-Ia.r y 's 3 a b:ri , 11 "sinners in t :1eir liead~ and "Blacker t han a hundred midni gh ts, of t h e drar:iatic / lack sermon can oe seen . 11 t h e power Th ere are t l~ reats - ~ and warnings, admhnishments and pleas , fire and brimstone, , V for ce and1 even wors ~ fury. , 11 The Prodig al Son II is warned: Young man ~ Young man-tYour arm's too s h ort to box with God. The incremental lines, t h e spontaneity , t he witty turns of phrases , t he colorful and sometimes 0 ombastic langu a c e-l all ('I\ g i ve God 's Tromb ones ~ auth entici t:r. Joh nson does use s :;m'::) ols t h at express fro m 11wi t h in] II rath er t 'han fro m "with outJ II t h e p,,(lack experience. For Aas b e noted in h is Preface,.; 11 The Negro today is, perhaps, t he mos t priest- g overned group i n the c·ountry. 11 The old.:: time preach en\knew the "secrets" of ancestral oral and ge s tural power, Joh ns on says; t h ey knew t h e 11 secret -._,.,of oratory, t h at at b ottom of it is a progression of r hyt hmic words.'- • 11 •• 3 J rf The preach ers h ad inh erited innate grandiloquence of t h eir old Africa n tongues. t he pulpit, t he minister fus ed t bese 11 11 -+~ ~ Once in tonGues 11 ~ : / iblical language) because this "gratified a h i gh ly developed sense of sound and rhythm in h imself a nd h is h earers. 11 These were the concepts and ideas under wh ich Joh nson labored in God's Trombones. Doubtlessl~, the volume is one of t he most precious in the annals of Afro-A merican writing . Th ere is hardly a person wh o cannot "feel II t h ese sermons -and yet t l1 eir power and t h eir intuitive {V\ �embracing of a world of emotions and temperaments ma ke t h e m la.sting as classical literature of wh atever defi n ition and ::m e . Johns on's Saint Peter, following a traditio n of Dunb ar's nThe Hau nte d Oak , 11 Hughe s !s "So ng for / Dar k Girl," ::cKa:rt s 11 Ti-~0 Lynch ing ," and Culle n ' s Tbe Blac :r Chri st a nd "Scottsb oro, Too , y Worth Its Song~" ," atte mpts t o place t u e dese cr ation o_0lack h u manity wi t h i n its proper co ntradictor:r c~~r istian co ntex t . In each of the poems , t:1e lyncl1i ng is co nn ected ~ to a 1~ i G~er order l - l s ually the C1-:r i st i an God . f"\ Usi ng a 11 -;,risio na ry t:rpe of ima.;ination , n Jos1::1sor.. applie s ~, ,. .:_ .~. :t. t \.. \. ~ '\. ... ..... \. ~~rn:!~-E~ \ i '%'o ld= tar '- parents to visit t}~eir sons ' gra ves, t .e ~Jar .i.,epart:-::ient p t s )flack mothe rs on a fou l , crowded boat (re ::1:t:1is ce nt of a sla ve s hip ) and u}']ite :-:1oth ers on a modern li ner. Johnson, in t½e poe ms , imae;;ines t h at t!1e Unknown S oldi er arri res i n 11eaven ,........, and is dis co vered to , e $lack . 1 arious patriotic a nd terr fo rist --- organiz ations (tt e ·a . A. R., t e D. A. R., the Le g io n , t h e . la n, and ot ers) want -:i i n 1.)ur i ed a gai n .~ 1 -------------- -~ For r.-:ore cri ti ci s : -,1 of Jo}m so n_, see Da·.·i s , 1.!acne r, SIJIIL. Bontemps (i ncludi ns note in A,;1erican Necro Poetr:~) , !3ro m, Redding , EugGi ns and ot 1ers. Lanc sto n ?: gbes ,;.ras at t~ e opposite e nd of tl-'! e poetic spectrum fro r.1 Cullen when :~e wr ot e, i n ": Iotber to So :; ," \ TTell , so n I'll tell ~ou: Life for ~e ai n 't been no crystal stair. For while bot!-1 men ach ie ved reco g nition a')ou t t h e sa:ue tL1e, �Eu[; •. e s 1-1as a f o l k tro 1:: ad or with l is fi n 6 er on t ,e " puls e of t h e pe o le . n !:e was also fr e e fro n t .-ie r e strai nts of co nt t a t d o~ i n at d v ntio na l ~ ncl i s~ v ers r a ctical l7 all of Cul l en r s poetrJ . orn i ::1 Jo pl i n , :: sso 1 ri , !! z; es b ad pt ""'~s e v e ral oa ks of poe try l s ._ e d ore t . a n v olumes of prose and plays, .. i s o ·m dram.as staged a_ l o · r t . e co n try, ,. y t , e t · of :.-: i s de at::~. Of t"!-}e qu art et of first-li n e Ear_em Re naist s anc e • o t s , !!u.::;:.: cs wo l d b e t h e o nly o ne to re ai n ac t i v e u . ti_ t h e lac !;: Art s :-_ovement of t _e 196 succ 1m1J ed to ~~i .:;.- -'rs. I-Tc:,.a::- a nd c, _le::1 lo d pr e ss re i :1 t!: e fort i e s1 a n d Too~er, as en r.:arr i ed to oue of t 1~ . l!'3 -, 1 ~; : r t C L-aurenc c , at er, t '~c fi :1i ~J'-: od :~ i ::;1 • s c oo:'.. a d 1-ro. s ele c te d class ,. ,~i · -1-- " d ~ -'L,-- a.i..V e <:! ~-· v V - -.... ave .;.. c..n oet. 0 8 ': ,e .d " n ,... Upo n . , 0 ....,t' 1 L .. of Cl OS s c,_, Cc.nar:- ! 'J la nc.s , t 1, e L zore s a nc tl• e :les t Goa.G t of Africa. Re ~ t ur n::. r..c f or a ~h i le to l;ew "York , ,' e left t·1e co ntr:r o r. .1 i8 @ birt~~c: a:r o. n uent to ?aris , a ,:;t'.i n worlci ns odd jobs, o n s �to Italy and Genoa, and afteI' a r..urao er of varie d exp er ie nces ( see Tbe Bi 0 Sea and I ~·onder as I Wa nder) , returned to. ::e r :ca. Ee then spent ti me in Washington, D. C. ~(i-i!.1ere 1-iis ;-- i_ ot:~er '·1 ad moved)/ workinG i n t 1a office of Dr . Carter G. Foodso n, editor o:f the Journal o:f l!ei:;ro History) and later, ~ If _. . . ass - ;p; S 1. · +.1.. 0 0 ·,:. ... u~ V l..i" I rr,I a. ... + V bu~ t .,., 1 ra-.-•d.,.., ~n u ,., .,., - u o.,_ ,., , ;_ .;, ,_; .. .. , .. t,...I,. .I,. - U..L .: ... -- t.J - - ..a At • y ( see -~ la+ter V ) I II .1 he had a c ance to s.i ow some of 11is poems to Vachel I ,, ..)+-" ,, Li ndsayM thus launching ~ s "career" t hr ough t h e newspapers . His · olun!es of poetry include Tli e ,.re ar:· 3_ u e s ( 'J/'2 6 , Negro ilfother and Other Dramatic Recitations (1931), Scotts1::lor o A6liiJ~Cl938); Limited (1932), The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1 932),~S~ akespeare in Harlem (1942), Freedom' s Plow (a long poem, 1 943 ), Jim Crow ' s ay Ticket (1949), Last Stand (1943), Fields of Wonder (1947), Montag e of a Dream Deferred (1951), Ask You ---------------______________ _____ for Jazz (1961) and The Panth er and Times (1967). ....;;;;.. ms of Our :E:u.;b es also ~-rr ote s ~ ort s tories a nd no·.re_s (incl ding col_e ct ed stories fro ~ t ~e Jesse w ic _ :-:e ori gi :.1ated ). Prose -r. ~ e St m le serie ~ T -,..,.,_er .ua u ~-v or Ks a re . .rot ": (1~3n) - I , , Tbe 1·la:rs of ~·Jh ite :?olks (1934) , S mple Spea ks Eis : ;:i. d (l , 5 0 ), Laugh i n 6 to I~eep fro m Cryi :.1 0 (1952) , Simple Takes / ;•i fe (1953), • S i nple S ta ke s a Cl ai n ( 1.,57 ), Ta~1'::o rines to Gl ory (195~ ), S ometh i ng in Co mmon (1963) a nd Simple's Uncle Sar.~ / ~9jf)£. ? i ,:e 1 Plays ½:~ Lancston !!u;:-:es ·Tas p · lis~1ed i n 1963 . m ~ a ls o either wrote ( or collab orated,1' wi t .1 others ~ usuall:r Bonte;nps) many ½o olrn for yo un~ readers as well as works of cenera.l a nd spec fie i nterest on f lac k culture. �In bis earl:r :rears, Hugh es was L'lfl 1en ced and Dunbar. :" Walt 11':.., i t r.ia r: I n h i 0'::J sch ool, a teach er introduced l1 Ln to t:1e poetr:r of A;-3.y Lowell , Lindsa:~, :.rasters and Sa nd ur .::; . especiall:r i ndebte d to Sand ur.::;, of wh om T e Big Sea, as ~is Hguidi ns star. 11 .10 !~e was would spear, in Fento n Johnson ha.d een the only poet up until ~ugh es to sustain sue . an ener s etic poetr:r of )3lack fol k life . Hughe s i mproved on what Johnson b e gan, addinc fres~ portraits J t b ough n ot t .e ri di cule somet , times appearing i n Du:1. ar/4- and actually usi ng music to ins pire 1is writing or accompan:r b is live readi ne;s. He made recordi ngs with Ch arlie !~ngus, a ~on G oth er jazz s reats. And h e is g i ve n credit for ori c inating t~e pra c tice of readin~ poetry to jazz . Interestine;ly eno ;h , t i s interweavin 0 of r.iu sic and poetry • {discussed in C.... apter rr) -: eco mes a v t rtual ½ack.:; one off lack arch itectonics. aldwin , for example, speaks of liste ninG repeatedly to t he re cords of Bessie Smit 1 to 6 ai n r hyt m in b is prose . Certainl:" t :. e same fusion of st:rle a nd sp irit ca n Je found in Elliso n , ·Tri 0 '~ t_ Tolson, Baraka and Crouch . 1 r oet Greenlee x ~ 3 7· n ovelist:: i n a b iograp ical note to tftAM .is~ lues for an Afri can I1:r ch ief literary influences are Ch arlie Parker, (i Lester Younc , ltlles Da v is and Billie Bolida~ . As a writer, I co nsider m:rself a ja zz musician whose instru:::1e :1t is a t:rpewri ter. Ilic:1ael S. Harner, a J lack. poet who ca me to mat sixties , also a ttri;)utes :;mcb of ~ is st:rle and poetic p!-:i loso{;- phy to jazz musician7 'L,o h elped h i m understa n{ pain'(and- make �s it "arc:1etypal." Pa.rt of Hu;;b es '~ L 1pa.ct on t •is a.re a o "' filac LC poetry is docu~i1ented ~):" ~ 1ard ell i:1 T~e Foll~ Roots of Co n te m.porar:r Afro -Amer ican Poetr:-. falls into thre e st:rlistic cate~ories : dialect (.ri ~raril~ of _is an ur b an sort), blues and traditionallltf'ree v erse. t se of dialect is seen in practically e very ½ook b e pu lish e . ~is blues and free - verse forms are especia._17 ev ident i n T~e ~·. ear:,Blues. S ea.ks of Ri-11- ers , 11 a u::Ju a Redd:.DG, is n I! ch 1-;:ore effectiv e a ve .1icle for purer -erse f orms. t e deepJ dee . well of T!~is for ,'.1, accordin 0 to :r..r 1::.;'~es _ 6: es cot, es t 1-:ro-:..1.::;:- , Redd i ~: feels, t an dialect or · lues. i n t. e The Te 6 ro writt en ri g1 t after 'h e fi 1is.1ed ":, i t:;1~ sc .. oo a nd publis 1ed in T.1e Crisis i n 1 921. J1 11 One of b is most fa ous free- v erse poe ms is I! ,/1-ac In 11 1 • .1.. .R . i• v er ~ II u__ ;::;.1es reac.s es invo !-: istor:r and stru gsle, 1 n i ti ,:: i : -1 spirit t he Glo½al African: I ' ve :n1own ri ers: I 1 ·.-e CJ 0 t{i1 01·m ri i er s i:t.- c ::. e nt as t~-: e ,1orl older t~a . . t 11e flow of l :.: ,~:an a. ., -::).:.i0.n ·11ood i n 1 rein • s o •l l: as Gro..,, ~ dee) 1:.~rn t :: e ri -ers . . . .. .. J, . . !' 73 .now 1 ri vers: Anci c~t , d 1 sk:'" ri v er s. The use of worc.s li ke ns oul" a nd t h r ou.::;1:/ 11 ri ' ,ers 11 ~ ,1 >ic r n l '·: e spL, e3 lac !r fol d ore and literature, o.l~ows rr,-1,:::,...,e s to ton e'~ �t ,c de pest lon.=;in.:;s a.1:.d s p:!.r i t al wel 4s pr:!. :-:.::;s of ~,j_s people . I n "veins , 11 11 c.eei) , n nflo .-1, H lo~ n.:; of a c tuai plo.ce ( 1a ,1es nd slr:·, '' "a nci ent !' a :J .:.t. por ta nt t e loncevi t:r of life a nd struu.::;le , ~ to Blacks, 1, e esta1~lis~; es put into 11 Poe r:1, 11 ~ ~i :uilar jsa g Fl d/,.j/ strenst s o.nd longevit:- K t~"}e cat ~ 11 ...._,, ..;:: Te c;ro, TLe 11 a L.d E G--es ' • dialect and b l' es - orie. ted poe r.1s were not 1 swee t ' '-- to the ears of some Harlem / lac intelle c t uals of t ._ e twent i es . , Just as ~n-y of tl: e~, ~ ad sou ~. t to c ens ure Cul le n for not ·w riting more . . , latantl:-- a'Jout,/'lac k strugc;le ( in .)n ack idio,us), t!-1e:r c riticiz ed Eus!~es for deal i n 0 'Hit. t h e "lower strat ~ " or ' nder+ side of / lac le life . 1 ~ie l: idde n and ro': ust ( "ta -:: 00 11 ) aspects 1 of? -a c k life 1ere , e g inning to come to t _1e fore i n t ~e wor rn of p.. a c .rt (1:c:Ka:r) and w~i te ( Van lfec _te n ) writers. And Eu;::;~ es joi ned t _sis ;:;ro ·1 ir:c tend enc:.r in speakins fra nkl y a . out "Suicide, npo r , o:r Bl es , 11 5 ard Dadd:,., 11 1 "=~u latton ("A little :rel loi /'Jastard '; o:r." ) , aJu y rown , 11 a nd riore s, c~, experie nc es a.:J. s .. 1)j e c ts. Te 1 1 es for r.1 cal _s for t '!-Ji-•ee - lL1e f stan za s: ,,_tl~e seco nd li ne '-' re peat s t: }e first , a nd t _ e t ', ird • ...,... :; D rece dJ.. ones • ~ 1~ r h :•,~1es lli t b t : .e t wo ,..,. d -'l,- . , i· s ""' 'To ro.e l.u.e d :!.."u.c f or :·~1 ..,,_c'.--:. of \ ~,,1h-- at it • ,.... i.c, . These ~.~ario ,s f orms also '::: elped .. is .Le, ,. . .t ime., s esta".J _ish I! ,~:1es , . t :.e mes and su1Jje cts . ~i n 0 u istic freedo ~ u as 1-rort l tra;ed:r, ·,-:_ ole :}ce or co::1p assio :1 . I :1 " a :::r of ': is poems, ~-! u 0 b es is a ~le to de velop a dialo p,_ etween t b e 1 w:i i t e ruler . 11 lac k u!.lderdo z; a nd t ''.' e 4;~l J T.. i s occur ::, in "Brass Spittoon ~ " wh epe t~: e '.J ul b o:r �int erlace s a portrait of a co:-nmo n vhyt':} r,.s of c!.urc:. , wb ite lac :<: -1or ke r wit,-: da zzli r:: e n ' s ord ers, }tla c ': pa r t :"' an ' ni : 1~t life a nd t h e s h i ny s _ittoons Blac ks rust ~ee p polis~ed . ~e see it tech nically, t h ouc . n ot racial-~ , in " J azzo ni a" i ::1 the call-and-re s ponse patter n cou pled wit J c a refull~ rearr a nged chordal stru "t ures: r_ f Oh , ( '/) silver tree! Oh , s h ining rivers of t . e soul ! Three stanzas later, t h e sa,i1e idea r,ppe a.rs i n t l~ is for r.1: I Oh , singi ng tree! e_: s; ining ri v ers of t , e s o,,11 nd fi ve stanzas later, it a pp ears t hu sl?: ~ / Oh , s b ining :bree ! Oh , silver riv er s of t ~e so, l ! •~11-ti---... This rilliant , s e of t h ~ me i ntricate pa tt er n o all-and-re sp ons e continues in "::ulatto." dialo~ nd 1 ~ e '.,ta.dtard , o:"" _/ is re j ected first b:- t .. e wb :!. te fat !'} er o. nd later ·.J"" t ::'.'. e w'1i te . brot .. er, ~J oth repre s e nti nc p ( t sJ rough t . e i nter j ection of dialo;: ) ~ differe nt t yp es a nd c;e nerat :.o ns of wh ite me nJ - or:.e o' 5e c tin: to fV\ t h e existe nce of an 11 ille c;i t mate II sO::1 a nd t :.e ot er ( t~e for n er ' : : off t spri ng ) refusine to exte d a h and of hroth erl :,. co ncer n . ITugh eds ~~emes , 1-r'h icb re r.1ain ed wi t 'h !·1:t m t b rou 6 h most of ~-i s l i f e, ar{~~.;;;:;:.~~':,l ·•ifiii ~] p ack worn~ 5 .....,. t bl ne 6eauty and t n1t,, , rac e r i de 1'•1 ,!I 1 U, •fc ulle n or : ic ?:a:~ ), ~ stre ngt .,s), jazz, ~ ''.)l ue s/ a:811 reli g ious mt s·ic, v iolence a s ai nst Blac k~ a nd i nte c ratio n . �Iughes 1f ,ie.si.e-1t:½ac '.1 :) spa ce s.,.an of t 1 especially And .1 e often relis}~e c. t' .e co ..:.-non prof und it:r of Blac ks at dance, play, worsh ip or wor l{ . J . }Iord Allen ' s 11 In 11 .,_Te s ro Da ncers,'! ,e recalls Tb e Squ ea k of t h e Fiddle II a nd James Edwi n Ca , pb ell ' s "Ho ile Bue k . 11 Allen Lints t h at w:"} i tes ca nl1 ot d a nce. And Campb ell re produces in poetr:r t e r 1:,-t_ dance k nown as t e satio n , clai ms t h at II ck. re 11 Q.. of/\.co nte mporar7 ,is Hu [; .. es; s ':1 owi ng off.J'lac k i mprov i a nd __ is 1Ja. : h a v e -..;,,, Two mo ' ,; a y s to do de Ch arlesto n ! -L~ a pop lar cont emporar~ dance . Eve n if wh ites 11 1a · .;~ 11 fV1 "---"' a nd 11 pra~'./ " Bl ac ks ca n ta ke satisfaction i n t ,e kn owled[;e t h at t h ey can ~p t b ei:1 own reser v o _r of spo ntanei t:,. and creati v ity wh e n t h e:'" want to side-step or a nnoy t h e mec11a nica ~ wh ite t Luf"J":.es also wrote poe try a b out b ei n; "alone II at vorld . 1 ni g~1t n a nd a -'- r a i a . Th e re a,Jv ~ c:,.nicis m a nd sarcas :n a nd t ra3ed:r in t .. i s poet 1-!1: o o·Js er ved . i s pe op e t .. r o gl, a deep a nd creat ".T e affec t .:.. on . s Huc __ es 'f perso nal life , of cotrs e , was a ti n g as l-:d s poetr:,. . Ee ro· 41itliiiiliirn111:ill?S•--•"'••11121a11-•■ 11 0 1-r 1 Jt-1 s t as fascit n 1;i;.er o s awards and wr i ti :.12; ~e fi '2. le d a car tru n - wit at ~ l a c! c':"- :rc!: c::: a::.c co '2..: c _::c ::; . h oo ks and ~ e r u')1Jed s:-:. ou_d ers wi t :1 t'le .ranki ::"l::::; ·Hr i te r s a.:1d i..t ell ~c t t•.a '2..s of '-i s da.:- ~ t re ::r.ai ne d L l �Pa::1-Af'rica . li rar~ a~~ artistic t i cs. ~ - C cs uas one of th e o:..der states :-1en of } iac .1:. c J.t re at t 'he F irst ~·!o::r'2.. Fes ti ~:al of . . .ccro ts, :--:e:..C: e:.e:::;a:1 L1 l S' 66 . Ka:::1 , _;1 I) T.,. e ., also e it ed ant~oloci as of A:'ricar: prose a ,. countr:-. -~e H d e C -ca.,.., ec.· t .. a.._u .,_u ,Jr.>1 n..,-o _. , ..., '" u :!3,:ro artists 11 wo L t .. eir " nd i v idual dar :i:- 0 -:i,1::ec. se:·-es ." ex ress I :' e t'.:" er :3 lac::s er · . it es a.. :ro·.-od s ~ ~-t o:·! C:' CS a. rai se f r o l. ~ 3 d i ~1: , TT a: t ::o ,~\-. ~e di ~1: tel_ ectuQ_ stat re of ot~ er s a:> :-:a 1.ss ai.1c I\ s f lac1: cri t :!.cs J s ai .. / naiv ete. " It 11 c oe s n ot t ": i!1k 1 b u t to sa:r ~;C intellc c a uJr.mastic i r.telli ;:;e words . 1 tlu __ ._,.., fe els s true t :~ at TI \_,1--:c :J .'1ai ::1taii. ed a ., ou ";.it erar:· profi_ e a nd d d ::ot aspi re to loft~r tji e a 1 d n:; of ritcrs . is 'C.~t r .A ,,u .. i:J poetr:T pro·.:ed to t iJ~:.:J~~;P~~:e~f:uL t'n ~ \.S ' AA ve\",~ - CC ~ ~ e:we >as a ::rai ~ a. nce and a f• r cus p o. er wit': e irresisti~J .. e a.::c. to al. ost a ,.alf c e nt~r ~ of co nt e r:ip orari es . ::spiri:-1.:::; �to , c a o 1t a 11 Dr o.rn Def erred . n q e stj_o n: in an a3~re~ate analogy t ~at lencthens to : ~ And .:. .. C Or does it exp_ode ? l · "t",ec. to se e t _, e explos on i n Hatts , 1"'.'ewar c, Detro t :fg() ~ a nd otl-:e r places . ,rr iti nc-s ar e ~... "'., all anth olo 0 ie::; of Afr o-Ar.1erican l t er ature . Fro t 1 .e j)ar :..: Tu-i-rer . • 't or~ _s ""':r Brown, \,., 1.. erl i n , Red 1n~ pilations . Detailed c ri ti ca- Ee is also assessed : n o.- .::. c ent r :r J Jo ,nson a ndf\p 1 .1erous ot:.1er st ud i e s and cor~ 1 Jar.1es =:r:ia~1 ' el ' s . ,_, io rapl-::T of -~ L ~ (La n~ston i .;:;-- es) 0 was pu lis~ea i n 1 , 67. Other i mportant source ite ms on Hu he s are Fran9ois Dodat' s Langston Hugh es (Paris, 1964), Ra:rmond Quino ~ Lan1sston Hugh es (Brussels , 1q64), Milton :i'-i eltzer's Langston Hughe s: _ / Biography ( 196·9 ), Elizabe t h P. ; eyers ' Lan gston J Hughes : ~ Poet of His People (1970 ) and Ch a.rle mae Rollins' Bla~~ Troubador: _ Langston Hughes (1g70). steadily pouring out ~ Of the plethora. of material Hughes , a most valuable b ook is Langston , Black Genius: /critical Evaluatio n (1° 71 ), edited by B. O'Daniel. O'Daniel includes a selected classified s (.Jl;-a1:.;.x., bibli ography detailing Hughes'f lengt hy career as ~writer in all w 0,J-- enres, /\ anthologist and/\ criti~. Hughes inspired generations of j 'lack Africans and Americans and also edited t h e followin g ~Q.t:l / -;.; ~ �a nthologies: An African Treasury: Articles, Essays, Stories, Poems Jf:y New egro Poet s: _U. . . A. ( 1964); and Voices: ...,A Quarterl:• of Blac { Afri cans ( 1960); Poems from Blac -r AfricA. ( q63) ; Poetry (Negro poets is sue , wi nter I II I I . 195 ). �or Second , Echelon Poets of the Renaissance ~oz e ns of poets helped to ma ke up t he varie gated atmosph ere of the New Ne gro ··-:ovement. the 19601's cannot ~ ~ ,, •/ And just as the )(ew pack_}'oetry of racterized in terms of four or fi ve indi v iduals, so t h e ~Renai ss ance cannot be understood unless t h e a'ornoL.ei-e ~ poetry scene is examined. Yan~r of the so -cal led mino!j or second ~echelo~ poets writing during t h e peak of t h e_jenaissance ad already es tabl ished re putations be fore 1923. d ~ hese wer e Arna Bontemps ) :II . ,t,{/ ~ Principal amon g I Angelina Gri mke, Gwendolvn N ...., ~ Bennett (1902~ ), Anne Spencer, ._,Clarissa Scot t Delan~Y,8 (189~\11', ,.. Frank Horne Allen (19 05 1 Georgia Douglas John son, Geor e Leonard _ 35), Donald Jeffrey Hayes (1904J ), Jonathan He nderson Brooks (19 04; = 45 ), He lene Johnson (190 7~ ) , Waring Cuney (1906 1 ), r Lewis Alexander ( 1900i _.. 45), and Lucy Ariel Williams Holloway I (19 05N ) ~ poe ts, to be ment ioned at the end of t h is unit, can be f ; sper ecd rather widel_ alon ficance. a spectrum of relative sign!:/, Nany of t h em won prizes and places for their poems among t he pa ges of The Crisis a nd Opportunity and then disappeared e a t½s M -'- •b · 1e yet ot ers c, ose d i fferent careers or l e ~ cd i nto t~e freed om fi cht . C llen's fro t he c c3De. Ot}_,)ers n:o t un t nel-.:r 1 ~ Carol n; D sk (1927) co ntains thJ , est re resentation of Afro = Ac. er ic an poetr:r 1-rr · tten , etwee n 19- 3.!.1 1925 . Jo __ ns on ' s of . ~er!can ,s gro Poetry (1 : 22) presets poe ts ~etween the ti~e of its l as t editi on (1931 ). h e Boo .{ nbar a:1c =~ !or and minor poets are also to ,-:, e fo nd in Kcrl i n ' s !Te .:;ro Poets and Their Poems (1<)23, ... 35) . �Hughes and Bont emps made ma n~r of these lyricists a7 a i lable ~ in The Poe try of the Negro (1949, 19 70 ). .... At least b lf a dozen of the les s e r known poets are incl'd ed i n Alain Locke ' s The New Negro (1925) . Randall (Th e Black Poets, 1971) dis lays work by Horne a nd Bontemps, but only Bontemps is i ncluded in Randall ' s Black Poetry (1969) . Henderson d oes not list one of thes e tra ns itio nal fi gures i n Understa nd i ng the New Slack Poe tr7 (1973). And only Cuney and Bont emps are included i n Ros ey Pool' s Beyond the Blu es (1962). ~ t he anthologi e s fo r co nt ent . we are ~ ra nd oml r samplin3 See the b i bl i ography for more = Sf ~ e tailed listin 6 s :t/-Th e best co nte mporary a nt ology of ~ ntury )'{lack poe try is Arnold Adoff I s The Poetry of Blac 1 (iq1lJ Americ ~ 140 poets and practi cal ly all which lists of the minor ones of e naissa nce , alt jou 6 h the omissi o~ \ ~ ~Pp «.U\·tl, ' of Cuney and Edward Silvera heron .. fl ii t ??il1 11 t. Unfortu nat e ly, nojlacr a nt h ology of t he ma g nitude of the Norto n series has appeared. ' Tbe Hes;;rg Qara '-1 ( terli ng Brown, et al.), a comprehens i v e anth olo y p l i s . ed i n 1941 and res)- ssu ed ( nrev ised) in 1970, contai ns near...,:r a do ze n of t . e rr. inor v oices . I n "Fra nk Horne and th e Second Echelon Poe ts of the Earler.1 Renais s ance 11 (The Harlem Rena i ssanc e Re membered , Bonte mps , y 1972), Ronald Primeau launch es an i mpressi ve ~nd i mp ort a nt d isc ssion of~ ese lesser known fi gures . ·• i le ~a gne r (Black Poets of t~e United. State s , 1973) makes a partial effort to dis cuss t~ese poets , ~e seems gene ral l:' to dis r::i ss theL a s cli ~ Africa n past . see!cers after a n So1 at t h is wri ti ng , SEEi A s Brown ' s "C onte mporar:' ,.______...,,. �•eL a ns the "1--)est cr i tical o~.- r -i e~r of th sc poet s . .,,,,. Bontocir c · s on e of t'. ree i m orta nt%e na i ssa ~c e fi ;; re s 0 (alonz r t . !! ghcs and up ro,rn) to s •rvi ve ;;{;i_7 cre e.tive ;• calls ont er:: s "o ne of t~"' e most -c t s :·Tofa ::1cr t . c "Fiar_en Rena i s sance a nd ro nt l t o 19 6Cf s . ".)r lliant _, i nor lysi<All~ nd 6 , ~ o" ( ~ ~ ~~-c ..~ ·m n al so ha s ~i ; ;-, "'ra s e cf~) 1 s ~o tr:~ and f ic t i on . ~ Dav i s ) sees a n "a lien- and-exile !T theme c ont i nuing . /4 ~ from the najor trunk orJnaiss a nce poetry i nto t h e work of Bonte m s. p With the notable exception of Geor gia Douglas Joh nson , the i mp ortant mino;:.{enaissance fi gures d id not publish b ooks ~ of poetr~ until t he 19601s . This fact alone tells us much ab out '-' Bontemps !.,s/seeming poe tic ob s curity e t ween 1930 a nd 1960. But _ more i npor tant, for t 4e re cord, is the fact t ha t Bont emps'J eff orts ere i rec t ed to ard fiction , drana, c~ ildr en ' s liter ~ t r e , -· story, c1ir oniclin,.,. the develo pmen t of ot er / la.ck poe tsJ and : round - r ~aki ns ibrary 1ork. orn i n Alexan ria, Louisia na, Bonten s f.____;,a~ilv mo~ d to California fuen he was still a ch ild . He attended Pacific Union Colle ge a nd t he University of Cl icago. s di vc~s e ~-ri tin g outp t , almost as prodi gious as Eugbe s !!, includes numerous books, pamph l ts and arti c les . Hi s novels a.re God Sends Sunday 0-931; dramatized as S t . Louis \-loma n, 1946 ), Black Thunder (1936, about t e Nat Turner ~ at Dusk (1939). Bontemps also c o edited, wi t h rev olt ) and Dr ums t'So;iI, Hughe~ the very influential a nt hology The Poe t ry oft e N'egro (1949 , 1970 ) , and he brough t out American Negro Poetry in 1963. Other anth ologies �Reade r s ( 1941), ook of 1'Te5ro Fol k l ore ( 195'~, wit,,_ T.: :::., es ), Great Slave Narratives (1 9 69), Hold :?ast to Dr ea::.1s: ,_.,,Poe:-:s Old and Te1-1 ( 19 69) a nd Tl e !~arle m Renaissanc e Rer.:e,,.':;ercd ( l C: 72 , a collection of articles). ~ ont e r.1ps pu' lis 1--: ~c. Addi tionally -!."•• o~ e @ ::odd works of 1:'l i .Jl ioGrap _.::- ( usu a l ~:r on~ l ac ir >c roes), juvenilia , c ltt re a nd 1 is tor:•. at F is - for nore t _,a n @ !:e scr,·ed as ni7crsl. t:· 11 f '•raria,: ye ars a nd was a t11e r.1:er of t'~e fac' 1 tie:: o:f t l e Un i -ers it:" of Illi n ois a nd ~~alc ~ W17ere ~~ e -ra s L: c - r .::;e o:f Afro-Ame rica n j tudie s at t _e ti me of ::1is dea t . • 1924 a nd 1 931 ont e .1ps 's{poems wer e p 1)lisb ed wi del:r L. ~.- ario s magazines a nd pe riodica:s a n The Cri sis a ::: Bet1-1een Opp ort ni t::,r .. Personals , die. n o o ,t co:ie :-e i:,ro n poetr:r priz es fro r.: ',ot....., !:is o nl: pu Jl is hed 70 - t:.:::e 01' '.:)octr:r, n ti l 1964 tNor~ _;j;'-s aiili,i,-=.., -~~ Q'aP: . re ,_an). • "1Jrs o nal s p octr:r . '70 11 af ~or t: re t) ms 'P ,.. c~., of int 0 1 s of on-'.;e n ps !s 1 !I or or Comte att ~ C ::o :: ' s a~1d :::-1:--ar: ,{ !To:r::: .... 1s . _ds _ o ::: c :::i:- s ,.sfI o u:.. 1 :- _ c o:.lfcrt2:<:_::L~e:::::s :: o -" ._-:... _- ~_ cf ::c :; c. ::::::::u ,: co, u.... or+-v , ,_ ·t + " ' 'co ~:.... ::ita')i lit:- a n . . . co.ref , _ 1- or .c :a m:~ i p . ?e i:-ras a mo,_r: t os ccts C, ~b) �,... J- .. .,l U.,_ '- . . , ___~II' . ...., ., J..1 ..., r- """"1 L, ___; -• tre.c iti on o f '"!.. r;.c!r. 1a½or 11 f c c d o . ½i tt er f r uit . 11 .. ._ I • co ncludes t _J at t 1" ~ -:1. a ~)or ers • c' ' ilc.:,e::1 ,u.fLed on Bil l i e Io i d a:· wo l d _a tc r"-llll : a 2~~, _, ang i ns in t he S out:: a nd write t at since Jam s 1'i:1itfi eld , ~ 11 St1"'a nse Fru it . " ack poe t s And we recall a v e po i nt e d to t ., e co ntradictio ns i r: Ame rica n C'hristian:!. ty a nd tr1e h arr e_, =. 7 ers s~ ~ b carinG t ~ e~e . tH~/\ ~ Bonten:ps als o fo llowed cizing a pa g a n~ t : naissa nc e pat ter n of ro:~a nti t y Afr o-American or Africa n . Wi t b t ._e taste of sl a v ery a nd t h e dial e ct tradi tion still b itter on t ~eir tons~e s, t h ese poe t s lea ped another clime . ac kward s over slav er:r to a.notb er place a nd c l osely reser.1.b l e s Cull e n ' s 11 __ 11 remcnbered rai n , 11 ~ (£) 1-Ic Ka:·. "th e friendly gh os t, "d ance of ra i n , " " j u ngle sky, Tbe Re tur n~1 w_1i c 1 e r i tag e II a nd some of t b e atav istic p i e c es of L ~ Hu 6b es a nd of 11 Bontemp s d oes just t h is i n n 11 11 Bont e mps spe a ks 11 lost n i ~h ts, 11 ;.1uffled drums , " a nd t h e n su m;ests : Let us g o b a c k into t h e dusk a gai D© .•• Dusk , ebo ny , jet , ni e;b t , e veni ng s , pur ple , b lue , rav en a nd ot e:- such synonyms for Blac ks are freque ntly e mployed to gre at effect a nd power b:r Afro-Ame rican poets . Likewise, symb ols or i ma ge s of invisi' il i ty a nd b lindness are al so pr ev ale nt in;(lac k w!'~ Bont emps er.iplo:rs a nd i mplies sucb states in se v eral poe ns ~ ere be achieves a surreal qua li ty-J;,_ a drear.1J. )- ike lo n:;i ng for anotb er time and a noth er pl ace (agai n , a pattern i n t h e poetry of the period ). If y ou "Close Your Eyes , " Bonte mp s say s, y ou ca n i:;o · �back to what you were, and may e t h e son c , as wit will "in tin e return to t hee . n 11 allow one to Toomer, Closing t '!Je eyes will also walk brave ly enou gh . " Away fro1:1 t 1e d aily lime ligh t and without tbe constant pressure (c+f· { Cullen) to succeed and b old up the li gh t of thl race, Bontemps de veloped strong statements using co nvention:poetic patterns wit free-verse experimentation . occasio na_ Personal and powerful, Bontemp s's poetry looks ahead to a similar stamina (th is ti ~e in a neN dialect )~ .e.1h\~q 1-2? u:i:msd by Sterline; Brown in Southern Road. t hough Bontemps tells us i n "Golg oth a 1 !s .rj. Hountai nM F or e ven ~ lt, One day I will crumb l e._, we know that t he dust will fossilize and "make a mou ntai n" : \i, I think it will be Gol g oth a. There h as been very little critical assessment of Bontemps rs poetr:r. But brief reactions to h is work can b e found in The ~ r xznr ~.- -~ Harlem ~cnaiss ance Reme r.1 ered (,;, h ie . _ e edi te ) , at ii_. B r ot,J'1 ' s study, Barksdale\ and K~ nnamon' s anth olo g;r, Robert Kerli n rs cri tical t anth ology , ~ ] T1:. e Ue:;ro Cara.van . pub _is .. ed ·H or c~ see !3 Davis' t From t 'h e Dark Tower, a r.d onter.ps 's For a ne a .J1com lete listin.:; of l ac k 1.orld J : '(: (Se te::- L er l , 71) ft,12 tJ 9. ......t,. '/ Alo n3 -iri t' _ Angeli na Gri:-·1ke , Lewis Alexander, An ne Spen cer, ~ Bontemps , Ge or 3ia Do .:;las Jol~nso n, a:-id Ee _e ne Jo~:. ~so n , Gwendo_·:r n Be nnet t 1-::e~ped to fill o , t t 1.~e list of lesser lrnow::1 Hor~ It na ;_ssan c e poc t s wh•• o appear e a in · Tl T ~ .· 1 ~e ... Je _,ew _.T e ::;ro ( see ...L , 6" e a i· ..,:1..02 :: ''4b~l'1 with a preface ):r Ro ert Ji a-:rd e n ). Unfort unat el:.-, :~owe ve r , •H■l•• ennctt ' s b est foot was not put forward in t h e "Son !")' " wh ich °I �A Alain Locke accepted for pu lication in t h e a b ove :: named antholo gy . :? m:YHm~ ..Mitt. "Song " is not representati ve of r;enerally bi 8h craf'tmans _. ip; it is flawed by imb alance a.nd an ;too attempt to sayf,[r.any t h ings in one poem. Characteristic of t h e poetry of the period , "Song " reaches back to "forg otten b anjo sones" and Clinking chains and minstrels~ but ~ ...A.k.. h ;:;,.na11UJ:.t,J,w interpolation of dialect lines does not come off wi t L t . e ease and power of ◄J@ _ §Sa Brown's similar efforts. On the oth er b and, b er s h arp1 cris p and precise i ::-mgery employed in poe:::s s 1 0i•T ..B. appeared in r:mgazines and ot.Jer ant:i olo :;ies b cr as a poet with ma ny g ifts and resources. Gwendo l yn Be nnett was born in Giddine s, Texas, to pro~ fessional parents . After graduation fron t b e Girls ' Hi G. Sch ool in Brooklyn, New York , s h e attended Teac _ers Colle g e, Colu~ ia Uni ersi t ~r, for two years and studied in t ll e Fine Arts Depart~ ment ~ t b ereaft er e stab lis n in8 a dual career as poet and artist. Sh e l ater atte nd ed Pratt I nstit te, ta g t i n t e Fine Arts Department at ~: oward Uni 7ers i ty, a nd t h en recei ved t h e ;/h o sand .:: f ollar Forei.sn S c~: o_ars 'l ip of t a e Delta Si ~_:t1a T~eta / orori t:, u:1 ich enab led !1er to so to Europ e,, w' ere s h e studied for a year ✓ / i n Pa r i s at t b e Academi c J ul ia n a ~d t '1e Ee le Pant'ri eo n . Ila Sh e r) York at t .-:: e 'c:e i ~~~ t of t , e A naissance and for ,, ~ /4~ a ,;-1:: i_e was a :::em1:1 er of t 1e editorial staff of Opportunit:r ) \l@ er e-- r e tur ".1.e d to :Te 1 s everal of h er poems a.ppear e . In reading h er finest poe ms, one recan{1epth o:f} -ack wo,~a rL1 ood re 'ealed i ~ t ~e poetry o:f - - - - - - - - - - -- - - -- - -- - - - �Frances Harper, Geor g ia Joh nson a nd An:;elina Gri m.kl . Dark Girl n is a r.1edi t a t ion on t h e sist0r 100d £ "To A. retains We recall t h e word nfort, a s pec ts of nold for g otte n queens . n g otte n n fro m 11S onc;n; b ut it a. ) Otrnd s i n t ~ e poetr:r of t.)i s ~ He" ,,.--. period . XJ;,117Fi? lb,, "brown ;irl 11 ~ {9ullen ! ) is "s orrow ' s r~a.te 11 b ut if s h e for £1;ets h er sl a v e b a c k grou nd s . e J :~~ s ti ~.ll "laug.1 at Fat e ! : •· 1 .. g Mm u s lol.M±&.Hlits Qi£rj m 2O0&1s22lll3L& distills 11 ~ mt ng :~:i= :: ; : ~ : :: ~~ ~ gls zb.:bhxtM![l&C. 1 anJu: tTR1U• "Noctur ne" dista nt l augh ter" and "Sonnet J -2 11 re c alls "He groes M r.1c lod ies . 11 _J__Js _·_____._. "Heri ta; e II is a.bwst iden~ tical, in t .. eme and tone , to Coun tee Cullen ' s poer.1 of tb e sa~e name. Just as Cullen laments t ue di sparit~ ~etwee n 1is "h eart and ..ead , n t h is poet sees t .. e s ame duality in b er "sad people ' s s oul 11 ' Hi dden by a minstrel - s n ile . Finall:r , "Hatred " is s l1 arp a nd sting inc < Like a dart of si n: i ng stee ~ and we ar e reminded of t h e poen.s of ~:1 e san e t ~1 er~e: - D+ ois 'S ,.., "The Ri ddle of t e Sphinx• " and I'IcKay ' s "To t h e vJh ite Fiends" "-- a nd 11 Tl1e lu ite Lous e . 11 ,..., F or Claris s a S cott Dela nf y , "Jo~" see~s to c ont ain the 11 emotio na l i ntensit::! t h at Hatred" h olds for Gwendolyn Bennett . Tb e dau gh ter of Emmett J . S c ott , t ~~e t o Book er T . 1.lasb ington, 11 - - - - - dis t in_cuis .rnd se c retary i-~s . Delan~ r lived a t!'ag i c ally s h ort lif e and died at t h e peak of t h e - - ~- - - - - - - 11 fglJR. j e naissance . "Joy" is �what sh e v ows to t he troubling 11 11 a ba do n II h erself t o in an effort to a void r.iaze" of life. Her poetry is quietly power + ~ ~ ful and seems to co~·.1pl l\ment t ,at of k I 't' Bonte ... ps1 si nce it is deep and flows from tradition , stamina and endurance. Born ~ Tus k e gee Institute, . -:-e A1 a ama, s h e attended Bradford Academy in New England and t h en Wellesley Colle ge, after wh ich s h e taugh t t hree years at t h e I'amous Dunbar Hi 6h S ch ool in Was h ingto n, . (l~ri.1SO.. ""' According to • • • Kerli n , 11ii& Delanfy also 't tudied ......___..... " V delinquency and ne glect a mong Ne gro ch ildren in New Yor City ." D. C. Her poetry reflects a perceptive and analy tical mind. Init i ally, s h e appears detach ed and metallic * deceptively , like Gwendo l y n Brooks, ut t h e poem usually winds down to a grippin g messa[;e on pretense, lo neli ness, j oy or despair. T .e ni gh t in 11 I nterir: " is a "gracious cloak 11 used to conceal t h e defeat of t h e soul. "The Hask 11 i mr:1ediatel:r brings to mind Dun' e.r' s I-1ask . 11 11 We Wenr t h e Exc ept for t •. e differences i n persona and dramatic affects, t h e two poems are qu ite similar. Re readi n 0 l!The IIask, 11 one is rer,1i nded of Smokey Bill Rob inson's rece ntly nopul~~~t Tears of / Clow~ "# wn ich c arries t _ e t _ e ~e of duali t : a nd scb izop_1 renia so often fou nd in7J-ack t h ousb t a n~ :~.:,tin~ C ,fhile a11.,;tiack artists do not d~ pla:r t h is "twoness II wit 1 t h e inte ns i t :• of a e::::::,: Cullen or Il I JI: Ellison, it is almost alwa:rs present in t l1 eir wor ks. / Especie.11:; is t h is true of t h e lack America n 1i1riter, forced to use t .1e c O t?h-nu nica ti on tools of t h e over. seers to speak ab out t h at wh ic - - -- - ---- - 1 is closest to h i m. \ �This particular as pect of f lack poetry c;i ves rise to :-.:uc .1 speculatio~ since poems dev oid of racial or et .. nic flo. v or take on added si gn ificance wh en we kn ow t eir aut :.1 ors are fa~c~ Such is t he case with Gwend olyn Bennett's "Eatred 11 ( "4el!e "you" of t h e Sph inx 11 e wb itcs ) a nd i · ~E .............._ 11 ·F· nf o is •s!"T!1e Riddle t b er:i II prob a bly r.:eans wh ites). '#Fra nk Horne, who won a poetry contest i n Th e Crisis in 1 925 , ut did not pu lish a b ook r (Haver straw) ~ ntil 196J , fits into t h is context. Hor ne was public sch ools. or n in New York Cit1 where h e atte n ed As a s t udent at t he Colleg e of t :-:e Cit7 of New York, he won varsity letters in track and wrote poetr:r. He later graduat ed fro ::1 the iJorth er n Illi n ois Colle ~e :of f OphtbalmoloGY with degree of Doctor of Optometr:r. !:or nc o. wor<ed in Cb icab o : ew Yor {, tau c:1 t in F ort 1 all e:J Geor 0 i ~ and uas for s ome ti ~ie e mploye d Aut ority . y t h e United Stat~}Iousi· c ~AIJ_~ ~ d'o lll14/. 1-ornet, "possesses t'he aut .. entic g ift of poetr:r, ._, 11 . accordi~r·- to Ja , es foldo n Johnson;,· ~rid 'i t a J; • Drown ,:entio 11s ~ "i ntellect ual ir ony . !t I ndeed Iorne i s c:-rni co.l, s ~w pti i al , "- r· rei served and alr::ost . are i :1 ~ is s :10rt l ines a nd eco n o:1 &f"~an -::ua.::;e. The c orpus of . is earl:,. poetr:r re ·ol es arou nd !!Lett ers f Ol nc. °'near a suicic. ~ 11 for w__ ic½ "'e 11 0~1 Cri sis awar • :-:o t of t. e poer.1s are addressed to ind i ··idti.all:r t na.,_ec. erso s ~nd recall sor:e point of co i.-;t act ( co:1tontio n ?) ·..,etween t 1: e a_ le_: v ict i!. and t 11e perso n acc.re s s cd. s 1 ic ide .\. s :'lot 3c earlier , :· a ,.:· of t 1~ e po e n s !: a,· c to he plac ed t ::-:. t,1e co ntext f ~ _ac !s.: ~ '--'" o -- t::-:,. if �t, c c __ortnons of lire, c o. tradictions i ~ C~ risti anit7. ~c tr a~a l, de ath, .:usi c, scientific L1q i.ir~r ac: a t ed to t 1-:e rac ia_ in~tstic e , and v i c tory as fa c t or idea . oet ' s qu estior~i n:: ~orne 1 s vers e is sanc uine bu t, for t he most part, a roids tbe ro ma nti c treati, ~ ""''y, I/CJ.& ment of' Africa found in ?•rnti as? 3 _ aiBtl\.~•i:s □ ~a 11 :Iis Ti c;ser ( Chant fo r C i _dren ) n catalo{s -,. }tlac ~ pe1 :f naissanc~ :""' eroes: "' Lannibal , Oth ello , Crispus Attucks, Toussaint L 'Ol erture , and adds Jesus near t he end . A ch ora l i ter a tion, a nticipatins ii J ■'@, _Br01·m and compl~ .. enting ~ Eu g"h es, /\includes: SI ~ "ITi1:sGer • • • n i c;::;er • • • ni g;er. ..• "To t "!1 e Poe ts 11 recalls Cullen ' s 11 11 Scotts oro, Too, Is 1forth Its Song" ; b ot"_ poems c"h ide oth er poets for sin _in c son ~s 07er Hron~ causes . Ior ne 11 7elled yell:!.ng r;ot b i !;;. nowh ere . for Baldwi ~ vL!O, as 11 (ITe itier did yellin g n ove mou~tains as a b oy f preacl. er , quic ly saw t :1 e c ontradic tio n in s in,;ingJ "You can _orne ' s osannas 11 intc t tJe e r:ptiness , ":lut a ve al l dis world hut ~i , e me Jesus. 11 ) rnowled c e of science i s p t to 0 ood use i n sue: poems 11 To __ enr~ " and ~ - Q.• E.D . surfaces as in "To Yol}" whi ch is t .rou c:;1.~ 11 Your 11 11 uAnd b is skepticism co nti nually i~t/er~ h e ~ examines t11e road to salv a t i on, +eT (c 1rist ' s ) ....__ involved in a uorldl:· experience wi t :.1 body . 11 b e:r/ But later b e i s and wb en h e re t urns to t h e a l tar to eat and drink of '~our" splendors Le c an t h ink "only of her . 11 Euc h of Horne ' s poetr:r employs t b e symbolis m and v oc abu lar:r of at_ letic contests ~ princ ipa lly foo t b o.11 and trac k . �~e. oC He also uses language associated with,_playingAmusic or singing. "To Caroline" and "To Catalin~' merge melody, harmonies, pain and ecstasy. "Caroline" plays ,--- "skin" as well as the piano. "Catalina" is warned (and ,ru<:.e) that the piano will give4joy and hurt. "To Chick" reca~ahe days of the "Terrible Two" on the football field. ~ ~ 0 The ~ signal ~in football is anal•gous to the "signal" called in real life. In both instances the poet crossej the victory- linej "fighting and squirming." "To one who called me 'nigger"' is a comment on the white man's ability to do everything but face America's race problems. Continuing his theme of skepticism, Horne presents a "Toast" to eyes, lips, heart and 10dy, even though the person fJ addressed h; s an "unborn" soul. though sparl e _ .....,_ .-/ His poetry is solely in freer verse and, his language invariably operates on multiple levels. "To Persistent Phantom" is an excellent example of Horne "complicating" the meaning of words through the use of repetition, ~pses, and the strategic -j:/j use of/\words e . "tears," "tangled," "deeper," "charms" and "buried," If the language and action of athletic competition influenced Horne, ~~ it was melody that ~pturedAGeorge Leonard Allen, a poet who lived only Go) Slu,wJ.j tn•d1 \loo k+L•,... nl «g 01 It~ ,o(J;.yJ years. /f(,llen achieved wide recognition before his death: his "To Melody" won first prize in a 1927 state-wide poetry contest sponsored by the North Carolina Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. His poems also appeared in Opportunity, American Life, The Southern Christian Advocate, The Lyric West and Caroling Dusk. "Pilate in Modern America" employs what is, by Allen's time, a traditional theme in / lack poetry: equating p ack suffering to the crucifixion of Christ. The "Pilate" of America pleads with God for redemption, claiming that "one man's voice" �(pf dissent) could not be heard in the din of the lynch mob. But God's voice (the white man's conscience) tells "Pilate" that his guilt is as great as the crowd's. "To Melody" has no racial import. It simply praises song and is imitative, in language and theme, of poetry. ,: century English As a sonnet, it only remotely suggests the work of McKay and A:!.l:Eii was born iR "Pilate" is well handled in iambic pentameter. J urnha rt1a; Ho t th CJibliha; where ne accead@d a pubht §titbbf§--\Clater cbilip±ecliig /1, A certain formalism also marks the work of Donald Jeffrey Hayes. Hayes was born in Raleigh, North Carolina; his education, which was quite e,i., ,(/~ I"' I ~ tensive, was gained primarily through private stud~ whare he pursued his interests in singing, directing and writing. During the twenties and thirties, Hayes appeared in several Broadway productions as a member of a singing chorus. His poetry, much of which reflects his interest in music, was published in Harper's Bazaar, Good Housekeeping and This Week. "Appoggiatura"M a musical term -draws sustained comparisons between a woman's movements and hodiso aai I sounds of water . and w:~ It is a towering poem full of surreal image)~ mysticism low. Ultimately the woman seems to become a mermaid. He hearJ the "indistinguishable sound of water si l enceJ' and then the woman disappear~: "Sea-Woman- slim-fingerell-water-thing II ( This theme of having lost something or someone pervades Hayes s r oetry . And while he never mentions Africa or the lost / lack purity lamented by other f naissance poets, it is possible that he h a ~ _______________ ...._ - -- - - !~!'!:t me. "Benediction" ~ ~ �is for the departed rather than a prayer to end a religious service. pursues Horne's theme of life's briefness. the poet's "kiss was sweet." for time before death. "Poet" A eulogy, the poem notes that "Prescience" depicts the poet trying to stall His concern is not for his own physical and emotional well-being, but for the "you" addressed in the poem. The speaker cannot bear the thought of his loved one being alone after his death. "Have~" death haunts all of Hayes and conventional forms. 'Jranthologized poetry. Except for He writes in free f verse "Poet" and "Prescience" make the most of careful meter and rhyming couplets. Another poet, Jonathan Henderson ~rooks, writes with allegorical el~ His work is deeply religiousJ ~ :t , s not a canned religiousness • .......__,,. "'''' ' He takes Christian symbolism and makes i t work for the / lack cause. I & quence. Ll. Al SO , neA~quates f lack suffering to the sufferings of Christ. And like Phillis Wheatley, he ensconces his deep and t r oubled feelings in religious fervor. " The Resurrection" is a poetic narrativeMlemploying dialo ~ racial concerns can only be inferred. doubt as to its intent. and my disgrace' ""'- But "My Angel" leaves little Freighted with both hope and doubt, with "Despair the poem depicts "my angel" attempting to lift the burden from the shoulders of j iack Americans. But the angel, who struggled "All night," is unable to lift The heaviest load since Lucifer •• • • Carefully and startlingly, Brooks weaves in the relatively new lack poetic o.P theme of indifference toward• (and distrust of) Christianit v the angel intervenesj••••••t _________.. but after the all~ he wearily flies off (t) "To angels' resting placeJ 3tJtf necessity" ) �/ hus leaving the narrator with his despair and disgrace. poem, one 1.m- ~ It is a chilling cF !1 blatantly carries a doubt more subdued in otherl\!3rooks-S)pieces. Alternating between iambic tetrameter a n d ~ trimeter, and using six-lin~ stanzas, he presents an exciting technical achievement with an ab c b db rhyme scheme. Brooks was born in Mississippi, on a farm "twelve miles southwest of Lexington." After his parents separated, he stayed with his mother until ,~~ ~ saved. ---,te went to Jackson College for four months on money his mother At Jackson he won a prize for a short story and later completed ~f.~!:1:dJ1!!ttssour · high ~c; : - : ; at {1."1it1 dot"J. 4Mduafisfridy1.t ~, Cl,t,, ' at Tougaloo, Mississipp~f\Though religion is the o He then l) 4 ~7.,~~ .. , standing influence on his poetry, he is nevertheless unconventional in his use of i S and his poetry is always wellt crafted. His over riding achievement appears to be "She Said) •.• " a poem dedicated to the memory of the first J lack soldier from Alcorn County, Mississippi, to be "killed in action in the invasion of Normandy." Again using Christian symbolism and terms, he imagines the response of the soldier's mother) who wonders if her son screamed when he was shot, if "unhurrying Death" was called, and if he died in sunshine, rain, or night. The mo~her finally equates herself to "Mary of Galilee" and notes that the two women must have felt the same emotion. This is an irresistible idea and theme inJ iack poetry. The searching~,skillful contemporary poet Raymond Patterson presented a similar situation in his elegy on the death of Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. Cot'\ c.-et-ri ' 0 f! ("All Things Abide," Black World, September 1974). Patterson echoes A-lheatley, a..mon u.s-- Du~ois,/ McKay, Hughes, Cullen and Dunbar when he as s whol~......~. .•aa.a._ ~ - t ----=--- "e..tl-{ ~ can ~ ay how Jesus' mothe1 ~ '-f'-' / MJ esus, , crucified? _ �The question mark aids in calling up all the gore and grief and passion and terror that engulf and interlace lack existence as it is infused by Christianity, Africanisms and the An) eican experience of slavery. there again. hauntingl Was Jesus really crucified? yet immediatet requiem by ~ anticipating 4iia Skepticism and cynicism are In his poem, Brooks achieves a ing the soldier's death to the cosmosM Dodson's "Lament"r/4-and relating placet names of importance. He establishes other associations: ~the stars and stripes (of the flag) are connected to the "sun's shining," the sunlight and moonglow are associated with the "stars forever," bullet and death and days and hours and sunshine and night and rain and battleground~-all set the stage for Mary and the "Garden" -Hie.. ~ns oi nd the su LastlJl\the narration • fho.t · d C,.rf, OCCVr 1'n -#, € frl tn Helene Johnson's small output should be collected and published in boot ormJ m,nor because she is an importantt.eoet. Born in Boston, where she attended local public schools and Boston U n i v e r s i t y , ~ $~rrived in New York in 1926 to do additional study at the Extension Division of Columbia University and to become one of the important "younger" figures of the ~ / enaissance. Her poems were published in Opportunity, Vanity Fair and several other periodi-lcals and anthologies. and language. Her poetry is terse, emphatic and diverse in form, style She is at home with the sonnet, free verse, conventional rhyme t:[;, pieces, with what James Weldon Johnson calls "colloquial style- a style ------M which numberless poets of this new ag ~ ij910 193~ have assumed to be easy." &t' ornJ.lf.t\T~a - ( (Johnson sounds as if he is~d Jtf g ts some of the poets of the current "new· -=+- f ag)_:' 1960..!. , . ) . she / And Johnson is right about Helene Johnson when he says aware that a poem written in dialect, colloquial or street language �"demands as much work and workmanship as a well-wrought sonnet." Helene Johnson's dominant themes are cultural reclamation (the African heritage), the ludicrous (sometimes peacockish) dress and mannerisms of J1-ack men, J'lack beauty and love. Almost always she expresses longing, either for personal love or a return to pre{ slavery Africa. In "Summer Matures," "Fu1ffment" and "Magalu" she invites lovers both literally and metaphorically. "Magaltiv) like "Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem," "The Road," "Poem " and "Bottled," suggests that the )fl.ack American is better than he thinks he is~ that exam~ nation of his African past and his innate rhythmic richness will allow him to maintain both his past glory and his present sanity. The hint that whites -, are crass, immobile and inhibited ( _,a theme recurring in writing) also creeps through these poems. lack thought and "Magalu" is told to ignore the teachings of the man in a "white collar" who carries a rble. Poetry, or ~iv) ~ ancestral and cultural worship, is better than Christianity, the poet says. Here, of course, she advances an answer to the riddle of 5iYRilM2 Cullen, who appears to have wanted to "dance" but could not throw off the cloak of Western education, sentimentality and respectability. Helene Johnson asks Magalu: Would you sell the colors of your sunset 0 and the fragrance Of your flowers, and the passionate wonder [J of your forest For a creed that will not let you dance? Continuing this theme in "Sonnet to )('Negro in Harlem" (and recalling McKay's "Harlem Dancer" as wel 1 Harlem ~as 20 d~.';l~~oem~· ~ h e depicts the dimJ-ed r.. P-...otn~e ~ being psychologically and religiousl:r~ ut I �environment in which he or she lives. Somehow, thj l 'lack American has remained untainted by crass, Western ways and inflexible thought. All this is embodied symbolically in the Harlem Black,e who, in his dtvine hart barism, stylistic richness and refusal to imitate those "whom you despise," is "too splendid for this city street." Helene Johnson seems to direct her poetry at Cullen and others who are unaije to E.:Jh--~1:cmsulew ~ the clash of - "pagan urge." "Christian" training and ,.._ is the answer an e : one. '1urt.. M • tbw For despite all th~naissance proposals calling ~ \ Q:J for spiritual or physical return to the essences of the African self, the writers had no concrete suggestionjto offer. Except for nf ois, Garvey and a few others, they simply explored romantic declarations and yearnings. ~~ This mood is evident also in Helene Johnson's "PoemJ' where the "Slim, dark, big-eyed" boy becomes a prince like the "monarch" laborer in Fenton a "Rulers." Yet there is important immediate social commentary in "Bottled," which ridicules a ~uperfly-type character of the ....... 1920# s. s Her "Negro dressed fit to· kill" refusel to dance the Charleston or the Black Bottom since he is too "dignified." Instead of a cane, she says, he should be "carrying a spear with a sharp fine point." spear should be dipped in poison. The tip of the And the rest, of course, is obvious. Finally, the poem laments the apparent internal turmoil of a / lack man who is "all glass" ("plastic" in today's language). J "Bottled" is typical of much of the thematic focus of / lack writing in all ~----~ of the period. --- ante anticipated the continuing satire that would be found in the writings of Frank Marshall Davis, George Sc1Jler, Hughes, and others. A young cont temporary woman poet, Barbara McHone (Black World, August~ l974) assesses a character similar to Helene Johnson's in "A Sea of Brown Boys."- o/' e �~'1 ~- (A.~>JV'r\ the boys for wearing high~heel shoes, purses, and /\ patterning their lives after Shaft, Superfly and Sweetback. After stating -ll•IIN!PPl!.,...l•ieMl■ la1~11~•1\.chides the urgent needs of the times and implying that/ lack masculinity is being undermined, she asks: J. where did our love go? Helene Johnson seems to make her most cogent statement, however, in "The Roar ~ N' 1 1v,,/l WRQ~e,- ✓, she links into a theme longTassociated with , lack struggle: ~"Keep on moving." fight. "The Road" encourages Blacks to see their beauty as well as their ,, ,, J t'<"(',. "Trodden beautyf " is still "trodden pride." Reminisc t off\ Johnson's "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and Fenton Johnson's "Children of the Sun," she adl vises her people to f Rise to one brimming golden, spilling .C cry! -HPerhaps not coincidentally, Helene Johnson's work is similar, in language and wtLLi41Y1 ALL(n /./ill theme, to the poetry of Waring Cune~ who (along with Hughe8Jfnci Edward Silvera) belongs to the group sometimes called the Lincoln University poets.3 born Ge Cuney was ca. haU ofAtwin!_ in Washington, D.C ~ where he attended public schools andJ -:l.a.te.r studied music after Howard and Lincoln Universities , at the Boston servatory of Music and in Rome. Coi The twins had similar interests: ..... Waring's being singing and his brother's the piano. After his poem "No Images" won an Opportunity prize, James Weldon Johnson stated that Cuney's work held "exceptional promise." Howeve~ Cuney never became a prolific writer of literary poetry. Instead he divided his time between writing lyrics for songs and his other numerous chores. His protest lyrics were set to music and sung by Josh White on the album Southern Exposure. r f ~ - -- - And his poetry was not published in book form until 196 when the \ 3 / See Four Lincoln University Poets (Hughes, 1931) and Lincoln University ~ (Cuney, Hughes, and Bruce McM. Wright, 1954). Hughes called Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) "a place of beauty and the ideal college for a poet." His assessment seems to have been correct. Raymond Patterson, Larry Neal and - �ibliophile ~ociety in the Netherlands brought out Puzzles. r s _ _,1 ~ free -rverse and maintains "great economy of phrase." He usually writes in His poetry surveys the whole of the human experienc~ but most of it carries either a racial or a folksy note. There is also cynicism and skepticism of the sort found in Fenton Johnson, McKay, Heavily influenced by Hughes, Cuney's early work depicts frank Cullen and H~e. pictures of.Jiack and general life and often uses ~ a major vehicle. _,:,tuA plain, direct folk speech as 0,. / This trend is seen 1~ poems-Hke "Hard Times Blues, 11 "Crucif fixion," "Troubled Jesus," and "Burial of the Young Love." Though his poems were published in several magazines and antholo gies of the era, his "No Images" l.which won the Opportunitz prize ties in with a general poetic theme of if~e~ aissance: that pack beauty and creativity are too good to flourish in the decadence of Western civilization. The/ lack woman in Cuney's poem is similar to the Harlem Negro of Helene Johnson's poem, the dancer of McKay's "Harlem Dancer," the ravished and tormented narrator in Cullen's "Heritage," and the split personality in Toorner's "Kabnis" (Cane) ..!.. they all seek to be whole in a world that denies and caricat -- M (y tures their humanity. J: Cuney's woman figure . . . thinks her brown body Has no glory. But if she had an opportunity to dance as her natural selft "nakedJ" perhaps* in her natural habitatf'J Africa/4-where her "image' would be reflected by the riv~ then she would "know" how beautiful she is. ..,,_..,.~~-- - But civilization corrodes the idea of trees and naturalness and, consequently, deprives Blacks of their own beauty and their healthy s e lf-image: (f) And dishwater gives back no images. Dishwater is a kind of deathJ -a spiritual and moral death-~for Cuney whose work M M J Gil Scott-Heron are only three of the nejer poetic talents nurtured at Lincoln. 1oLse>(} CA'--5o 4"ffe,1ded lt ntoln, �~ - -- - - shows him to be preoccupied with death. Several of his poems ("Threnody," "The Death Bed," "Crucifixion," "Burial of the Young," "Finis" and "Dust") react to, anticipate or contemplate death. For Cuney, who seems to place a strong trust in the folkways, there is an irony in the fact that the God who protects the oppressors is also expected to protect the oppressed. cism makes it~ meet' dramatic ~.C?P.~~ This particular brand of/ lack cyni} wi h Dunbar and remains a dominant theme in pack poetry up until this very day. ."El '6 In "The Death Bed" the dying man sends all the praying "kin-folk" away from his bed. The praying ones, of course, think strange and continue praying against his will in a room acf ross the hall. "e,_;------.:----. ailing in an attempt to sing a final song, the dying man la'f>ses ....,.. and, knowing (1'I is i~nent, wonders . I! What it was they cou d be saying. talks about drought, hunger, de pression and general bad times in the South. The refrain contains this paradoxical plea-assertion: Great-God-Arnighty f) Folks feeling bad, Lost all they ever had. The indirect association of God with the misery)coupled with an oblique prayer for help is different indeedi though its antecedents can clearly be seen in the 1 coded;s'p irituals, blues, jokes , and oral epics of t he folk. A similar paradox and irony is contained in "My Lord, What a Morning" S ~he speaker is ecstatic ) over "black" Jack Johnson's defeat of "white" Jim Jeffries. Admitting to the "Lord" that "Fighting is wrong," the speaker nevertheless exclaims: But what an uppercut. Making God a colloquial personMp ack, that isp in several of his poems, Cuney - - - - - �kt- µ recalls Johnson's feat in ,God's Trombpn~~ ,uhaPe God is likened to a "mammy." 1 Another important later achievement of Cuney's is "Charles Parker, 1925 11955." The legendary jazz musician is given credit for reshaping the blues idiom in music/4and hence revitalizing the..Jlack aesthetic. The poem is made up of lines 1" of one~three words and includes phonetic renderings of saxophone sounds. And throughout the piece, the reader is advised to "listen." ~ Lewis Alexander apparently also wants us to "listen" to his "Enchantment/ ' which embodies, again, the theme of the exotic and beautiful African. the "body smiling with black beauty" is wearing "African moonlight." divides his poem into two sections: the "Medicine Dance." \,,. This time Alexander "Part I" which is "Night" and "Part II" J - - - -1 , Part one gives the setting, moonlight in Africa, juice gushing from over ripe fruit, palm trees, silence. In ! art ~ llAthe medicine dancer is placed in relief against the "grotesque hyena-faced monster" who (seeming to represent whites) is driven back into the "wilderness" by his own fear and the spell cast on him by the medicine dancer. The poem is in free verse and features several exclamation marks and single-word lines. Typographically, the poem works wel.7 with its depiction of dancing, mystery, suspense, fright and anticipation. There is a quickening here, a stalking there, finally a resolutio~ and the black body now dances with "delight" as lf..· erf Alexander Terror reigns like a net crowned queen. was born in Washington, D.C., edu;ated in public schoolsi including the celebrated Dunbar High, and •:.:.:.::!SI Howard University. His interests somewhat paralleled those of Cuney and Donald Jeffrey. Haye, and he acted in the Ethiopian Art Theatre Company; for a while he was a member of the Playwriters' Circle and the Ir !IOI'. of the Aldridge Players. I\ =- Many of the major themes and experimental techniques ~~~ naissance can be found in Alexander's poetry) .Jhamination of the Black ---r . 3il �anatomy to nature. Hughes says the faces, eyes and souls of "my people" are beautifu~ like the night, stars and sun. that the heav6 Alexander finds, on the other hand, anging sky, the curved scars of the moon, the twinkl,~f stars and the trembling earth all parallel the ?I; brow, tears flowing 4ilam C'an aging hurtt:~~ ~H)w~,,. tears A For Hughe "' '-l • 111 • ~ burdensome hair, wrinkled {eY~ ci?l.9.uiv,.~ , and cupping nature is a partner to / lack beauty; for Alexande~ it is a companion to agony, suffering and historical pain. possibilities of color and shade symbolism. when night falls black." Alexander also probes the "Dream Song" advises one to "dream In "Nocturne Varial" shadow (Blacks) becomes light (beautiful, aware) and the deeper thej iackness gets (spreads its influence) the more changes (the greater the impact) will occur among whites. In the deepest core of the night, "Each note is a star" but the light emitted from that dar~ ness is not blinding. Then, after this searching contrast and overlay of what painters call chiaroscuro, we are told ~ti'ra't:"!'I came as a shadow, To dazzle your night. The idea of transfiguration and change weighs heavily upon Alexander's poetry. Significant changes occur in "Negro Woman," "Enchantment," "Nocturne Varial" and "Transformation." After having arrived as a "shadow" in "Nocturne Varial" the poet (or the persona "I") decides to "return" a bitterness that has gone through the wash of tears. through the years." The bitterness becomes "loveliness" has been ~ rnished Announcing that the bitterness has been worn from the taste of the past, Alexander implies here, as he does in other poems, that he is a forgiving person. Indeed he may be saying that Blacks will hold no hatred (for whites) or desire for retribution. Alexander's poetry is concise and neat, mostly - - - - - - -- - - - - -- - - - -- - --- �in free vers nd conventional language. Neat also is the only anthologized poem by Lucy Ariel Williams Holloway. Found in Caroling Dusk (Cullen), The Poetry of The Negro (Hughes and Bontemps) and Johnson's The Book of American Negro Poetry, "Northboun'" garnered the coveted Opportunity poetry prize in 1926. We mention it because it shows great talent and feel in the employment of_;n.ack southern speech and it embodies not only ~~/~but historical concerns of Blacks. The world is neither flat nor round, the poet tells us: H'it's one long strip / Hangin' up an' downJ - M and there's only "Souf an' Norf." The foregoing is part of the chorus in this song-poem which comically predicts how people "all 'ud fall" if the world "wuz jes' a ball." challenges ~ ~ __.., ! hose who brag about the city seen by Saint John, Lucy Holloway to see Saginaw. Opportunities for Blacks are good in Saginaw (heaven~ and pretty women are plentiful. The poem restates the belief (developed during slavery and abolition efforts) that the North is heaven compared to the South ·(hell). Lucy Holloway emotionally chronicles the feelings, anticipations and oral narratives connected with "moving north." ',\tl~ Such a preoccupation can be seen throughout the literature of the period, in the stories, the poems, the plays, the novels, the articles and the songs. ughes, Ellison, Baldwin, C aude Since Norf is up, An' Souf is down, An' Hebben is up, I'm upward boun'. ----./4h.l.3 ; "-tells us what we ~uo,nc-e Finally, v. nd St mp refute: �Lucy Holloway's poem is interesting for another reason: '-'coming, as it did, at th/ 4 1 ~ thrust of thef naissance, it represented a throwback to the dialect and min ~ strel traditions •-.-t-'7'~ most of the New Negro writers were trying to break. And , ~ ,t)J Lwr ,, ~ although/\Johnson ~ and fl ughes worked in dialect, their m~or efforts were decidedly different from those of the Dunbar school. Reading ~Holloway's poem, however, one is immediately reminded of Dunbar, Campbell, Carrothers and ~ D 1JI Hill Davis. YetJ a final reason for using the example of Lucy Holloway is to lead into at least a partial listing of the poets who published in magazines, regional ..., anthologies and newspapers during the Harlem Renaissance and afterward • • among the dozens of lesser and unknown poet~we mention the following: From Gladys May Casely Hayford (born in West Africa), Allison Davis, Esther Popel Shaw, 1 1f' J. Mason B r e w e r ~ ' ( M~_,, .,. { enneth W. Porter, Harvey M. Williamson, Eleanor Graham Nichols, Corrinne E. Lewis, Mary Effie 1 ~~ , Edward Garnett Riley, Albert Rice (a member of Georgia Douglas Johnson's writin workshop), Carrie W. Clifford (The Widening Light, 1922), Marcus B. Christian, Winston Allen, Mae V. Cowdery, Tilford Jones, Adeline Carter Watson, Will Sexton and Edward Silvera. Some of these occasional and newspaper poets made temporary "splashes" and moved on. Mae V. Cowdery won a Crisis poetry prize in 1927 and published a volume of her poetry in the thirties. and Silvera are the most important. Of this group of poets, however, Christian Christian (1900~ ) was born in Houma, Louisiana, an{~rimarily self-educated. For a whil 7 he served as supervisor of the Dillard University Negro History Unit of the Federal Writers' Project. later rOeived a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to complete begun on the project before V - af He historical study going to work in the Dillard Library. His poems �appeared in various anthologies and magazines. And his available work has both general and racial flavor and shows him to be a skilled wordf handler. Craftsman" is about artistic excellence. The artist~ presumably the poetf must work with "consummate care" and be "free of flaws." above everything else. ever. "The This is so because art is The poet knows that if he writes well, he "lives" for{ I I Christian employs a form-;\the sonnet/V\that is consistent with his high calling. Another sonnet, "McDonogh Day in New Orleans," is a celebration of the beauty of Jiackness. Detailing the difficulty a poor ,ilack girl has in trying to get the kind of clothes she needs, Christian finally has her attired "Like some dark princess" wearing "blue larkspur" coupled with "yellow marigold." True, she looks good going to schoo l, But few would knowt or even guess this fact: How dear comes beauty when a skin is black. lived a productive, if tragically short, life. He was born in Jacksonville, Florida, attended local public schools an~duated from Orange High; he then went to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania where he participated 1 in sports and wrote poetry, some of which was included in Four Lincoln Poet • His poetry also appeared in magazines and anthologies. i s quie t and spari,ei reminiscent of Cuney, his friend introspective poets of the period. Much of Silvera's poetry Horne, and many of the But his work does carry the prevailing themes M~ t :aissance poetry. "Jungle Taste," for example, celebrates the_ Africa of oldM I\ ;:.. ~ .-,lem1 ,. ' Africa before the appearance of the "civilization" Fenton Johnso~n_, The "Coarseness" in the "songs of black men" does not sound "strange" to Silvera. Neither does the "beauty" in the "faces of black women" seem unusual. men alone can "see" this "dark hidden beauty." Yet lack In "Forgotten Dreams" only a "heap" of entangled thread now lies where once a beautiful dream had been spun. Here, �Silvera seems to be lamenting the loss of something -maybe viewing his approaching death. Likewise, in another poem, "On the Death of "spun" image . Child," he again uses the The child comes without a "voice" to announce its arrival. lark sings, but "shadows" have already "foretold" that death is near. had been "spun" and the end comes. Hughes and Bontemps anthologies. The The "shroud" Silvera's and Christian's works appear in the Silvera's poetry also appears in Kerlin ' s Negro Poets and Their Poems. The dominant themes in poetry of the Harlem Renaissancel -cultural reclamation, M stylistic experimentation, romantic engagement with Africa, a presentation of the rawness of p ack life/\1\ can also be found in the fiction, drama, painting, music, criticism, and Efles ~lett§ , of the period. is Locke's The New Negro. Bu t we 1 The best documentation of these items € ) ·sb t t o rnont i a~ S ome of the major names in • prose (fiction and non-fiction) •~ --• ••½;::::::----••l~1 also wrote poet rJ: ~Jean Toomer, Eric Walrond, Jessie Redmond Fauset, Rudolph Fisher, Nella Larson, Zora Neale Hurston, McKay, Hughes, Cullen, Walter White,~) D~ ois, Charles S. Johns on, Carter G. Woodson, Bruce Nugent, John Matheus, Cecil Blue, Montgomery Gregory, Arthur Huff Fauset, James Weldon Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier and Arthur A. Schomburg . ~ n-:u C Renaissance Fallout: N~gritude Poets and Pan-African Writing Claude McKay's influence, as a novelist (Banjo), on leaders of African nationalism has already been noted. But McKay's impact was not the first of its kind, nor the last. and During the centuries, Africans in the Western Hemisphere had exchanged ideas and made pacts with each other and with their fellows of color in Africa. In Chapter III we noted this pervasive influence as seen in documents, the establishment of African societies and the African Methodist Episcopal �Church, the founding of Liberia, and the daring and courageous example of the West African Cinque. of West Indian, We also noted the arrival in the United States of a number ------ ~ t.r1 . and ~ unabated up until this very day. Russwurm, He:5 American Blacks/y\a flow that has remained We call innnediately to mind such names as .!illlll Garvey, McKay, and Stokely Carmichael. The poet John Boyd, dis cussed in Chapter III, was a Bahamian. '::l It was during the 1920~, however, that the Pan-African flavor was most dramatically and thoroughly demonstrated. H- Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association~which claimed thousands of followers and members, was in full swing by the time of the 111 ,n ~ - naissance. - D,.fuois was the driving force behind four T Pan-African,Jfongresse~ whi~h met successively between 1919 and 1927 (in Paris, London and New York). And the predominant themes infenaissance literature were ~ reclamation of the African heritage and celebration of the beauties and talents of African peoples. Consistent with our study, however, is a consideration of one of the most I ,fl'"{ttt, Svd, Q.-tA,Jic:t.S important from the Harlem t'enaissance: ~ the Negritude school ot"f ~, _ ____, --------- - - -,.. , Paris, Dakar and Algiers. As natives of French=Cf<oms•' young / lack students and intellectuals were trained in I French schools and 'l 4"-""""1-i.. dual citizenship • • (This practice represents a throwback ,.,/ to the Creole poets, many of whom were educated in France.) the Negritude poets' activities here. '/ of Martinique, Leon Damas (191 (1906 ) of Senegal. But we only summarize Chief among them a r e ~ clsaire (1913 ) ) of French Guiana, and Llopold sldar Senghor " More information, including examples of Negritude poetry, an be found in Jean-Paul Sar~'s "Orph:e Neir" ("Black Orpheus"} which prefaced Le'opold sldar Senghor's anthology of ; ifca_n and West ,Yldian poetsi l,i1 nowell ,ie ,U'l,jlr$ et Anthologie de !!'algach' ~~~ t!;ii.llljil~~ (P~ris, 1948) • Although .__/ �the important preface has appeared in various hard-to-get translations, it appeared in book form for the first time in C·f •f · Bigsby's The Black American Writer, Volume II: Poetry and Drama (1971). For further study see the works '--" of Fra1 Fanon, writings of Senghor (see also, 1/opold se'dar Senghor and the Politics of Negritude, Irving L. Markovitz, 1969), and the numerous anthologies Ml\r>I e CoLL ,"5,, of African poetry by Langston Hughes , ,\Keorapetse Kgositsile, Wilfred Cartey, Rainer Schulte and Quincy Troupe, and Mercer Cook and Stephen Henderson's The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United States (1969) _111'/t)J .f.1.,t Is m 1if'e.xl,11ustr11e • N~gritude has been eloquently and illustratively defined by S~re, Senghor, Cook, Paul Vesey (Samuel Allen) and others. The term (roughly corresponding to ;aiack American)l'oul) refers to the mystique o~ ackness -W'tl½>ett actions, creativity and general life style of some Africans. pervades the thought, Senghor calls it a philosophy of humanism; Vesey finds elements of it in the Afro-American church and in the works of artists such as Baldwin ~ fib Haiti to Cayenne, there is a single ide~ ~, is evangelic, it announces good news: \ Ellison; Sartre notes: ~h~ "From eveal the black soul. Blackness has been rediscovEed : ." I/, ' first creative work to emerge from this French-speaking sector o~ / Black poetry fluence was Le~ n Damas ~ rPigments {1937). The nai ssance Like t h e ~ works that followed, Pigments extolled/ lack beauty and lamented / lack suffering . The influence of ~ Hughes is more evident in Damas than in other I )(~gritude poets. Damas \ freely admits in conversation that he (and his compatriots) owes much to Hughey who offered prizes to African writers and helped expos e African literature to the world. Pigments heralded the arrival of ,J(~gritude. Its style, reminiscent of Hughes, is "sharp, slangy, tense and fast-moving" and was revolutionary to French poetry when it appeared. / Cesaire published Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (Return to My Native Land) in 1938. Senghor has published Chants d'ombres (S06 ) �of Shadows, 1949), Hosties Noires (Black Victims, 1948), Chants pour Naett (Songs / fo, NaGt~, 1949), Ethiopiques (1959) and Nocturnes (1961). Both c: saire an? -+M ,J Senghor have been heavily influenced by jazz, blues an Apoetry of" ,-.-,, 11 \\ i Qrio.'$t;a.t1 Eirt ·y \ \ C~ ~ ~ posed to these forms in the salons of Madi moiselle Nardal between 1929 and 1934, they found Afro-American expression liberating and "fertilizing." ~ r an a fforded them similar exposure after 1935.) (The salons of Also contributing to this convergence were the efforts of Mercer Cook; who, as statesman and scholar, played an important par t in bringing the works of/ lack Americans to their African and Caribbean contemporaries.fsenghor's great poem about New York has immediate ties to both t h ~ naissance and the impact of Harlem on him. As in many of his poems, Senghor de ignates the instrument(s) to accompany the piece. he chooses "Jaz·z Orchestra: solo trumpet." For "New York" New York's beauty at first "confused" Senghor, but after a couple of weeks in that city one grows accustomed to buying "artificial hearts ." He is ecstatic about ([;' Harlem Harlem! I have seen Harlem Harlem! ••• Senghor writes of the African landscape, warriors, love and his admiration for ) 'lack women. As president of Senegal, he presided over the First World Fest i val of Negro Aj.ts, held in Dakar in 1966.,Damas deals with problems of color and class in his poetry and def ines i~gritu~ freef verse. - in a series of rolling, vigorous stanzas in ✓ ;- His ot her collections of poems include Poemes ne gres sur des airs africains (1948), Graffiti (1952), Black-Label (1956) and Nevralgies (1965?). Like other ~Efgritude poets, Damas read the poetry of ~ tiualteJles~cJ,- ll[ r:J N ..t14i)tsaat _ k (critics seem to a gree, however, that the Africans and Caribbean poets surpassed their American brothers and sisters) Damas ~(cynicism and irony can be detected in the following titles: "Almost White ." "Enough," "s.o.s.," "Position," "Good Breeding," and Damas satirizes the J lack middlet class and the / lack habit of .rr" �straightening hair and using bleaching creams/similar themes can be found in ~/ the poetry of Cesair7 who also employs free verse and makes great use of irony. ~ ,. Return to My Native Land catalogs all the scientific things that Blacks have not -th e. l"lu\l. invented, but later gives them credit for being the backbone ofAbumaTI;\eriat e-... rJ..,Cv Cesaire has served as mayor of Fort de France and a deputy to the French National /\ Assembly, representing the independent revolutionary party of Martinique. He quit the French Communist Par ty in the 1950~ and has since been active in African '-- nationalism. His other collections of poetry are Les Armes miraculeuses (1946), Solejl e⇒ (1948), Corps perdu (1950) and Ferrements (1960). c / saire~ mas and Senghor have also written drama (mostly about } lack historical figures) and essays on )(egritude and Pan-African liberation. Washi ngton , D .C ✓ where he teaches literature at Howard University and Federal City College . / ~he /~gri t udy I in Norma Damas is currently living in K) ovement i n poetry ~ best recorded in / I / Shapiro's Ne r i tude: ~Black Poetr s4re'j articles and from Africa and he Caribbean (197 0)~ encompassed ~everal other important / lack areas and figures: Ernest Alima (Cameroon), J oseph Miezan Bognini and Bernard Dadi¥ (Ivory Coast), Jean-Fernand I/ Br ier re and Re11e Depes tre (Haiti), Si riman Cissoko (Mali), Dav i d Diop) (Senegal . a great poe J killed in an airp l ane crash in 1956 t Jocelyne Etienne and Guy Tirolien ~ (Guadeloupe), Camar a Laye (Gui nea) ad Emile-D~sirJ O ogoudou l (Dahomey ), to name jus t a few . In other J ha.ck French- spe aking t errito rie s, t h e }.(~gri tude , · concept took ho l d unde r diffe r ent hames. In Haiti i t was calle d Indigenism~ </I' The_ Harlem Renai ssanc e and the s ubsequent concept of7-egritud~ influenced t hese poets in various ways and t o greater· or ~ fi~ i,-.uem,, ~ . njJt' and .q, emotio UW\ ·IIPt..'f? ~ Afro-Ame ican" than and thinkers of po 1 i· t i c __-::r,rw. n ___. s tyles a nd tech ees. But t he influence i s there. 7 This interchange among writers the;/i-ack world has~••ill~~~_j ts current rich and i mportant tide (more on thi s in Chapter VI). ,,.~,ft oets b ear greater resembl ance t ~ ;,t1;hl6r.. 1 �✓ ~r L~ (!;/ l THE EXTENDED RE~AISSANCE: ,3Qls, ~ ,40:,J,S, ~ ,sols ~ c;::-- Some critics ~ h e Harlem Renaissance ~as simply the peak of f near i;kJ and consciousness-raising . And, as observed earlier, there is also divergent opinion over whether an actual 7enaissanc~ occurred. But, arguments aside, the stock ., a ket crash of 1929 is PeNN (U"ff\e Ha J generally~ i as the official end of theNesignate~Renaissance t-r\since white 11La.clc. patronage ended and th~writers had not developed followings among the grass roots. Important here also are positions t aken by two £ 5t ot-wkont critics Kw~ k-entntJ.. of the er~f~ Sterling Brown and J. Saunders Redding/ )f!othAfeel th~~m,a6i,er 7 ~ ~ was primarily a fad; Brown C . d/\.4::e- Harlem~ a "show-window" and Redding claimed the writers mistook Harlem for real..)'lack life: First of all, Negro writers, both poets and novelists, centered their attentions so exclusively upon life in the great urban c ent ers that the city, especially Harlem, became an obsession with them. Now Harlem life is far from typical of Negro life; indeed, life there is lived on a t heatr ical plane that is as far from true of Ne gro life elsewhere as life in t he Latin Quarter is from the truth of life in Picardy. The Negro writers' mistake lay in the assumption that what they saw was Negro life, when in reality it was just Harlem life . (To Make ,;{Poet Black) 1 }I 'V 1 By way of parallel, it is instructive to note that a leading contemporary / iack critic, Addison Gayle, Jr., accuses / lack write rs of the 1960s and~ of being similarly remiss. In the September 1974 issue of Black World, Gayle discuss~ €) �"The Black Aesthetic: ~10 Years Later" and for "Reclaiming the Southern Experience." a"tempf Iii ;I$ P new; (lack literature is rooted in the South sho recent~ lack writing than he should be. to lay out a blmifJrint claim tha t hardly any of the him to be less familiar with (See, for example, the works of Dumas, Alice Walker, Pinkie Lane, Arthenia Bates, Alvin Aubert, and others.) But, generally , his thesis, derived from John Oliver Killens' ~ statementj, "We are a ~ outhern peoplel;' is solid and :"ell taken. Gayle's and Redding, s comments ought to be measured against Donald Gibson , s vie.J/of the \INew''/Poe try as an\''urban'' fn roduc The works of .,.Zlack poets in the three decades following the 1920s vu .,bc,.,..V\(H.~'-1 e.~ ~o,..:, .C\. ...lC,~ - -,.;..C.ros-s~~e~m,! cP technical by ,~ and thematic a. k The Great Depression was felt world-wide•p111M•2~2®naaB lacks and rich. . whites, poor The droughts , referred to in Cuney's "Hard Time Blues," the ravages ~tia.•■J?~~:nionization, J5t f@ i of the/ oll_jeevil, the plight of the sharecroppers, the workers'p~ and the attraction of the Communist Party (with its c~f o of racial unity and equality) , all inspired and informed Afro-American poetry of t he thirties, forties and fifties . So did lynching, unemployment, )ilack history 8cultural reclamation and protest; but the tendency, in general, was to seek the deliverance of "all men." _,,/.ttl. .1nd thirties: seeking McKay, Hughes and others (in the twenties 32jgg]wJI \ti; @J to~t ~~ i3 / Ji I · riag tft!' eee < ,,,-. err racism1 ____. / ommunism . istJ C (>.. I, Desperately • Afro-American - - ~o.iN~Te.s J artists, intellectuals and writers-.. not only bec~me Communists, but.4i rt baisbs ~ . t egrationists, . . pan- Af ricanists) . . ~ . Drea~._. -... in 2~- - n ~Ssee k ers o f t h e Am erican 7 re,le civ il servants or model citizens. example of Richard Wright Wt:t-eUsW:~lt.E" Gi1:,Cast ~ P \I -o,; W.E , B. Few of the writers, however, followed the acfuo.Llv ~\I~ Dtfoi~ who~oine& the $ arty. -illb w~~ hak:cs against ~ ~ the Depression in the thirties, jj/J//ai/\in the forties, and Korea and McCarthyism in the fifties. Compared to the first three decades of the century, relatively little,11ack \!j{e e h is Mo dern Bla c k Po etsr J ~ "Introducti on 11 ) . • �poetry was published in book form between 1930 and 1960. In a 1935 article in Opportunity Alain Locke lamented the low quality and quantity of postJtenaissanc e poetry. d<ff!.,. With the exception of Hughes and Cullen, most of th~pens were silent during the thirties. Several -;,:n~Woets, however, made their debuts . Frank ) and Sterling A. Brown (1901 ) made m~or i-~,-a(li> ~ ~ ~ . t i , ~wo.·, i ntt\e 4.~ ~ t"o" Jat o.~ ll"ewll wtl> no-1- ~eo.,-dy .. oh-1 "'' " ' ' • aM th n •~H• 1111 t 11eltr.1 · P'!'e1tt•ftik!ep:."1z.li A ~ / \ . Robert Hayden (1913-V), Har~all D~vis (1905t-7 Melvin B. Tolson (1900 1 ~ 66) and Margaret Walker (1915f ) also made first appearances in the thiFtie~ but they sustained roductive careers. r,, Fiction writer Richard Wright (1908J Mf' 60) wa 0,e-1~~~ -±'- poet who joined the '-" thirties group. "transitional," A second wave of poets, Owen Dodson (1914{- appeared in the forties, fifties and early sixties: 1 '"' Dudley Randall (1914N ), Gwendolyn Brooks (1917NL (1915;/ - V ) , Pauli Murray (1910-f w ) ,. Bruce McM. Wright (1918,;;- Long Nadgett (1923-'tv' Lance Jeffers (1919p ) , May Mill ) , James C. Morriss (1920t - I ), Naomi elen Johnson Collins (1918N~ ) , ), Raymond Patterson ) , Oliver Pitcher (1923/r _. nnt""be,..,. ).••••••17fMostj.of this transitional ,J Sarah E. Wright (1929 j ) , Myron ), Gloria C. Oden (19 23N- ), Russell Atkins (19267v- 1§ ) , Ray Durem ~ (1915;;." f.J), M. Carl Holman (1919~ (1929t{ .,,.a a 11 ), ~ argaret Danner ~ Paul Vesey, 1917-I ), Samuel Allen(~ " I O'Higgins (1918-~ • ), ), and 'C/ group did not s et a real hearing until the sixties; j hey will be looked at as a group in Chapte r VI. of DozensA,others published or wrote occasionally. the poets writing in the thirties ll .__ Brown separates o~ ______ ......._,,,,, i nto "new rea~ists;; l'\'l~Ultf and "romantics." \ The ( ord "romantic" seems to be anall gous to "l brarl;\11 l and both are used to speak - - - - -- . - Yj ~V somewhat disparagingly of poets thus categorized. The "realists" and writers of protest included Welborn Victor Jenkins (Trumpet in the New Moon, 1934), Frank Awton9 Marshall Davis and Wri ght. ~ose concerned with "romantic escapes" were -- �Alpheus Butler (Make Way for Happiness, 1932), J. Harvey L. Baxter (That Which Concerneth He, 1934; Sonnets for the Ethiopians and Other Poems, 1936), Eve " ) Lynn (No Al a baster Box, Marion Cuthbert (April Grasses, 1936) a~ ~ t Our Voic~ ae ~owdery The romantics wrote about nature, delicacy / lov~J qu ntnes ':I and their work reflects vI more ..._bookfat learning than anything else. ____.., said that Jenkins' work deserved "an original pl ace in Negro poetry:" but Trumpet 'l in,jlhe New Moon is out of printi and Jenkins' poetry is absent from every anthology of Afro-American poetry. His poetic s ketches of thej lack life encompass praci tically every important facet. Though owing much to Whitman and Sandburg, Jenkins' work is still important enough to be reissued as well as anthologized. Wright, often called the father of the modern,,t1ack novel, was a poet in (l No other American writer ' s personal od4yssey has been so bleak his own right. ~ and difficult.• • • • • •""':. ~ From poverty, orphanhood, educational deprivation and racism, he emerged as one of the most influential and dominant forces in American literature . Not only did a so-called "Wright / chool" of t riters result from his efforts, but countless white writers also imitated1.,Hlli~••· most discussed novel, Native Son (1940), th1 1h u ii ems e Boe1r s f His cs l!Hl.ihl2i it - sunnned up the emotional and psychological history of p ack urban America over the preceding @ t"" years. • l m112:::,1!:tst1:•v .,,.rr;. ~ chr"oT"icle! the hopes (and - "Northboun' " to seek the Promised Land • ---- $ (1:018) ; p&bliShtd rte@ disillusionment s ) of Blacks ..Jiiiifr11211·01thhiat•1•l•-,fl!I! . llitlliJIB!'mlk1111ed:nxl!'!aamcm1111e•••ea9_ !!ll'JII!.■-- As a poet _.~•1111111• Wright deserves more than•passing interest. ) He joined '-" the Communist Party in the thirties and remained a member until 1944 . ~ His poetry, protest coupled with calls f or u n i t y ~ Blacks and whites, was ~ - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - .. - - - - -- �published in various journals and news organs of the period: Literature, New Masses, Anvil, Midland and Left. Much of International ia:::::::: J~~s quoted in Dan McCall's The Example of Richard Wright (1969 ~ and his poems appear in » The Norton Anthology of Hodern Poetry (Ellman and O'Clair), The Negro Caravan, I\ _T_h_e__,P~o~e_t_r~y_o~f=-B_l_a_c_k_Am_e_r_i_c_a, American Negro Poetry and other anthologies.,.) fl ( 81 t ..,.. ~rn near Natchez: Mississippi, and experien, an erratic educatione, and Mciltzv home life/ 'D'ffl~~:., ~ nsarl u a dnn di ffernt 11\~ J b I . JdC SJ HI I I d l1 l I L Y ~Y s-e.#LeJ in :<(k,·c.&.~9·wher-e he.-1"1Ceci w~'Nt ·r · 1 . l\:ederal Writers' Project during the Depression (becoming a friend to Davis, Margaret Walker and others). Ha. ii 1 ll I .• & II I zft 11 g 111j tiPlii - He died in 1960 in Paris where he had settled (at the suggestion of J Gertrude Stein) and joined the Existentialist group of writer, led by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. His poetry is in free verse and the Japanese haiku form -which he discovered late in his life. His haikus are harmless elliP, 1Fteri tical statements, as haikus~re. -,I,€)/ Aare . rarely racial in flavor. But his protest poetry of the thirties show.{him to be a poet of unmistakable talent and sensitivity. "I Have Seen Black Hands" owes debts to the American school of poetry developed by Whitman, Fento)l Johnson, Masters, Sandburg, Hughes and others. -ft...ct po,ep,,.I In ,;,,..AWright catalo s the services rendered and corresponding disservices received by Blacks. He announces) ~ I am black and I have seen black hands, million., and millions of themk and that these "hands" have reached na·i vely, creatively, harmlessly, softly and with strength, out to each other and to do the white man's bidding. Despite their stamina, vigilance and dependability, these same hands are the last put to �work and the first idled. They held the "dreaded lay-off slip." They suffered from "unemployment and starvation." And they grew nervous and sweaty, and opened and 9 shut in anguish and doubt and hesitation~ Iand irresolution . •.• p Wright continues, as in his prose works, to develop a psychological portrait of the abused and dehumanized Blacks. There is a drive and an incremental swell reminiscent of Margaret Walker's "For My PeopleJ'.," as he recalls having seen "black hands" grip prison bars, knotted and clawf like under the lynch rope, or "beat fearfully at tall flames." ButJ1ack hands and white hands will someday merge as "fists of revolt" and create a new "horizon." 41 ;.at zS5iJens Blacks and whites Here, of course, ~ W r i g h t ~ ~ to become Communists. "Between t he World and Me," however, sustains a different angle of the theme begun in ."I Have Seen Black Hand : " A )flack man has been lured into a wooded area and seduced by a white prostitute; the narrator becomes the l ynched body whose remains are ••• dry bones •.• and a stony skull staring in O yellow surprise at the sun. • •• Making use of awesome, horr~ fying images and clashing, brilliant -~ olors and jhJ#"HJ'fll1d'1 I i IJ sounds, the poem recounts the most insignificant details of the events andJ\ i,J( of the lynching: And the sooty details of the scent rose, thrusting Q themselves between the world and me . . •. There was a design of white bones slumbering 0 forgottenly upon a cushion of ashes. There was a charred stump of sapling pointing a 0 blunt finger accusingly at the. sky. ll'J~ �There were torn tree limbs, tiny veins of burnt .0 leaves, and scorched coil of greasy hemp; And upon the trampled grass were buttons, dead ! matches, butt-ends of cigars and cigarettes, , peanut shells, a drained gin-flask, and a whore's lipstick; Scattered traces of tar, restless arrays of feathers, and the lingering smell of gasoline. The poem continues, as the narrator , who "stumbled suddenly upon the thing," becomes one with the victim. technique. It is a fascinating and highly appropriate poetic Owing much to the psychological school of writing, but indicting t he cosmos (as Dunbar does in "The Haunted Oak"), "Between the World and Me" states that the lynch victim is every Black. And the world (through the recitation of usually passive components of the natural landscape) shares in the guilt, the revulsion and the horror of the act . Before God and the world, the victim .•. clutched childlike, clutched to the hot sides fJ of death. In Black on White (1966 ~ David Littlejohn calls Wright's poem and Robert Hayden's ''Middle Passage" "the two finest poems by Negroes." Sterling Brown's poetry also falls into the category of realism though not I in the political sense ~ .1'111 which it is applied to other writers of the era. Like Cuney , Wright, Davis, Hughes and others, Brown in Southern Road (1932) depicts the harshness and starkness of )flack miser~ but his poetry is "chiefly sov~e.~-, an attempt at folk portraiture of our @I] &~characters." A highly respected critic and scholar of/ lack folk literature, Brown approached his "portraits" as a student of the linguistic and thematic materials with which he worked. He was born and �reared in Washington, D.C. At Williams College, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1921 and in 1923 received an H.A. from Harvard. Since that time, Brown, the son of educatorf parents, has had a long and distinguished career as writer, editor, teacher, and professor of English at Howard University. He has also taught at New York University, Vassar College and Atlanta University. 193 ~ he was Editor oJ. Negro Affairs From 1926 for the Federal Writers' Project, and in 1939 he was a staff member of the famous Carnegie-Myrdal Study of the Negro. The recipient of numerous awards, Brown is the author of The Negro in American Fiction (1937) and Negro Poetry and Drama (1937). In 1941, he served as senior editor of The Negro Caravan (with Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses P. Lee), probably the most influential and definitive anthology of Afro-American literature ever published. In the twentie 7 ::::Ji of publishing articles, \,\b ~ ••M L - ' ~ ~ Brown began ~~rah.,,. t _ reviews and criticism in various journals, newspapers and periodicals. Perceptive, relentless and seemingly always in focus, Brown performed important surgery on/ lack folk culture and its manifestations in the poetry, music and language. His f indings were published in Negro Poetry and Drama, where he also ,...., concluded t hat the New Negro Movement (1914,7~36) produced the following five "major concerns" among the poets: .Q (l• )'. p, rediscovery of Africa as a source for race pride ; (2 t /use of Ne gro heroes and heroic episodes from American history· J P"ropaganda of protest· / (4 • -k' treatment of the Negro masses (frequently of the folk, less often of the workers) with more understanding and less apology/ • (S t )rnd franker and deeper self~ revelation. Brown's own / poetry revived interest in / lack dialect from a vigorously different l e,. ftJ,,t angle '~ r,Cullen ~1 before~ (Caroling Dusk) and Johnson (The Book of American Negro �Poetry) had for ecast t he doom of dia lect poetry . ) ,, Cullen said it s day was over \\ and Johnson reduced it to two stops: humor and pa t hos. '-" (Int e restingl y , Art hur P. Davis, in From the Dsu:l& Imxey, r epeat• Johnson's pos i tion!) However, Br own ra..nd took the ~ 1 & @r\that dialect has limitless possibilities if poets a nd writers only have the courage and t he ingenuity to work with it. Of the debate and con flict over dialect poetry, he said: Ii ' lnialect, or the speech of the people, is capable of expressing whatever the people are. And the folk Negro is a great deal more than a buffoon or a plaintive minstrel. Poets more intent upon learning the ways of the folk, their speech, and their character, that is to say bett e r poets, could have smashed the 'Pie'/ mold. But first they would have had to believe in what~ere doing. ~ And this was difficult in a period of conciliation and ~class striving for recognition and respectability . Brown himself used his knowledge of f olk culture to interpret the people through poetry . ,._, And he considered t his ap proach "one of the i mportant tasks of Negro poetry." Some observ;..r s see a contradiction in Brown's dazzling academic achiev~ ments and his poetic work in the folk materials. poets could learn much from ~rk But current young scholars a nd example . (_ Wagner (Black Poets of t he United States) points to the irony and humor in Bro4 sking Johnson to write the .!:ntroduction to Southern Road. For, in doing so, Johnson was literally forced to take back much of his own criticism of dialect poetry. Indeed Johnson had to admit to Brown's formidable achievement with the folk forms. Before Southern Road, in The Book of American Negro Poetry, the elder poet and critic acknowledged that Brown was "one of the outstanding poets �of the younger group"; for the '.'best wor1:,'' Brown "dug his raw material from the great raine of Negro folk poetry," thus expressing the folk idiom with "artistry and magnified power." Kerlin (Negro Poets and Their Poems) ranked Southern Road as a first volume with Cullen's Color and Hughe s s lThe Weary Blues. f □ J M Even from ..C. Senegal, Africa, \h._as comifp""raise \ ,-,t;,._Brown in the form of '.fii",j'"?tr Senghor's assertion that Hughes and Brown are "the most Negro" of J lack American poets. There is always the temptation to compare the two poets but, as Wagner suggests, Brown is the "antithesis of Langston Hughe~' since Hughes is the poet of the city and Brown the bard of the @ In his closeness to the soil and his serious studies of / lack folk culture, Brown has been compared to Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston (see Jonah's Gourd Vine and Mules and Men). The folk idiom, coupled with drama and word\ portraits, provides the meat of Brown's work; though it must be mentioned that he also writes in conventional English with marked success. His poetic universe is generally drab ~ with occasional flashes of wry humor. His is the poetry of hard times and suffering. He expresses skepticism in .,face of religion and God; and ironically there is no ~ reference to Africa as is the ease (almost thematically) ~ '11'\ period. most poettl'{of the i+me~,c~,.i Brown seems to be saying the fight is her71 not in an Africa of mind ~ - or fact, and that the f lack man is pitted against forces of naturc. -wmi::s,k alter~ , nately work f or and against him. Writing during the pression years, Brown was concerned with the deadly cholera, the boll weevil, the ravages of the flooding Missouri river, the plight of the sharecropper and tenant farmer, and white racism. It is clear that, for Brown, the hope (if it is there) for the/ lack man lies in his own stamina, his own historical endurance and strengths. " f uses the poet in ~ ½iii@ Consequently \ ~ 1 strengths and defianceSwith folk rhythms/4especially the dramatic narrative and the contrapuntal pattern 331 incorporates italics �for emphasis and the various sounds of men at work, play, prayer, dance or battle. "Strong Men" is perhaps the bes t example of Brown's style. line from Sandburg~ Using a "The strong men keep coming on"f.A.he actually borrows exact phrasings, aphorisms, bits of parables and parts of secular and religious songs from the folk culture. The formal English narrative is set in dramatic and musical relief through the use of the technique described above. Steeped in a µ); tradition that spans Whitman, Fenton Johnson, Hasters and Eliot , Brown catalogs '/I the numerous injustices Blacks have suffered; he interjects "The strong men keep a-comin' on" or "keep a-inchin' along" or "Walk togedder chillen." Even though Blacks were "dragged" from their native land and degraded in every possible way, they kept "Gittin' stronger\y.) (\...,,"t/1. ~ · ~ same messag~in "Strange Legacies, 11 "After ~inter, 11 "Southern Road" (a near paraphrase of a work song), "Ma Rainey," and the six-part sequence "When/e Saints Go Ma ' ching Home ." is what Brown gives his characters. to "stagger" but none to halt! Wha t D~ ois called ~ "dogged streng t h" As Hargaret Walker sug8ests, there is room Reminiscent of "The Weary Blues," "Uhen / e Saints" depicts the "Trouble, Trouble" deep down in the "soul" of a/ lack singer. But that trouble, like the "weariness" of Hughes , is a collective trouble! the weight, the fatigue, the burden of the folk . We hear it everywhere in / lack expression, from Bessie Smith to Mari~ Anderson, from Paul Laurence Dunbar to Paul Robeson, from Fenton Johnson to Harvin Gaye (Trouble Man), from the "sad" and "sorrow" songs of the slaves to the blues singers of the river towns and jepression years . After the singer in Brown's poem had played his various sad and sin songs, he alw~ys '- played one in which he stepped out . of the role of "entertainer. " would then give forth nts." He Anticipating his arrival in heaven and others who would be there, heAcarefully describel what each of the entrants _, �~-) .:.wiJd be wearing. It is a gala affair f'l\ initiation into heavenM and most of the The sinners, of course, are not allowed in heaven. 1 They include portin' Leg , lucky Sam, Smitty, Hambone, ' Hardrock Gene and others. Brown also wrote in the ballad form ("He was a Man"), conventional verse ("Effie" and "Salutamus"--a sonnet) and the blues form popularized by Hughes in The Weary Blues. His lack men are on the run (from a mob or police), in trouble with whites as a result of an arrogant act or response, getting killed, trying to figure out how to feed the household, or being assaulted by natural disasters. In a large number of these poems there ~ orrow, devastation, catastrophe, violence, death, tragedy, social disruption, chaos, ruin, need, pain, skepticism and the paranoia inherent in ack life. "He was a Han" depicts how a f lack man -::: beat a white man (who drew first) to the draw but was lynched in the tradition of handling Blacksg Despite the fact that "strong men" keep coming , "Strong Hen" is a poem replete with negatives. "Sister Lou" is a longing for heaven as a respite from the hardships and racial injustices suffered here on earth. is the portrait of a/ lack man "ragged" as "an old scarecrmf "After Winter" whose "swift thoughts" are about the food, drink and space he must obtain for his family. "Ma Rainef' (".fother of the Blues") is therap~tic in her words and her delivery. But she -w • bcL. ~ .l-ii!l!e~ Fenton •• m •"' merchandise . Johnson's "monarcl!,' ' who presides over sacks of The people come to Ma Rainey to "keep us strong." and feel sad when she sings. But they cry And on goes the Southern Road with the exception of the Slim Greer story-poems and the lover-man theme~ which nevertheless feature men who must either love quick and run or those reminiscing about their loves while they swing the hammer on the chain gang. predicaments. ,.___ _ --="---- - - - - Slim Greer finds himself in various Most memorable are his visits to heaven and hell ("Slim in Hell"), �his absurd effort to pass for whit e t hough he is dark "as midnight" ("Slim Greer") and his bout with the Atlanta law tha t requires Blacks to laugh only i n a "telefoam booth" ("Slim in Atlanta"). Brown's really great achievement, however, is s een in t he brilliant "Memphis Blues." Here the poet asks what difference is it to Blacks whether Memphis is destroyed by "Flood or Flame." Memphis, Babylon and Nineveh are all the same: fl) De win' sing sperrichals Through deir dus'. Forecasts of doom can be seen in much American literatur \ but '1.ack writers have 1hTh1:So.1-ie.ct. / · ca rved out a special place for thernselve,r- This allows them to place their racial predicament in relief aga inst Christianity or Christianization. i4e have observed t ha t this concern runs like a spine through j iack poetry: _])unbar, Fenton Johnson, " Cullen, McKay, Hughes an'Jl certainly Brown~ and white. J~ Par 8 ✓-, God is alternately ./'lack And here, of course, is the contradiction} ~ ,Because the God of the whites (the oppressot cannot be truste1-and the/ lack God seems somewhat hel¢, ,, l ess a gainst a white power structure, of which Brown sayJ A,N\. \j.., l otd I A " i...c.M : They don' t come bx £P~§.. Having published only one boo~ which (1974, withtnew Introductio bel:'L'l:g- reissued by Sterling Stuckey), places Brown in a rather . ( fnaccess .ib d i f f icu 1 t a n d sometimes l appraisals of his work. 7 Ju/ A:s just position. ~ But there 1-~been good, if few, ~ Jean Wagner takes a long look at i~-•(Black Poets of the United States) , Brown takes a short, but helpful, look at himself in Negro Poetry. So does 3 I it& Redding in To Make a Poet Black. Also helpful is Stephen Henderson's "A Strong Man Called Sterl ing Brown," Black World) XIX �• Benjt'mAn Brawley (The Negro Genius) assesses Brown as (September 1970) , 5 12. poet and criticJ a s does Blyden Jackson in Black Poetry in America. Charles Rowell, a young critic-teacher at Southern University, Baton Rouge, has prepared a yet unpublished criticism of Brown's poetry. See also Black Writers of America (Barfsdale and Kinnamon). in mos t antholo i Brown's work .ttW""VU..~ lite c'J ne C aracter1st1c of Blacks and whites. O was a cry for unionization ac( poetry Brown 's "When,/e Saints Go Ha 'ching Home" allows room in I I I heaven for a handful of whites who befriended Blacks. According to t he Marxist / ol Counnunist-influenced thinking of the times, downtrodden peoples~ of whatever color 11were in the same boat. ~ Their strugg les were . . . the same. One finds this feeling in Frank Marshall Davis'• ....,, "Snapshots of the Cotton Sout~" which pain~ a rather pathetic and' depressing picture of voteless Blacks who "lack the guts" and "po'" whites who "have not the brains" to fi ght the rich plantation owners and the police. The poems also reek with irony and satire~ a Davis trademark. Even ~ though racial "intermingling" is "unthinkable," syphit#,is is passed from the \.:., "shiftless son" of a plantatio n owner (a lynch-mob leader) to a washerwoma~ who gives it to t he chief of polic~ who g4ves it to a young mul atto cook) who gave ~ it to the mayor of "Hobtow9" who gives it to his wife . Currently living in Hawai~ where he is a salesman, Davis was born in Arkansas City, Kansas, attended local public schools and studied journalism at Kansas State College_,where he was the first recipient of the Sigma Delta Chi Perpetual Scholarship. He later left school for Chicago to do newspaper work. In 1931 Davis went to Atlanta to help establish the Atlanta _paily World . Ri turning to Chicago, he worked with the Associated Negro Press until the late 1940s_, when he moved to Hawaii. I In 1937 he received a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship �to write po et ry . He has published f our vo l umes of poetry: Black Man's Verse (1935), I Am t he American Negro (19 37 ), Through Sepia Eyes (193 8), and 47th Street _., (194 8). Dav is est ablished himsel f ear ly as a social'~ -minded poet who combined his journalistic training with an innovative free-verse form to create interesting l yrics. (Gwendolyn Brooks later developed a form known as versef journalism . ) Stephen Henderson (Understanding the New Black Poetry) notes the similarities - between Davis'.poetry and that currently being written by Chicago-area poets . The influence of Masters and Sandburg can be seen in much of Davis '# work~ but "--' his poetry is hi ghly flavored wity lack themes _and (sometimes) idioms. Hughes_, he is t he poet of the city. But he . renders believable pictures of /lack "society" and t he hard times of southern living. Like In "Snapshots" he warns whites that death~e bol l weevil do..;'not n i b b l e ~ "nigger cotton." Ironically placing the "Democracy" of death and natural disas t ers alongside a hollow American "Democracy, " Davis is able to turn the poem into a piercing sword of ~ ul..v' . social criticism. I ronies also spinel\ poems ~ "Robert Whitmore," "Arthur I Ridgewood, M.D., " and 'Giles Johnson , Ph.D . "- bourgeois Blacks destroyed by status- climbing . Whitmore, having reached the peak of social and business success, dies when he is mistaken for a waiter. Dr. Ridgewood, forced to choose between the life of a poet and a doctor, dies from a nerve disruption caused by worry ove r reject ion s l ips and money problems. do labor; he d i es of starvation . Dr. Johnson will not teach and cannot The great tragedy, in this stream of poetic ~ i deas,~the story of the poet• "Rooseve lt Smith." !M+ Smith could be Davis himself or possibly Count ee Cullen or Melvin Tolson--orAany number of / iack poets who wrote as they were directed only to end. up having "contributed" nothing t o ~ ~ v ' ~ ation ' s literature." -------- Smith's first book is attacked by white critics for imitating Sandburg , Masters and Lindsay . His second book, writt en after he had done �Allah, Buddha/,'l and so on. .l!~ Everyone can partake of the happy-sad sound being played by the "black boy." ,z:::_v11±agtbh woaid 1 ter ca JJ biwseJf an "ernwspj ni / 4rd Pmcis seews o<).,, ·_ ) to bra sad ct a tMd---;i:;;--11 u pt close study o f ~ work has yet to be done. for his work: ✓ one It rre¢ Unfortunately , a il'dt f)avis had many things in mind poem is designed to be read aloud by eight voices. There is a brief, but good, assessment of him in Wagner's book; Sterling Brown sets forth poiql\aY.T r,.,_ • crisp and ~~riticism. Benj~m~n Brawley discusses Davis' ! poetry (Negro Genius)(!) but he appears all too infrequently in anthologies. ~ For a current look at Davis see Dudley Randall's interview with him in !Um !:l,o.l:l.g, XXIV (January 1974 ) ; S1~1./f, Robert Hayden has one of the longest poetry~writing (an4 ~publishing) records of any living American poet. His poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, newspapers, periodicals, books and pamphlets since 1940 . Born in Detroit, Michigan, Hayden attended local schools and Wayne State University, and in 1936 " graduated to the Federal Wri ters' ProjecS:' heading research into local Afro-American history and folklore. He· resumed his training in 1938.,when he enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he received a teaching assistantship W ,r, Auden, whose poetry his own sometimes reflects. and did advanced work In 194~ his first book of ~J poetry, Heart-Shape in the Dust, was published. t\)l'e joined the faculty of Fisk University in 194~1 involved in a series ·of a ca 2112 §i +ring the sixties he became "meaningful encounters with proponents of a black literary ~sthetic" (Barksdale and Kinnamon) which resulted in his leaving Fisk and joining I the faculty of the University of Michigan (1969). Hayden has received Rosenwald �study in the South, is criticized by Blacks for being too sordid. Critics dist missee his third book, an experimental effort, as not being consistent with the V depth and breadth of the philosophical material treated by Stein and Elio t. A / lack man has no business imitating the "classic" works of Keats, Browning and Shakespeare, they sa ~ He ought to use his rich African s Of his fifth book, critics ~ suspicious: ~since it contained' background. of his fourth book. no traces of anything done previously by a white poet, then it must be "just a new kind of prose." O ,J ,t tf S The poet then becam= \a mail carrier) wher e he hal time to read in the papers thatfa ack writers har contributed so "little" to American literature. Davis also wrote freef verse utilizing themes of love, night, and the stark life of Blacks in Southside Chicago. sculp~ ,\ . His poems about love are quiet and we11\ Ji g They are placed in the category of "mystic e~capist" by & ,1),1, Brown. In his first volume, Davis strikes vivid pictures€23 in~pieces cv')/ like "Chicago's Congo," "Jazz Band," "]1pjo Mike 's Beer Garden," "Cabaret," "Lynched," and "Georgia's Atlanta ." In "Jazz Band" he ant it, cipates the work of literally dozens of poets of the sixties (Neal, Crouch, Cortez~ Lee, Baraka, Harper, the Last Poets , Carolyn Rod gers). And certainly ~ one recalls Hughes' • "Jazzonia" and "Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret" when one hears a H11e like"" / lf, Play that thing you jazz mad fools! and the steady hammering of g) Plink plank plunk a plunk. Everybody and every place has the blues since Blacks brought the sound to town: Chopin, Wagner, Lor'idon, Moscow, Paris, Hongkong, Cairo, Dias, Jehovah, Gott, _______ _______ .__ ·- - - - -- �------was awarded the Grand Prize in the English poetry cate go--_............\ orld Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. In presenting Hayden wit h t he ward, the festival committee cited him as ( ~ . 1 r. a remarkable craftsman, an outstanding singer of words, ~ a striking thinker, a o~te ' He g ives glory and digt nity to America through deep attachment to the past, present and future of his race. Africa is in his soul, the world at Llarge in his mind and heart. ~~ fl In 1948 Hayden collabor ated with Myron O' Hi ggins in publication of The Lion and the Archer. His Figure of Time: published in 1966. Poems appeared in 195~ and Selected Poems was Words in the Mourning Time, with its portraits of violence 'T and destruc tion, came out in 1970~ ....__, I~ was nominated for a National Book Award (1972). ,_- The Night-Blooming Ce r e us, showing Hayden as nature and • deeply religious poet , was published in 1972 by f '-i' Bremen. has also written and produc ed play s (Go Down Moses i and during the forties he was drama and music c r i tic f or t h~ Chronicle. Hayden's wo rk a ppears ~ in practically eve r y a nthology o f Afro- American literature or poetry publ ished since The Ne gro Caravan. -- Hi s editorship of anthologies includes Kaleidosco pe: Poems by American Ne gro Poets (1967), Afro-America n Literature: ,An I ntroduct ion :z (1971, with Burroughs and Lapides), a nd The United States in Literature (1973, with Hiller and O' Neal). _The latter work contains many of Hayden's seminal ideas f as well as brilliant crysta\ izations of / lack a nd general poetry mo~ements in t he United States. His individual poems have appeared in Opportunity, Poetry and ~tlantic Monthll . Currently, he is poetry editor of the Baha'i magazine World �Although, as a poet, Hayden has maintained a steady balance between racial concerns and the modern poetic tradition, he is what Sterling Brown would call ~ arx poet. Classical allusions, obscurantism, surrealism, and complicated syntax go hand in hand with experimental blues poetry and muted anger. ~ Bontemps said that the term "Negro poet" was particularly "displeasing" to 4 Countee Cullen; and Hayden (a Cullen admirer), in Kaleidoscope rejected being judged "by standards different from those applied to the work of other poets." The/ lack poet should not be limited to a racial utterance, Hayden believes. (Ironically, a poll of/ lack poets today might easily show that a great many of ~ti ,, them feel the same way4 even though such is not suggested by the\ popular image of the contemporary lack poet) J,, ....... 1 • o'Bn.~e.ns Speaking of hi5\' influences in Knterviews with Black Writers' Hayden noteei /when I was in college I loved Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, Elinor Wylie, Edna St. 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. became a favorite. his style. Cullen I felt an affinity and wanted to write in I remember that I wrote a longish poem about Africa, imitating his "Heritage." was pretty imitative. All through my undergraduate years I As I discovered poets new to me, I studied their work and tried to write as they did. young poets do this. I suppose all It's certainly one method of learning _s omething about poetry. I reached the point, inevitably, where I didn't want to be influenced by anyone else. my own voice, my own way of seeing. I tried to find I studied with w\a. Auden f �in graduate school, a strategic experience in my life. I think he showed me my strengths and weaknesses as a poet in ways no 1.5:ne else before had done. ~0~ Hayden thus establishes himself as a poet of the book as opposed to the raw EJl Hughes, E , .£!!tll r- I L}! Da~dis, Brown, k~ \S.QA!a.osu v,e,o. .. Margaret Walker, and numerous others _ ~ltho~h such a division~ consider 16 ~Al,A.AJ. ............./~tJw ~ , ....... OJt-lblJAJr.,,._w,, •. , J . ~ ) \..~ Jo-• many vari~t les. ~ --..,~cording to 1 I R Davis, in From the Dark Tower, = ~ Hayden has repudiated his early poetry-l lis ⇒, · :1 folk,fY/~l,cJ,..¾"iiie f"\. $'6ma,F- ,i' fn9; Crt·~~,_ ~ ,,,.. I'\. blatant protest and in i:-Lve!"l!.ed poetry shows Hayden as~itator of the older Harlem Renaissance poets and under the influence of the Communist~ Socialist thought of the 1930s and 19l•0s . aa In "Prophecy" he depicts destruction and the people r eturning to the "r-uined city" to rebuild a new society. "Gabriel" ~recall~ .f\tVOL+ Leodew--: P~ossfir, \> L,_s~the final moments in the L· l ·:Lf:e o :, flabr-1elA "Black Gabriel" 'lifllll>~ hanged for leading slaves l'f l! I From for go tten graves Inte~v•~l),...italfr) iL xust 9-e ~ I ~colloquialisms (like Sterling t~th· Brown), Hayden r ~ reates the terror and drama of Gabriel ' s ~ • nse. Black and golden in the air, Gabriel dangles from a noose abov03-ack men who £ Never, never rest~,._,.•.• "Speech" is just that j -af. harangue calling ) lack and white "brothers" to fight /V\- the common oppressor, presumably totalitarianism, fascism and greedy over seers. "Obituary" is a sensitive and paine<l reflection of a "father" who lived Prepared for wings. Among these early pieces (found in Caravan an<l Hayden's fi rst volumes) "Bacchanal" is especially interesti~or it collects the new dialect into the kind of social statement~ Brown~erfected. - - - - - - - -- - -- -- -- - - - - -- -- - There is irony in using "bacchanal" to �describe a? ack factory worker ge tting ® High ' s a Georgia pine to forget that the facto ry closed "this mawnin. II can never rest, is seeking r eal "joy" on earth. TheJ -ac k mar)' whot in "Gabriel" But, minus money and woman, his I " bacchanal" becomes a weighty blues statementM not the revelry of ancient Greek or Roman party life. One finds none of these fl!'~in Selected Poems. Instead there is the polished Hayden of "The Diver," " A Ballad of Remembrance," "Sub Specie Aeternitatis," "Hiddle Passage" and "Runagn t e Runagate." /41 '#Ml Neither does one find ....-rA. in •Words Hayden has obviously elevated his protest themes. ) 71 the Mourning Time. :ti: r---1" To be sure,~ • \ ·~ Q. II; & .. ~,does make his social comment, as does Cullen. ' u..-.~·•Cei nonef o t Hughes the vrq en ey" P (Mourning) ,( "Dream Def erred" ~ But his "Zeus )ffi!er Re~yel) or "Ask Your e Moel:," /lhul- "Runagate" and" Iiddle Passage" address with subt ty and allusion the concerns of...._, Dodson ("Lament"), Hargaret Wa lker ("Since 1619").._ and Frank Marshall '-' ' e,t ·~ Davis ("Snapshot s of the Cotton South").'(_Hayden brings a fine and intense in I tellect to his poetry7 regardless of subject matter. His output has been relatively small, considering his long career, but Words in the Hourning Time proves that his intensity has not lessened. And he must be admired for sticking to his ~ flrtiu,J, lt,v~ aone aesthe tic convictions and his unswerving devotion to poetic craftsnr1lri;hiJ>A )(and in hand with 5t!!__________·_ft , · his and general. enduring interest in history, racial His manuscript of poems dealing with slavery and· the Civil War, The Black Spear , Hopwood award. The idea fo r book-length series of narrative poems on/ lack historyk "from the black man's point of view" I_ came to Hayden after he read Stephen Vincent Benl t' s long narrative poeml John Brown's Body (1927). ~ - -- -- -- - ---- - - The Black Spear never emerged as a book, but remnants of �it can be found in s ection fiv e of Se lected Poems. Hayden ~ ~ ".I P vs,~lack h i story , h ·r8 sr~ mpions such persons a s Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman , ~ Cinq ef ~artin Luthe r King and !1alcolm X. He also includes whites who 1iiiii' ~ sharecl1 the burden of the } lack strugg le: _,William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo L -- -- Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Brown, John and Robert Kennedy, and others. Hayden's history poems, however, reflect the complexity and disturbances jM '(,, inherent in man's continuing struggle. In a non-racial poem ~ o- "The Diver" there can be floating, plunging , piercing, blurring , disillusionment, wreckage, drunken tilting, "numbin{ /f isses," and other suggestions of dramatic tension /I. (\ between the real and assumed, between the shadow and the substance. same "feeling" come$ through in poems of racial flavor. But the "Middl e Passage" certainly bears this out, as Blyden Jackson notes in "F om One ' New Negro' to Another" µ(\--------....u,v-·~ I!,,.,, ,, La,.J lack Poetr in America,:I\Jackson and Rubin, K 974 Situated, as it were, "in the rocking loom of history ," "Nidd_~ : Passage" is at once Hayden 's and,lack America '.r achievement. ~ ----.:J'' ipening with t he names of slave ships/\\ Jesu's, Estrella, Esperanza, MercyM the poem criss} crosses the vast geographical, chronological and spiritual web of racial horror since slavery. the ships _________ d >ea and ~f'~.t.fe'e1'i:~C::,5.1lontraclict3", ,., 38&~ reminiscent of t he explet i ve "Jesus, have mercy&"' ~nd = &jueard daily i ~ l:S The names of ' - ______ ~erve$' 4iiJ 1 I 3b I~ zl l a ck communities. - g] I · But this,.__ _,,_ I Ii f Cl and ...... ~~o~.-.P~' tr ',II ·55Williii \I "'c::"- ~ 1 J as the albatross around the neck of Christian slavers. ~,,s Henc~~~lmiddll Any middle passage is exciting as well a~ dangerous~ since it represents the peak and the unfinished quest. passage sug gests both the horrible and brutalizing experience of slaves aboard ships crossing the Atlantic 2 · et and the incompleted "adventure" of Blacks in America. 543 - - - - - - The poem also (jfji) �satisfies ~ f the demands of modernistl poetrYi '- "Middle i ? Passage~ " in fact ~ t'sj 37 ~LA'ied J Jo s,t5tylistically ~~uch Pound's Cantos, Crane's The Bridge and t poems as Eliot's The Wast _and, ~ . Williams' Patf erson. ._______::.-,; ...., Especia lly is it akin to The Waste and in its use of allusion, fragments of obscure ~ information (old documents, letters, conversation, etc.), typographical vari} atio,and t~ea..a-n•t 1 ;°'"i"oc., ••n~> ~•,in: 13Ht1..vden s p6emJ ll g7C,~fter its j I $ sharp and arresting opening, weaves together objective narration, notes from a slave ship's log, sections from a ships~ fficer's diary, testimony a t a court of inquiry (into.· a ~ revolt aboard the Cuban slaver Amista~ ~~oseeaHM> bol\Cl ~ - - -- - - o8&ii.lie8 en 1 NLAQAiLfai&i @Hn ■ • .,s;- ~1839) , _the tale of an old sailor~e melted .. from the II i fever &.o.wt~I'% paraphrasings of a Shakesperean text and familiar expressions '!!:::!::Jtbn f ible and live religious services. The poem depicts every imaginable dis aster and conflict: .._ storms, rebellions, suicides, a plague that - )\ ' causes blindne s ("oPlthalm~ ia"), th lusty crew members>sexual exploitation of . ....J female slaves, ings' who sold the Africans into slavery, descriptions of the smel]Jand sounds of dying, and the hatred/respect t he slave shi~ surviving ✓ spokesman has f or rebellionf leader Cinque{ Gimost ~ years before "Middle 07 Passage," James M. Whitfield had honored ';his same revolutionary in "To Cinque.') The idea of t he r*ade man, a "voyage" ~~:.R takes one "through death" into "life," recurs in Hayden's poem: v'here, again, the sense of one mea ndering through a "wastela nd" in search of the right s oc iety, the sane environment. Indeed in muchjiack American writing, mirroring sometimes the literature of larger America, there is the assertion that the new man arrives only after paying the dues of being brutalized and oppressed. Even in everyday life, Blacks are often intolerant of others who have not "gone through" the fire and brimstone of depravity and ~ - -- -- - - - -- -- - - - - - - - - -- �alienation. Thus, f or Hayden, the "middle passage" is both spiritual ly and physically a "voyage" throu3h death i n order to achieve life. I n t he middl e passage the slaves a r e hal fy a y be tween their Af rican homeland a nd America. They will not be returning to AfricaJ and yet they know nothing of the life "upon these shores." Too, the middle passage s ymbolizes the initiation of evert an into the awesome awareness and responsibilit y of adulthood j -and his own mortality. The M middle passage is where we all triumph or perish, just as in t he wasteland one must create a new world or drift with the debris. However, the caretakers of slav+ hips crossing the middle passage are as acutely aware of their mission as are the reflective slaves (and poets). death. They are also bringing life through They bear f l black gold, black ivory, black seed. t All this occurs against the pervasive irony of the ship names Jesus and Mercy % and the doubl e irony of~slaver's spokesman who renounces Cinque!, for reb e lling against the crew: Cf) ... true Christians al1@ ···l While the "Middle Passage" places Blacks somewhere in the middle of things , "Runagate Runagate" continues the irony of moving through death to life. There is litt l e to be envied in the "life" of the runaway slave depicted in this poem. The hound dogs, t he slavet trackers, the auction blocks, the ~ wan t e_i~ signs, t he brandings on the cheeks, the driver's lashi all ref! ive the terror, the nightmarish nature of / lack ( life~ after the middle passage. For Blacks, then, the initiation continues beyond the first death (the enslavement) . The anxiety and "never, never rest" life of the slave is dramatically captured by Hayden, who empl / ,. tapestry of language, syntax, color, imagery, ' narration, an - ~ ·~ " liiil.. the symbolism a -------- - -- - - - -- - - - - -- -- · ~ mo ern poetry; added to this is the dramatic �use of italics. The poem celebrates the courage and endurance of escaping slaves and honors/J.a ck and white abolitionist leaders. Hayden allows the reader to re} live the experience of the runaway slave and the accompanying tension-filled hide-and-seek drama. We hear and see the runaway in the opening line . By a~ing the use of punctuational breaks, Hayden achieves a *rush" of language '-- very similar to the relentless f drive~ oy lack oral expression and to the "never, never rest" feeling he established in "Gabriel." ~f) ✓ The runaway Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into .Q darkness and the hunt is on, as the escapee reflects on the "many thousands" already channeled through the Underground ~ilroad. We see and hear the mi xed jubilance and fear of the slav:J who vows that he will never return to the auction block and the driver 's lash ; 11 And before I 'll be a slave '-.:. ------------ I ' 11 be buried in my grave ., , • Keep ing wi t h the trend of modern poetry, Hayden introduces incidental notices and data: an a nnouncement describing runaways (including age, dress, brandings, and a suspicion that they can turn t hemselves into quicksand, whir lpools or - scorpions), wan ted posters, and names of prominent abolitionists of the day . Typographically and syntactically, the poem is designed to be read~ithout significant pauses) so that the non-stop .hurt le of the slave toward freedom a ctually occurs in the text; it is, Blyden J ackson suggests (thoughf . ._,_ of "Middle Passage")J " as if it repeats history . " Especially notable is Hayden's treatment of Harriet Tubman, the greatest of \jlde r gro_und Railroad leaders, who was wanted "Dead or Alive" and who was known to level a pistol at a doubting runaway: �® Dead folks can't jaybird-talk, she says; You keep on going now or die, she says. - ... " "Middle Passage" and "Runagate Runagate" are only two of Hayden's magnificent poems. Other poems in the histo rical vein are "Frederick Douglass" (an ex4 perimental sonnet without rhyme), "The Ballad of Nat Turner" ("The fearful splendor of that warringJ "), "O Daedalus, Fly Away Home" ("Night is juba, night is conjot "), and "A Ballad of Remembrance" (a surrealistic, complex and erudite poem). Hayden poems (prior to Words) capture supernaturalism ("Witch Doctor"), folk life ("Homage to the Empress of the Blues ," "The Burly Fading One," "Incense of the Lucky Virgin," and "Mo urning Poem for the Queen of Sunday; ) r nd folk reminiscences ("Summertime and the Living .•. ," "The Whipping ," "Those Winter Days"). Wo rds in the Mourning Time , which we will return to briefly in Chapter VI, reflects Hayden's general and specific concerns as a poet. Again he judiciously handles the spectrum of themes, subjects and styles that assures him a place . 5w:J a✓ in the world of western as well as Afro- American poetry. ~ oems -±1:'ke "'Mystery Boy' Looks for Kin in Nashville," "Soledad," "Aunt Jemi1:1-a of the Ocean Waves ," Skew 1'i and "El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz," ..... Hayden ,in touch with the times and willing to share his poetic vision with revolutionaries, pacifists, cultural nationalists and }(lack~pride advocates. On the other hand,, he is at home with poems such as "Locus," "Zeus f ver Red eye," an<l "Lear J s Gay"t vi"'hich mirror his reading, travels, broad concerns and personal friendships. 9{ 599j55 is 7 159 9]935Jp tb?Min the 1960s jolted him. Hayden admits that the battle over aesthetics And while it is clear that the fight took place more �outside of poetry than in (see Chapter VI) , Hayden has not recanted in his position that thef " ack po • ~~ be limited to racial utterance. course, has his right to his own opinion. Hayden, of Bu t, like John Ciardi, Richard Wilbur, an~ .__, Robert Lowell, and other poets of the academy, his trek has not been easy or devoid of controversy. ~·A And despite statements Hayden makes oui A/ side -o-f his poetry, poems ~ "Middle Passage" and "Runagate Runagate" stamp .___,, A Si~t e he Alll _/JPro-~1r1S~fc.4~ pos;. him as a gifted handler of i lack themes and materials. ·f'.t'" ..-t:s not " likely 1s 1:1\ that he will be knowns; J 5 8' -------- for work that lies drastically outside the passage, pace or plight of / lack Americans. Much=needed critical attention is just beginning to come to Hayden. is treated in Davi s '.f From the Dark Tower, ~ He Gibson's Modern Black Poets 'Robert Hayden's Use of _____..,_Charles T. Davi ) , Jackso n and Rubin's Black Poetry in America, O' Brien's Interview with Black Writers, Barksdalef and Kinnamon' s Black Uriters of America, and ~ Phillips aa I -- Lawson Car ter S - 1972). ft!==:> I W .:i ~ g @_ayden, Judson See also Rosey Pool's "Robert Hayden , Poe t Laureat e," Negro Digest (Black World ~ XV (Junet 1966) , 39; 43; D. Caller's "Three Recent Volumes," Poetry) CX (196 7), 268, and Julius Lester 's review of Word s in the Mourning Time in 1971, p .~ . he New Yor Times Book Review, January 24, (:}) Dudley Randall displays good insights into Hayden in "The Black Aesthetic in the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties" (Modern Black Poets)) there is~ ensitive treatment of t he poet in James the Thirties. ~ M ~ l~o.1t ~ ~ ~ -;:~J re"~, ;.""i,fi1t . o. ~ Young's Black Writers of ~ ~~ ;,,....1/.J ]ta.&.c,V"'1-;_ ~ av: : elped make the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes continued his vast and imaginative poetic output into t he thirties, forties, fifties and si{ties. He published four books of poetry in the 1930s, three in the 1940s , _ . two in the 1950s, and two i$6os, in addition to dozens of short stories, �essays, novels, plays and a uto biogr aphical writings . These things he accomplished along with his travels and his dedicated work on behalf of Blacks . s be "much too casual," notes Hughes 't friend Bontemps, simply to dismiss him ton Hu hes,,,__ Donald C. Dickinson , 1972) Hughes worked r apidly , turning out of writing, a fact, Blyden Jackson reminds us ~ 1 ~ But it would .,/. caused ~./ some to deny him a place alongs i de/\ "serious" ~lack writers -H:ke Ellison , Wright and Baldwin. Hughes always involved himself in "contemporary affairs"-Leven <luring t he fl/\ ;(enaissanc~ when Cullen, McKay and other~ roamed the Elysian fields of Africa '7t71V-endenc1 W4S pa.i-""t o fthe ,-e,uo~ t..uky or pined away in the "darl~ tower. 11 ,Jls=llll•• •,\Redding (To Hake f Poet Black) zc!s poet ry but little in~ ~ueJ h1'.s eo.1--Ly woi--i-._ 1-:, ~e.\"i m<rnTal l\.l'\d.ncft vnito'V'mLy ~ood; (.$ itcrpened 1inpor1arit new l"Oad~ mlll compla ined that Hughes employed rhythms in his - A· A,t"ld ~ the thirties and forties ;k-with their step,:up in l.e f ti.:. ~ 1 eveY' "-&ftd- radical activitiesM placed Hughes in the position of having to forge/\_newe"' tellect. protest weapons from his "weary blues." noted: ~a1:attug1:u:14£!_!!SS James O. Young "His poe try was popular because it could be read easily by people of all ages and backgrounds." new }'lack poets : In the sixties , similar comments would be made of the Haki R. Ha<lhubuti (Don L. Lee), Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, /he5e.. David Nelson, Arthur Pfistez;,v ~ - , w?,T'1r.S <'.i n d. o1ne.t1-'; r.Jertt' oYU O~ Cl.ertheTic~ o...side (owi\-ibuTeJ im men.seLy,f"'e Bu9'1e.s e ~ (o..-~em I ~ ~ Q popu(O..Y' I 31n10 f j!uid~- puf;.y • 'rn ~~S early '(E.0.1--Sj ~ however, llughes 't poetry was cons idered "decadent" .....__, and 11 unacceptable ti J/) S~I t-'1 to Communis t critic 5 who wan ted him to ae1111e~from strict• and racial themes Slltffhampion t he fights of proletarians everywhere. I Hughes made ,/he/ v.10FtKs Lik.e · the sw~ h-ove~ andAScottsboro Limited (1932) showt the impact thought.l\ on him. 'I Communist The· ·pamphlet was dedicated to/ lack youths on trial for allegedly raping two white prostitutes in Scottsboro, Alabama. Hughes places the boys alongside such revolutionary saints as John Brown, Lenin and Nat Turner. The �effect/4- resembling aborted efforts of some r.1artyr-making poets of the 1960s was to make the boys , "ignorant pawns" though they were, "militant proletarian heroes ." The poem-play "Scottsboro Limited" shows "Red Voices" convincing f lack yo uths that the Communists are on the side of /pl I Not just blackj'v)but black and white. i ughe s pub lished wid ely during the thirties in Party presses . In Good Norning eµ,--,< Revolu tion (1973, fo • rd by Saunders Redding ), Faith Berry has compiled his "uncollected writings of social protest . II They give many clues to Hughes s \social concerns during the three decades following the Harlem Renaissance. He callffor a union of "workers" in Germany, China, Africa, Poland, Italy, and America.J- N\ throu gh the pa ges of New Masses, The Negro Worker, The Crisis, Opportunity, International LiLerature, Contempo, Africa South, The Workers Monthly , New Thea tre._, ...., and American S,pectator . he In "Good Horning, Revolution," :S Q tells pers onified revolution ~-e-hcrt" ( We gonna pal around to gether from now on. Section tit le s of Good .lorni the problems a nd needs o P Revolution show Hughes to be acutely attuned to " I t , ppresse<l peoples--long before Franz Fanon, Stokely (ti\ I\ Carmichael and El dridge Cleaver-~and in sympathy with Thir d World struggle : "" Section I, Revolutio; Section 2, / ~emo to ;:;;;:Whi t~ ooles; Section 3, ~ ( Ricila nd ,the Poor; Section 4, War and Peace, ~ Section 5, ~ \.,,_ 7 6, The Sailor and J he Stewar d; Section 7, e Christ; Section he Meaning of Scottsboro; Section 8 , Darkness in Spain; Section 11, China; Section 12,~ American Writers Congress, and Section 13 , Iconoclastic and s ac rilAgous, Hughes incurred the wrath of many / 1ack leaders �with his poem "Goodibye ChristJ' published in the Baltimore Afro-American in v 19 32 . Addressing Christ , Hughes noted: ~ Yo u did alright in your <lay , I reckonj("\But tha t day ' s gone now. And "Christ Jesus Lord Go<l Jehovah" is told to "make way" for a new deity, who has no religion, and whose name is (f; Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin, Worke r, H~ • •• Religious leade s especially condemned Hughes's " blatan t atheism." But Melvin .s Tolson, coming to Hughes ' 4 aid, said that the young poet was simply showing that the Christian offering of a better world after death had little meaning for the world's s ufferin g millions . Hughes was never a member of the Communist Party , but i111-'(vf~ l,~11.ose.t oF I.,, (toca. many other p a ck writer\: Davis , Margaret Walker, EllisoTl© DJ~ his wotoft.~ s,...,., '1uuy pa-ol,TQ.WM. Tols on, Wright, Hayden , Frank Narshall · J_:::,. e While his poet r y and other writings of gommunist-oriented social pro test were appearing in radical publi,i__, v; ~e cations, Hughes continued/ ~ Sterling Bro~ developing and experimenting with J1.ack folk materials. He painstakingly po inted up t he contradict ions in the promises and realities of American_)'emocracy , a ssailed social inequality, lamented / lack and white poverty, ~ailed against double standards, attacked racial segrega tion, satirized the ,Aack bour geos i e, and immortalized the beauty of everyday Blacks. --- --µ>-..... ~uch of H~ "'SQ. ~ ~ * , : ; l ,e t America Be America Again," first published in 1936 in Esquire~ and included in A New Song (1938). reminiscent of Walt Whitmanf in its swee~ It is immediately and recites , in the manner of Hayden's "Speech" and Tolson's "Rendezvous with America , " the multiple ills and ingredients of America . µJ, Throughout the poem, as he catalogs the various ethnic stocks and ~rJ~ltl 'f\ contributions , he interpolates the haun~: .._,f "America never was America to me . "J.. �A"I $e·dt,_, 1't-1i"e.s Tf By music and folk materials was being worked more ;.;A)1~ghes's int artfully into kTe ► 'f(ecording hiS\-f'W'Qot'~ x He carried his interest i n_J. ues to his work in jazz his poetry with Charlie Mingus and others ~ and the j f.}op era is stronely reflected in his poetry and his writings (see the Simple stories). - ~-~c~ ~ ccord ing Especially is music evident in Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951 ~ to -ail --.__/' Wagner , "jazz has strongly influenced the tone and structure of these poems ." I It was from this volume , too, that Lorraine Hansber ry would get the title for her prize-winning play-t,_ Raisin in the Sun . The most famous poem in t he volume is "Harlem , " in which t11e_Jnack Ai:1erican is likened to a "dream deferred." Five precise similes help Hughes draw explicit comparisons between - e ~:er, raisins, sores, rot t en meat, syrupy sweets, heavy loads, and the .-.~ present " dreara . " Perhaps , Hughes notes at the end, the dream will "explode . " Hughes was not "per fectf,d @f I!_ t; ~ Jahn • I eria lu T he :MUt •■ .Gt1t11l? _9 "" II p 11 ined an experimentr r throughout his ==--~.=.::;~=-.:::;p.q.::..:..:...=~.:+--~·l~o~o~d~s~f~o~r~J~a~z=z (1961) was published after 0 years of experimentation in verse forQS, synthesis we referred to earlier: and themes. '-' that of jazz, blues and related folk idioms Contemporary white poe ts! E·f · chosen to place all letters in lower cas E:i capitalizing everything . It is indeed the attempt at the Cummings and Kenneth Rexrot1 ~ had Hughes did just the opposite, I Dedicated to Lo uis Armstrong~;( the greatest hortll blower I of them all"7q the volume is a n extension of ideas attempted in The Weary Blues, Shakespeare in Har lem, and Montage of a Dream Deferred. The driving social protest is there, but the indignation is mute<!J as in his earl· work . A recession in lar ger America 1J J!., IS COLORED FOLKS ' DEPRESSION. The wdrk is punctuated by the lin~ IN THE QUARTER OF THE NEGROES 1 'f nd Hughes continues �- the )llac k poe t's concern with history : ~honoring ,)!'lac~ s and race leaders: 9 displaying the beauty of }(lackn~ss and rec~lling the J:.ci.ghu. of pas sage . A g . ~ ~ a,l\o i"c..lu ie~ e-.Tt~H've liloTes on s~1n~ o.nd MIIS1ca.t. «ct..oMp"-n/me;,,f' (-'o r- n,,e po emi . Politician , organizer of sharecroppers, poet, dramatist, teacher and X raconteur , Melvin Be9-unorus Tolson was born in Heberly, Hissouri, to the Reverend Mr, and Hrs . Alonzo Tolson. Tolson lived his young life in va rious Missouri towns , publishing his first poem at the age of @ Corner" of the Oskaloosa newspaper . in t he "Poet ' s He graduated from Kansas City ' s Lincoln ,fP_ High School (1918~ where he had been class poet, director and actor inAGreek Club's Little Theater and captain of the football team. Throughout his adult life, Tolson ma intained an active interest in sports, dramatics and debatt He attended Fisk and Lincol~ iver_sities?\graduating from Lincoln with honors and winning awards in speech, deba ~ captained t he football tea lubs. dramatics an~ ssical literatures . He ~ J.;nc.olh . 1924 Tolson speech at Wiley College , in Marshall, Texas. poetry/ ' cl Ft N and directed drama~and; debat strea k . if Q_\l)FhL in l / group• ~ There he wrote prose and ~ i established a \2y-year winning Tolson interrupted his work at Wiley to pursue •~ • an :±3 1 ,1/.A • English and yampar'7l;ve / iterature at Columbia Universit)/ where he met V1F. l calverto~ editor o~lodern Quarterly. career a s a deba tft ~oach peaked when his versity of Sout he rn California, Later~~n 193,?_, at Wiley, To lson ' s eam d featedkational champions, Uni+ .eh --'~ be fore (!~OQ) people. 't--' ~z ~_.f7 And in 1947, the same year Tolson was appo inted poe t laureat e of Liberia by President v.f . Tubman , English and drama professor at Langs ton University , Langston, Oklahoma_; wfui.re he '-a.~ served as mayor for four terms . <./VI At Langston he directed the Dust Bowl Players and dramatized novels by Wa lter White and George Schuyler . A revered and feared teacher and organizer , Tolson became a legend in his own time . Hardly �a student at j\Yf eept i outh / lack college had not heard of Tolson' s work as poet, dramatist, deba • ft: oach and educator. His column+ "cabb~a and Caviar+ ' was a regular in the Uashington Tribune during the thirties. Tolson published three volumes of poetry: Rendezvous with America (1944), Libretto for the ·Republic of Liberia (1953), Harlem Gallery, Book I: The w;.oTe l'A.n1.1mber of='vnpubHsheJ noveLSQ.~ PLAyl. Curator (1965)1,,. His work .... appeared in The Modern Quarterly, Atlantic Monthly, Cll'lo I I' -.__;., Common Grouno, ~oetry.i..and other periodicals. He won numerous awards and citations, among them first place (1939) it;:ational Poetry Contest sponsored by the American Negro Exposition in Chicago (for "Dark Symphony"); the Omega Psi Phi Award for Creative Literature (1945); Poetry magazine's Bess Hakim Award f ~ ~ logical poem~ "E. ••'•sadc ong psych{ , i & 0~$~ O.E." (1947); honorary / octo ~ j etters, Lincoln Uhiversit~ permanen t Bread Loaf Fellow in poetry and drama (1954); District of <i'l,llt Columbia Ci ~tion and Award for Cultural Achievement in Fine Art~- - first ~ appoin t ~ t o the Avalon Chair in Humanities at Tuskegee Institute (1965); and& y award of the American Academy of Arts and Letter~ including a _, . ()V\,v, ,, )tf', 1 I' , 0 , (1966), the same year he died following three operations for abdominal cancer. t=;--~r :' ~e·-• As a / lack poet and intellectual in the mia~e • ~-~ 'm=-If and 1.J,llffll',,AJ century, Tolsonl \ ~ ~% ::~ 1 century predecessors '----' (Prince Hall, Benjamin Banneker, James Whitfield , Alexander Crummell, Frances the ~ w~ E. ~ f his ·a 1 I Harper anJ others) who served as teachers, abolitionists, revolutionists, def enders of wha t they believed to be decent in the promise of America, and character models fo r/ lack communities . Tolson's predecessors fought for the right to be called humans; he fought the battle of integration. As Tolson lay dying , other, younger poets were fighting the battle of self-<leterminationi albeit using the same tools employed by poets and intellectuals of the/---p-a:st two centuries. Si it is indeed ironic (and sad!) when a young writer like Haki R. ~ - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - -- - �Madhubuti (Don L. Lee) complains that Tolson is not accessible to the everyday ..____..,,,.. Negro Digest 1TB J; t January 1968) • '-' J But Joy Flasch points out -(Melvin B. Tolson) 1972) that ~ o n readerf see review of Kaleidoscope~J aili 9!, JQ 94 . • was aware that he was not writing for the "average" reader but for the "vertical" o_.ll'rt a udience. In "Omega" of Harlem Gallery , Tolson asks if a serious~ ) ·t s ould " s kim t he milk of culture" and give those demanding immediacy and relevancy D a popular la t ex brand? Tol s on did n~ t ~,:::.;; d;Syden, othe rs , to make T't1sls~ t he 1960s. 1966 g Urown , ~i-~IWll-~i Redding , and -.ontact with proponents of the 'f lack of But some opponents have continued to rake him over the coals of responsibility. ..---, •v Black poet Sarah Webster Fabio (Negro Digest , • •. .• anecember 1 l -------- f H), challenged Karl Shapiro's statement (Introduction ~ Harlem Gallery) ...__.,,,. J I; that Tolson "writes in Negro." His poetic language is "most certainly not ' Negro,'" " she averd, noting that it is "a bizarre, pseudo-literary diction" taken from stilted "American mainstream" poet r belonged." 11 "where it rightfully and wrongmindedly White critics and writers joining in the assault on Tolson included Laurence Lieberman and Englishman Paul Bremen (o f the Heritage ~, erie~. Lieberman t akes exception to Shapiro's statement, saying that he teaches f lack students from all over the worldt who are steeped in J lack language . stan d To 1 son ( review o f Har 1 em Ga 11 ery) . Autumn "p but ~ do not under 22} Gil 1 1 # ~ The Hudson Review, 1965)<:i)i . Yet Tolson's publishers had high hopes that he might get the Pulitzer P;;:-;:r Libretto-i2nd,wer'ldol~n 8Nok.1. who sided i'n fJ J 4-Tt lq(,os 1 p;,,p 0 ,uriTs o F-:th•j L.Ad,.. !le>~eTit.1 f~,·• Jh@/h~119f,1 ~ ,o.1Leey shouLA h~ve retei11C(i-ih-e R~ writing and ref-thinking his poetry over a period of decades, Tolson wt-t\ ll.t.u~cbJ became more difficult as he made adjustments to fit modernist trends in poetry . The stars/of English poetry were Eliot, Pound, Yeats, Crane, and Stevens, and Tolson admired and patterned his work after them. Yet throughout his poetic life, �he maintained an "enormous lo; }...;.~ work as well as in his poetry. eoplej' which was re flected in his everyday 4 Rendezvous with America ~ title indicates r ......::____,,. Tolson's commitment to love and do battle with America. America has cancer and promis~ and Tolson performed operations while he feasted on his nation's delights. His title poem, "Rendezvous with America ," reflects the Whitman influence and Tolson's awesome word skills, technical virtuosity and musical ear. He enumerates the races and types of people who also must rendezvous with America. He sees how Time unhinged the gates to allow the beginning of America, noting such landmark~ as Plymouth Rock, (I Jamestown, and Ellis Island, which he juxtaposes with,.. ancient s i t e s ~ Sodom, Gomorrah, Cathay, Cipango and El Dorado. The "searchers" came to America; which is the Black Han 's country, (r' The Red Man's, the Yellow Han 's, The Brown fan's, the White Han 's. America flows, Tolson believes/b. a,✓-:l,,\..:.., I An international river with a legion of tributaries! " A magnificent cosmorama with myriad patte1i_s of colors! A giant fores t with loin-roots in a hundred lands! A cosmopolitan orchestra with a thousand instruments D playing J America! [ His manipulation of traditional f orm, coupled with what he called t he three S's-l '• /V\ "biology, psychology ..• sociology ," or the synchronizing of sight and sound and ~ in a poem~ yielded much poetic fruit in his long years of writing and riwriting his poetry. Rendezvous with America is not a great first book) but it marked him as an able handler of unique verse forms. His major themes (history , �/ l a ck pr es ence in the ~orld, religion, hatr ed for class structures, and the plight of the underdog ) are ,J; j~n a variety of forms: ...,sonne ts, rhymed quatra ins, ballads, f ree.:: verse forms , an<l special two-syllable lines . Known as ~ i cono~ st, Tolson used his poetry to dj =stool pomposity and those who manipulated everyman's sufferings from behind a cloak of high office. Music and art inform much of his poetry~ another reason why his allusory writing has been criticized/4-as in " Rendezvous" and "Dark Symphony," the most popular poem in his first book . In "Rendezvous," in addition to his musical structures, he lists America ' s melodies by associating factories, express trains, power dams, river boats, coal mines, and lumber camps with musical terminology: " a llegro," "blues rhapsody ," "bass crescendo," "diatonic picks," and "belting harmonics." "Dark Symphony," inunediately musical and racial in its title , is s e parated into parts along musical lines and terminology : Hoderat ; Part Part I: III, Andante Sostenut "Rendezvous" and "Dark Symphony" are patterned after the ode form (which Tolson would expand on in Libre~ and Harlem Gallery) . "Dark Symphony" carri es the same theme as "Rendezvous" ~ people pitted against their injusticesi but the latter poem is more r a cial in flavor and subject matter . - "'iA~ _£J.-. Located, temporally and spiritually, between the concerns of Whitman (the 1& and John Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath), "Dark Symphony" ope ns by reminding Americans M~ that "Black Crispus Attucks"(c11ed for them\ (Boston €-oftl:Blo~ 1 ~ '- Before white Patrick Henry's bugle breath asked for liberty over death. A strongly masculine poem (as is so much of Tolson's work), it moves robustly to recite the deeds of "Men black and strong." Part II tells of the "slaves singing" in the "torture tombs" of ships in the middle "" and "canebrakes." passage, the swamps, the "cabins of death~ In the remaining �parts, the ) 'lack Amer i can, speaking through the collective "we," vows not to . paa "forget" that "Golgotha" has been A_-=-9 or that "The Bill of Rights is burned." Th<y<'ew Negro wears "seven-leag~e" boots and springs from a tradition that pro4:-, duced Nat Turner, Joseph Cinquet ("Black Ho ses of the Amistad Mutiny"), Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman ("Saint Bernard of the Underground Railroad"). Grapes of Wrath and Native Son are invoked as ind~ es to the suffering and the breeding of slums . l) And, finally, the historical concerns of the / 1ack poet: Out of abysses of Illiteracy, Through labyrinths of Lies, Across waste lands of Disease We advance! Brilliant, esoteric, complex, innovative, and able to span the world of,J1ack /olk idiom and academic intellectualism, Tolson always punctuates his undaunted ~ l yricism with ribald humor and thigh-slapping uproarlmsness. However, Paul Bremen d~sparagingly referred to Tolson as posturing "for a white audience with an ill-conceived grin and a wicked sense of humor ..• an entertaining darky using almost comically big wor<ls as the best wasp tradition demands of its edui cated house-niggers ." Englishman Bremen.) s-.,,.-, . (Maybe, one might ,r-«, Tolson was "even" too deep for the Nevertheless, the poets of the academy apparently loved Tolsor, and mo r e than one of them tried to get him deserved recognition before he died. W, U.,im.s ,, William Carlos~saluted Tolson in his fourth book of PcJ# terson; Allen Tate wrote a now famous .~• .tr:&E!fr0" to Librett o; Shapiro introduc: d Harlem Gallery,:,\ seven Y launching Tolson into the same curious fame that Howells brought to Dunbar,\.• years before; Robert Frost, Stanley E<lgar Hyman , Selden Rodman, John Ciardi and Theodor e Roe thkel all tried to "bring Tolson to the general literary consciousness, but with little success" (Shapiro). �; , Tolson's severest critics usually have in mind Libretto or Harlem Gallery. Rendezvous has been out of print for several years and many of the younger f lack poets and schola rs ha~ ead it -J,.as ~ Road (1 932 ~ which has j-tts,t b~en reprinted. he case wit! iii SA i;, Brown ' s Southern Butt any casual look at Tolson 's work will confirm reports that he is not digestible in a single reading. Even before the erudition of Libretto and Harlem Gallery, Tolson accustomed himself to the allusion . Indeed , his strongest weapon is the literary or historical reference~ the mar k of the library poet, the learned person. the Bar" Tolson is at his finest as he ji,it'qeose.s •arak2222 In "An Ex-Judge at J. humor , allusion,\ ironyl with . _ -...:..- philosophy and social commentary. bar. This ex-judge is at a "drinking" And rich in oral power, like most of Tolson 's poetry , the poem surveys t he history of a white man who, after serving in the war and returning home to d,..., ·, become a judge, is" guilt-ridden in a taver1) where he discusses his life with the ba rt ender. The opening couplet: • t:'""___,_~ and ake it two Bartender, make it straa.-gut M One f or the you in me and in yout •.. ~ t he/ l ac k American's dexterousness with oral language and Tolson's rich background a s storyteller and debatA oach. The couplet contains the kind of musical, s eemingly non1 sensical statement that J lack men love to exchange during fierce verbal sparring matches I-even though the judge is presumab l y white . Drunk, the judge r ef i ves his war ~er·e~ces and, in a vision, sees the "Goddess Justic ~ ' f"'14Ulnw~, j~ whom someone 11 'l --- blindfolds';'•1111t,\the lawyers ~ "l:" a ilroad defendf nts before him. - But Justice " unbandaged" her eyes and accused the judge of lynching a / lack man to "gain the judge's seat," even though, ironically, he fought in the last war to "make the world safe for Democracy." The judge, seeking consolation and implying that no one is perfect, is finally moved to self-evaluation, repents and orders �another round of drinks: ® Bartender, make it straight and make it three~ One for the Negro .•• one for ·you and me. "An Ex-Judge at the Bar" i -with its ironies and doubl~ enten<lres in the very title /Ylis a poem that slips away from the reader. never sure, that one has the meaning under control. One thinks, though one is The poem refers to c{adsar, ct Pontius Pilate, the Koran , the Sahara, "September Morn" (a painting by Paul Chabt s), W' French Macbeth. ~ words, Flanders field, and Macduff in Shakespeare's ~ Certainly these are not the ideal ingredients for a poem directed to the "people." and world On the other hand, for the reader ready to do battle with history e, Tolson proves quite rewarding . Dudley Randall ("The Black ~ Aesthetic inl\Thirties, Forties, and Fiftie~" -,,f Iodern Black Poets) states, with a strained air- of seriousness; ~ "If t he reader has a well-stored mind, or is willing to use dictionaries, encylopedias, atlases, and other reference books,'' Tolson's work "should present no great difficulty." Randall had in mind, specifically, Libretto, a section of which appeared in Poetry along with the book's preface. In this long poemf, constructed loosely ~ . around tire ode formf Tolson celebrates Liberia 's cent ennial . According to Randall, "Tolson used all the devices dea r to the New Criticism : ..,,recondite allusions, scraps of foreign languages, African proverbs, symbolism, objective correlatives. Many parts of t1e poem are obscure, not through some private symbolism of the author, but because of the unusual words, foreign phrases, and learned allusions." Randall goes on to point out that reading Libretto is like reading other "learned poets, such as Milton and Ti s. Eliot ." However, reading Tolson is not exactly like reading other learned poets, for he placesr ack information in front of the reader. lle bends the ode into an �~t A""~rltt'O .f-: ~musical structure and celebrates the /'lack past. ~ l'O• Continuing a pattern set in J {)[~ poems i±ks. "Rendezvous with America" and "Dark Symphony," Tolson separates --;it:; Libretto along lines of the Vestern musical scale: ~ @ ~-Do, -Re, Mi, Fa , Sol, La, Ti, Specifically, Libret to acknowledges the c § birthday of Liberia, founded in 1847 by the American Colonization Society for free men of color. "Rooted in the Liberian mentality as fact and symbol ," Libretto traverses the kaleidoscopic range of African his tory: ~ the magnificent a ncient and/ edieval kingdoms, European exploitation, various theories as to the reason for the question-markl shape of Africa , the origins of fa ack stereotypes, Africa ' s contributions to the world, the impact of Christianity, Islam and other religions . All this Tolson does with what Allen Tate calls "a great gift of language , a profound historical sense, a first-rate intelligence." Tate also pondered, as did Emanuel and Gross (Dark Symphony, 1968), "what influence this work will have upon Negro poetry in the Unit ed States." Nore than slightly recalling Howells} in his endorsement of Dunbar, Tate says : l"For the first time, it seems to me , a Negro poet has assimilated completely the full poetic language of his time and, by imp lication, the language of the Anglo-American tradition." Relentlessly posing the one-word question "Liberia?" and reinforcing the nation 's existence in "fact and symbol, " Tolson opens Libretto with lofty erudition and color. The fifth stanza of ~ . after the initial "Liberia?" and accompanying recitation of what the nation is not, add resses its citizens thusly: Yo u ar ---t Black Lazarus risen from the White Han 's grave, 0 t::..J t,-without a road to Downing Street, Without a hemidemisemiquaver in an Oxford Later, in ~ secti f tave ! olson excerpts a chant from "The Good Gray Bard of <B �Timbuktu": ® "Wanawake wanazaa ovyo ! Kazi Yenu Wanzungu!" ~ Hayden has been called one of the most skilled craftsmen since Countee Jifl,/ Culle~ but Tolson without a doubt has sustained t moM powerful poetr '~ ~ ' ' l adheres ri gorously to the tenets of the modernists. ~ ' ' His Libretto is the drama of "The Desert Fox" and the German " goosestep" across Africa <@); of the snake, "eyeless, yet with eyes " ( ); of "White Pilgrims" and "Black Pilgrims" who sing "O Christ" that the wors'f will "pas fr} ( ol); "A white man spined with dreams" a; of a "Calendar of the Country" to "red-letter the Republic's birth !" of "Leopard, elephant, ape" and :il); and of ." a professor of metaphysicotheologicocosmonigology" also . . i n a c 1 oaca o f error a toot h . pu 11 er a/ ,p ltap h ys1c1st a ielly' s welf a skull's tabernacle a 1113 wi th stars 0 t-a muses ' darling a busie bee de sac et de corde tJ f-a neighbor's bed-shaker a walking hospital on D 0 the walip •·•~ _ The symbols, t t1e syntax, the grammar and the language tumble on placing / -Quai d ' Orsay, White House , L...f- Kremlin , : wning Street t in the catalog• while (!~ ' Again black Aethiop reaches at the sun, 0 Creek fI ( i 0 The histo r y of world wars, the gos sip in high circles ("f Duce's Whore"), AA.- the concoction of ~ merable languages and book-buried erudition, reveal Tolson as a complex and difficult modern poe t. The tragedy, Randall and others have �pointed out, is that as Tolson wrote Libretto and Harlem Gallery, white scions of the modern vers e were turning their backs on erudition for a more common, everyday language in poetry. for more than@ Trapped in the middle (he held on to Harlem Gallery years), Tolson continued to labor in the best tradition of the modern poetry to the disbelief of contemporariesf who , like Cummings, Rexroth , and Hughes, were influenced by f (l/op and a freer language structure. Tolson's sustained scholarship and complex allusions are reinforced by the addition of scores of footnotes..J which cite the works of such as Dryden , Shakespeare, Emerson, Lorenzo Dow Turner (Africanisms in the Gullah Dialects)~ J.~ . Rogers C, Race), unnar Hyrdal , Aeschylus, Bocca'1(-o, Baudelaire!.,and hundreds of others. I symbols The work ends <@) in a use of mystical and technological examine "Futurafrique" and "tomorrow •.• 0 .. . Tomorrow." Tolson's career is a terrifying example of the confusion that can occur in ther ack literary artist . When he first sent the manuscript of Libretto to Tate (who was across town at Vanderbilt with the "Fugitive" poets while Tolson was -tke Whi re poet at Fisl(), •#[ejected i Si saying he was not interested in "propanganda from a Negro poetf "1Flasch),' ..i__fl 1 1!j_ Tolson then dil_!i gently refvrote the manuscript · \:>•3"'_.rt to subscribe to the t~~intellectual, technical, and scholarly demands of the modern poets (Tate, John Crowe Ransom, Eliot, Pound, Robert Penn Warren, Donald Davidson, and others). it. He sent the manuscript back to Tat~ who agreed to endorse In 1920, Tolson had stumbled upon a copy of Sandburg 's "Chicago" but was warned by a professor to "leave that stuff alone" (Flasch). a poet, then, was stunted* causing him to spend @ His maturation as years searching for his own voice. Harlem Gallery (the first of a planned five-volume epic) provides another example of the chaos in Tolson's poetic life. In 1932, he completed a 340-page manuscript called "A Gdllery of Harlem Portrait~ ' which was turned down by ~ - -- - -- -- - -- - - - - -- - �publishers. When the deriva tive ode Harlem Gallery was finally brought out in 1966, Tolson had published two newer manuscripts: , -tt\-t Rende zvous and Libretto . roe.-t.!. Harlem Gallery had been placed in~• • & a !!II "trunk" for @ years-;;a period during which he switched from the Romantics and Victorians (and Masters after whose 1 Spoon River Anthology "Portraits" was modell ed) to the Moderns . -t1t~ US PT r . ., i itt,g -21!he::."2.& · I Tolson said he ~ 1 read and absorbed the techniques of Eliot, Pound, Yeats, Baudelaire, Pasternak and , I believe , all the great moderns . God only /" knows how many \J.1. ittle magazines\Y I studied, and how much textual analysis( (sic_9 of the New Critics." A staggering poem , Harlem Gallery " is a work of art, a sociological commentary, an intellectual triple somersaultt (Flasch~ It meet s the vigorous intellectual, scholarly, and stylistic whims of mode rn poetry , but at the same time is "impossible to describe." Yet it is Tolson's crowning achievement in more ways than one . First it continues his fascination with/ lack and general history . pursues ~ Jo;;,., Second, it intense interest in bo t h the psychof dynamics of the Afro- American /" character and the artist; he is particularly concerned with the plight of the ~o lllll!!ntie ~C.. century / lack artist (hence Book I , The Curator). Third, it prov ides one of the most powerful and authentic link~ between the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Hovement of the 1960s a nd 1970s. The very title of Har lem Galler y gives it a / lack setting; and t he fact of itt s being conceived and initially drafted <luring the f ena issance indicates that ;olson labored over the years (from the stand: point of memory, technique and sub ject matter) in the afterv low of the ,, literary flowering watered by McKay, Cullen , Toomer, Hughes , Fish r, Johnson , and Locke. Finally, the characters in Harlem Gallery are / lack: the Curator, Doctor Nkomo (Bantu expatriate and Af ricanist ), Mr. Guy Delapor te (p~esident of Bola Bola Enterprises), Black Orchid (blues\ singer and mistress to Delaporte), t he �ha l f - blind Ha r lem a rtist John Laugar t , Bl a ck Di amond (ghettot promoter of t he 6,e.,~ Lenox policy racke t), and Hideho Heights (the light-skinned poe t of Lenox Avenue). I\ The Cura t or of the Harlem Gallery is a n admixture (continuing concer~~ egun in Rendezvous) of races ("Afroirishjewish") , an octoroon who passes for j lack in New York and white in Mississippi . He is a digestion of the humor and pathos Blacks s ee i n those of their race who attempt to "pass . " Tolson noted t hat sinc e t housands of light- skinned Blacks passed over, there is a standing joke ask~ "Wha white man is white?" Harlem Gallery, t hen, is desiened to parade the/ lack " types" (ultimately ~veryman types) thr ough t he gallery of life as it is shaped by the view of the l i t era ry genius: ...._,Tolson • Spec ifica lly , the book i s a hu~ answer to Gertrude Stein's charge t ha t the "Negro su ffers from no t hingness.'' ,J1-ack hi story . All of his poetic life, To lson wo r ked to reconstruct Now , in Harlem Gallery, he was coming with speed and poetic prei -- cision fr om his corner of the syntactica-J. and semant i c* ring to do battle with /Y)~ -., Stein ' s charge . In the Introduction to Harlem Gallery, Shapiro explains i n pa rt the reason why Ge rtrude Stein would herself be so i gnorant. Whites do not get a chance t o read about ;(lack ·achievement; since "Poetry as we know it remains the most l ily- whit e of the arts." the poetry of t he Academ~f ears." Libretto may have pulled "the rug out from under but "Harlem Gallery pulls the house down around their Assailing El i ot and others for "purifying the language," Shapiro praised Tolson f or " complicating it, giving it the gift of tongues . " To lson certainly gave Harlem Gallery the "gift of tongues . " He uses tidbits from the range of world l a nguages; but his work is more sust a ined and coherent than in Libretto. Both storyt line and language a re more accessible in Galleryt;, with its interpolation· of ricy academic language and form. ack speech and musical term.inology into stilted Set up musically, with each section bearing the �fa1ler offh ~ name of a~Greek /lphabet, Galler y shows Tolson again displaying his amazing technical virtuosity and his merger of ,~ ode form with rela ted / lack orally~derived structures : ~blues , jazz ,/ piritua ls, f olk epics and oral narratives &a e'Satchmo" in GmbdJ / n ___, The verse pattern in "The Birth of John Henry" Gallery owes some debt to (gg} in Libretto Jwith its - tapered typography and irregular forces the r eader to speed up or slow down to line organization catch the rhyme. ~ opens describing t he spice of Harlem as "an Afric pepper bird" before the Curator tells us; ~ I I travel, from oasis to oasis, man ' s Saharic 0 up-and-down. The grand sweep and intellectual storage of Tolson are gathered from line to line , between lines, in t h e marg i ns, around and t hroughout the poem. Recalling the verbal jousting in "An Ex- Judge a t the Bar," t he Curator assesses his "I-ne ss," his ".humanness" and hi s "Negr ones sj " and this recipe mixes with t he pepper bird ' s r eveille in my brain where the plain i s t willed and t willed iA plain . The academic stilts a re shortened fo r t he sake of unde rstanding <@): 0 one needs the clarit y the comma gives t he eye, not the head of the hawk .0 's4wollen with rye . Like Hayden's "Middle Passage," Gallery views the physical and spiritual pret dicament of th y lack man : ..,_what has he gone through , how much more can/will he take, how long? tl,w long? The answer is that man may have to endure suffering forever/4-but if he is doomed to suffer, he is likewise "doomed" to survive. The �Cur ator is t old t hat others have su f fered and survived . cr eate in th e ir suffering . The Afro- American and So t he " Af roirishjewish Grandpa" of the ~ shim ,.___, ~ : Cur £!f e t ween the dead sea Hitherto Q and the pr omi sed l a ml Henc e U looms t he wilderness Now : O a lthough his confidence :_i s often a boar bailed up ILJ on a rid ge , somehow , ].. t he Attic sal t in man survives the blow [l.c.J of Attila , Croesus , Iscar iot , ·r---a nd t he ~ tches Sabba t h i n t he Ca t a comb s of Bos io . 1, '1:certainly t his survi va l theme i s c l os e to t he hea rt o f the Afro-American and t he a rtist. Art ists ar e of ten among t he f irst to plee~ f or clemency , for free e xpr ession , f or t ru t h . The j pirituals and t he va s t body of ~ folk e xp r e s sion reaffirm the Afro-American's fait h in man and the quest fo r s urv i val. of} lack exp res sion and strength, Tolson (and Hayden : i ncorporates t he rich blast of ~ '-' folk mate r ials . Acknowledging this a spect "Hean mean mean to be freef ") In heaven ~==-=-= 7 , Gabr iel announces; ~ (P '' I ' d be the greatest trumpeter in the Universe , [J if old Satchmo had never been born !" And the b irth of John Henr y is an e pic birth -akin to t hat of Jesus, Bud~ °' }1C,hammtd , and others . an ax The nigh t Jo hn Henr i is born (V ,CJ of l igh t ning splits t he skY,,i_ the earth , and a hammer of thunde r pounds , �0 and t he ear,l e s and pant hers cry! Reciting a soul-food menu at birth , John Henry 1' I want some ham hocks , ribs, and jowls, _ a pot of cabbage arid gree{; some hoecakes, jam , and butter milk, a platter of pork and beans!' ' ~ ) Tolson remains at home in s ynchronizing the Afro- American and Western heritages . In Gallery his forte is still t he literary a llusion juxtaposed with history or religion (as in Libretto),;\ but he love s to ascend the stuJty mountain of academia ~ and then suddenly dr'Jeinto t he midst of ghettot-i'uri<, ~ ; : '@ tha t tilt like "long N,fp lese eyes" to a "catacomb Harlem flat" \ (grotesquely vivisected like microscoped maggots) ,b~ I from t houghts !,ya the "Elite Chitterling Shop" @ )1 wh ich contains the "variegated jukebox" (sin~ing the "ambivalence of classical blues") . ; : : :ra of Meanwhile, Doctor Obi Nkomo, "the alter ego" of the gallery, speaks Across an alp of chitterlings, pungent a s epigrams • . .. ) The _,P(,ctor returns to t he theme of survival and free expression: J) d/ 11 The lie of the artist is the only lie for wh ich a mortal or a god should die." 7r"olson's ever-present need to synt hesize (and yet separate) the t hr ee ingredients of man (biology , sociology and ps ychology/4- extending into the three S' ~ / si ght, sound and sense) recurs in t~e poem ~ ) as the a rtists paint the seven panels of man ' s trid t•mensionali ty - 1--in variforms and varicolorsJ IJ since vir tue has no Kelv in scale l---since a mo ther breeds J-no twins alike, ••. �and since no man who is 1$~ '.: dged by his bioso cia l identity OCJ I { ------ n tote Kiefekil or a fart re , rn Henc e Tolson extends, sometimes in camouf l ~ ge, his ideas about man ' s similarities a nd differences . To be sure , he is say ing that;('lack lilen and white men are di fferent "i\but that the differences are not significant enough to keep t hem from working together for the lilutua l ~ood . This particular stand, which l a ces the work of Hayden, Tolson , Hughes and early Gwendolyn Brooks, is not one that will rema in popular among poets who subscribe to the / lack/ es the tic of the 1960s . NEver theles~ Tolson dug underneath the hysteria and the ideological neatness to probe the tine- honored questions about nan . Gallery) finds •&h;e:z;_doing liluch-anthologized section of battle with anthropologists , the D.A . . , the F.F.V. (First Families o f Virginia), Unc le Tom , t h e Jim Crow / i gn, the Great White World, and Kant, in an att emp t t o ans we r the questio \" Who is a Ne gro?" a nd "Who is a Uhite?"'/lrolson ' s wo r k contains e reat satir~ satire. and great wisdom in t he To be misled by his incred i ble and daz ~ling wor, ~play is to miss the essential Tolso~ who warned t he c omin~ ,eneration t ha t, although Uncle Tom was " dead ," they should beware of his son : "Dr. Thomas . " Suspicious of fame and wealth .-, and des iri ng to see laced over ,mother (in privileiz e), Tolson remarked a fter J ohn Laugart ' s mur • \\ t hat amo nc those thin3s remaining D and infamy , t h e ~iamese twin -- (.! of fame . _____________________ ...__ ~wete 0- ba1tle ol-' git! �Are we privilel';ed , here, to see a sneak (@- y e a r ~ ) preview of Wa terga te? We do not know what would have been Tolson's fate as a poet had -he come to his own comfortable style as a young man in the Harlem Renaissanc e. He was nearly fifty when he sent Tate the manuscript for Libretto . , f t y .\ :· oU is quite an Aage for a poet to be still at odds with fl.is craftM or to have•++....___.,, ~ , ~'tn,n,jf 11~ tvoH over,f's een by aA.critic . Nevertheless Tolson , not admitted (as Shapiro noted of J'lack poets)~ to the "poli te company of the anthology , 11 had to get his voice CJtJ,,,. immedl4tt Ptninw:.kn, em;Tithlal "together" without the/\aid ava i l ab1J' to the "Fugitives" or those inl\molcling . $'1~ .centers modern poetry . ,Few,J(l a ck poets at the time were attempting Tolson's 1'n t•-S~ I l'l •. OJ;_~ Bl ac Ics flIha s!ri lj cl ec 1.rne cl C:::::: • I · ______ :~'.> 111 I! during the fo rties and fifties -and there is much eviclence that Tolson generally intimidated other / lack scholars and intellectuals with his vast knowledge and great talents. Like poets of other generations, he was a part-time poet, expending much of his ener g ies on students and school-related work. p Randall has pointed out that unless a ck poets imitate Tolson?\and thus keep him apparent and interesting~ he will not exert a major influence on Afro-American poetry. But, as Barksdale and Kinnamon note, a poet of Tolson's range and power carf):iot go unnoticed for long . Criticism of To lson is sparse . Joy Flasch ' s Melvin B. Tolson, in the Tw~J United Sta tes Authors Series, offers good insights int o Tolson's techniques. Barksdale and Kinnamon give brief criticism in Black ~friters of America. appraises him in t he article on/lack poets of three decades following the Randall ~ Renaissance in his "Portrait of the Poet as Raionteur," Negro Digest , XV, 3 ...._. (January 1966 )J S4t;, 7. ~· See. a lso 11 A Poet's Odyssey, 11 an interview with Tolson (conducted by M.lw . King) in Anger, and Beyond (1966) ~Lee. I ~ j\eview!. Joy lte.be .-mA.tt) f:a.bto ([J ~ Margaret 1-Jalker' s poetry and life provide a ~.ich and fl rewarding jolt in t he writing activity of this period : her For Mv People (1942) /,.., "' �was the first book of poe try by a jlack woman since Georgia Douglas~Johnson ' s volumes of th e t wen ties; the poetry departeJ in theme and technique from t he prevailing mood of poetry byfilack women; and she had t he rare opportunity to £.~~i1e, ineo~o"A~ le, years , Wright, Davis, Fenton Johnson , and during her mo st-~ ~ with such Chicago-based writers a~ &1 1 FL ~ -,-11;111 Hu~ :bilec ot:1'11!'1.· it ors 9 £... the e ~ ~her experiences inc luded the Depression, Wo rld War II and ::; McCarthyism-Lalong wit h various ra cial and politically radical perspectives on M contemporary life. Margaret Walker was born in Birmingham , Alabama , the daught e r of a Me thodist~ .,..., minister father and a school teacher mother, both universi t y graduates. She ~ . M.1ss1ss1pp1, . . . Al a bama , an d Louisiana . . 1.. ti;_ • ~ a t t en d e d c h urc h sc h oo 1 sin ceso•• receiv ~ her B.A . from Northwestern ~ .., stag lee• ~ ts r srl "1T'1e • next fou~yE!ar~Aas a t yp ist, newspaper reporter, edi tor of a short-lived magazine, ~d"-'"i4J..t and with the Federal Write r s ' Pro ject. (like Haydei in Chicago . In 1939 she entered the University of Iowa (afte r short s t ints as a social worker in Chicago and New Orleans} where she received an _·LA . in 194 0, her thesis being a collection of poems. She i~ ~ obtained ~ I \Ph . D. in creative writing from Iowa in 19 65 a, after submitting Jubilee , a novel, in lieu of ...,.Adisse rtation. Jubilee received the Houghton Hiff lin Literary Awa rd in 1966 and ha s been translated into several languages. Sc~ I qc.fO ~ •1 \o ~ J T ~ Hargare t Wal ke r (Mrs. Firnist IA, James Alexander and t he mother of four children) was~ professor of English at Liv ingston Coll ege in North Carolina , received the Ya le Younger Poets award in 1942 (For My Peopl e ), was awarded a Rosenwald Fellowship for Creative \,Tri.ting (1944 ), s e r ved as visiting professor at 'Iorthwestern University , and became a membe r of the English f acult y at Jac kson State Colleg 7 where she is currently director of the Ins titute for the Study of His tory, Life , and Culture of Black ~ - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - �People (since 1969). Arthur P . Davis says) ~ ":t•ass Walker is a better poet than she is a novelist, " and one can hardly quarrel with him . • In addition to For ,1y People, she has sustained a ·1h. < \ _" quality of poetry in I Prophets for a New Day (1970) and October Journey (1973) M both published by !i Randall's ___. Broadside Press in De troit. J Al though some of the poems in Prophets '-- for a New Day were begun in the t hirties and forties , "most of them," according to the poet, were written during the sixties . them in Chapter VI . !, 8rief comment will be made on ; "For Hy People," the title poem of her first book, first Told by Owen Dodson at a College Language Association meeting (Howard University, in 1942) that she was winning the Yale Younger Poets Award, w hevi IL ~he had wonJ and · 1 1 -=1t-i&..isl, -e-1 ~ she "had not even s ubmitted 11Qp- "-manuscrip t and her- v o Lv"" e. • ,,:;;;-(31i/ ;ecalls ~ thought he was cra zy . " t\._include<l a sensit i ve Fo r d by Stephen V;i.ncent Ilen/S, who praised her " Straight -for wardness, d irectness, r eality ," and noted that such qua lit i es are " good t hings to find in a young poet." also observed Benet Q : lrt is rarer to find them cor.1bined with a controlled intensity of emotion and a language that, at times, even when it is most modern, has something of t he surge of biblical poetry. And it is obvious that Niss Walker uses that language because it comes ~ turally to her and is a part of her inheritance. Indeed "inheritance" is the key word to unlocking the fruits and juices of Margaret Walker ' s poetic storeroom. Her own experiences , as the <laughter of re l igious parents, of growing up in the South, of being nurtured on the oral tradition, of developing a ca reful and sympathetic ear for the folk expressions, are all served up again through the poe t's "honesty," " sincerity," "candor " and - - - - - - - - - -- -- - ---- �tremendous technical abilities . Harr,a ret Walker ' s verse does not employ the ~ oblique , ~truse , and learned scalings sometimes evident in Hayden and Tolson . And she is quit e at the opposite end of the spectrum from the ladxtlike lyrics . and of her predecessors: .._, Ann} Spencer , Gwendolyn Benne tt/\ Alice Dunbar 1Qg el son., ... Indeed when ·measured against the tradition established by most of She : certainly · her female predecessors, her work is startling. I\ · bears ship to her forerunner ,i/4 is;ers~ especially to Frances Harpert some ki"1, i n theme and e; ~ usag~ -but her language, lines , an<l narration a re more .related to the work of )3'.l.ack poe~s .renton Johnson, Wright, ,c}"arnes Weldon Johnson, Htllghes and Davis, and whi te -·poets Masters, Lindsiy and -Sandburg . During an exchange t1ith 'N i kk i Giovanni (A Poet ic Eq ua t ion : ,..Conversations Between Ni kki Giovanni a nd Margaret Walker , 19 743 't]~~tli'et alker !nut t o ge t bac k to t hi s business of l angua ge. £) s aid : In t he t wenties and thir ties, f or t he f i rs t time we had the us e of b l a ck speech / f r om the streets . He were r esponsi ble fo r t ha t pa r tic ular urban l2:_d i om going int o t he American languaf:e . ~ ;ikki Giovanni answered with ~ ~pe rceptive ~ _!tit• ohserv1iTi6>t~ 5 \r t was the first time because we were bec oming urban. {) one of the things we f or :·: et when ue start ~r ritiques is t hat we could not have had a street laniuage earlier . been plantation and southern and rura l. I t h ink Speech had And as we moved~o the ~ ities during the ~ i gration period , we developed a s treet language . M-ir.otret· think that's an import ant point," ' ~ J \~lalker noted , moving on to indebt herself and the whole modern/ l ack poetic folk.t r adition to lear that :Margare t Walker , t :1e ~outhc rner, ~leaned from the kinds of rich linguistic c omplements needed to draw the �For Ny People. The t itle poem sets t he tone of t he book and es tablishes t he poet ' s intellectual, aes t he tical , ph iloso phical and his torical consid erations : V the acquisition and employment of. knowle<l3e of her past; the exhortation of her people ("Th e Struggle Staggers UsJ ' but "Ou t of this blackness we must struggle forth"); the celebrationi specifically+ of the / 1ack folk heritage and language; esteem for her religious (especially supernatural ) and spiritual needs. Revealing in both its style and its content, "for ly People" is a majestic poem containing '""tot.So n1'M f'. the now-famous Whitman sweep of words and ideas with aa 4ordering disorder : J.f~ For my people everywhe re singing t 1eir slave songs IJ l , repeai :!{ t heir dirges and their d itties and I their blues anc,yJ ubilees, praying their praye rs nightly to an unknow~ od, bending their knees humbly to an unseen power0 ... Continuing from th is first stanza (note the similarity to Fenton Johnson's ?J the poem views "my people" adding their " streneth" to the " gone years" and the "now years." It sees them, as it traverses the physica l and spiritual history of Blacks , as "playmates" in Alabama "clay and <lus ~ as "black and poor and small and differen~ as youths who " grew" to "marry their playmates" and "die of con-{,, ~ul!lption~';) as "thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox Avenue in New Yo rk and Rampart Street in New Orleans ' as "wa lking blindly spreading joy"; as )r\ blundering and groping and flounderin~"i a s "preyed on by facile force of state and fad an l ovelty, by false prophet and holy believer\f) and "as all the adams and eves ." Finally, in the last stanza , she gives t his ringing cry for a more a ggressive / lack push: �{f) Let a new ea rt h rise . •c. e ,,ott-·• \~" t),t>~\~ Let anot her wor ld be born . 1-tt IJ ·. 1a bl oody /peace be wr itten in the sky . Let Let a second /\A let a people , generatiorf/tull of courage i s s ue fo rth; 1\11 1ft ~\~ loving free-~dom come t o gr owth . Let a beauty full of hea ling,. //If nd a s tr en 6 th of f i na l clenching be the . . -1-z lf pu 1 s 1.ng 11;. .-,o ur spir its and our blood . ~ Let the # martia l songs b~~wr itten , le t t he dir ges disappear. I Let a race o f men now ris e and t ake control . For Hy People is a small book (only @ _f111~n;ia~ by a/ poems) but it is one of the most in~ lack poet.(/,,Da rk Blood" follows the opening poem, reaffirming 11 H~rgaret Walker ' s be lief in t he " forms of t hings unknown /4as Wright ~ it. "Bizarre beginnings in old lands" cons tit u ted the "making of me." succulent imagery un f olds: u t~ Lus c i ous , " s ugar s ands," " fe rn and pearl," "Palm jung les ," "wooing nights," in contra s t to t he " one-room shacks of my old poverty." nut the "blazing suns" of t he po e t's conj ured=up birt:iplace will help reconcile t he pride a nd pain in me . ti Lt, ,,._ Strongly reminiscent of t he Rena i s s a nce poe t s ' inf atuation with Africa, but ending on the reali stic not e of the poe t' s loca l ized " poverty," "Dark Blood" certainly meets ~ notion of "realit ." The skepticism, the doub t, t he scent of s acrilf ge ~ ound from Dunbar forwardJ br ing tension to "He Have Been Be l ievers": ~ .•• believing in our bur dens a nd our demigods too long . And now (recallin~ Dunbar's "Synpat hy") , t:,e " f ists" o f the believers "bleed" (t a gainst t he bars with a st r a::ige ins istency. The streng t1, begun in the f irst poer.i , is carried through "Southern Song" a nd ... ______________ _ ..._ �"Sorrow Home ." With incantation and incremental refrai1:,i "Del t a" t ells of t h: . ~ collective "s truggle. " Strains of "Delievers" course t hrough " Since 161~" ~ the poet a ga in re:£.t races the/ lack odyssey : /4. (f) How l ong have I been hated and hating? The speaker, longing _t o see the rich "color" of a "b rothe r's f ace, " assa ils racism, poverty , ignoranc e a .. violence , and laments s piritual desola t ion. War, poverty, diseas e and other heirs of the Depre s sion a re the themes of "Toda ~" which speaks of "chi ld r en scarred by bomb s," "lynching ," and "pellagr a and silicosis . " A different " stride" of this poet is seen in the second s ection of For My People . "Mol l y Means , " "Bad- ,[an Stagolee , " "Poppa Chicken, " "Kissie Lee, " •falluh Hammuh ," "Two- Gun Buster and Trigger Slim , " "Teacher, " "Gus, t he Lineman:;" "Long John Nelson and Sweet ie Pie , " and "John Henry" a re f resh treatments of authentic stories from/ la ck communities in Ame rica . " A hag and a witch," Mol l y Means had seven husband ~ and 1 Some s ay she was born wi t h a veil on her f ace .. •• The incremental r efrain ("Old .1olly , ~1olly , Noll y , " etc.) gives drama tic and r psychological power t o the poem as Holly's work wit h t he "black- hand arts and her evil powers" are catalogued . {!) Stagolee , apparently "an all- right lad," Till he killed that cop and turned ou t bad , quite possibly had kil led "mor ' n one" white man. The "bad nigger:" type found in all / lack communities is the portrait drawn of Stagolee: (!,) Wid dat blade he wore unnerneaf his shirt. • . . Stagolee mysteriously d isa ppe~, though his " ghost still" sta l ks t he shore of ....... the Mississippi River. Poppa Ch "cken was a pi mp who , in the American t radition of f lack-on-flack crime, " go t off li3ht" fo r killing a mant' and (J) Bought hi s pardon in a yeare ... �Also a p ack protot ype , he had plenLy \: men (" gals fo r miles around"), expensive rings and wa tches, f ancy clothes , displayed a coolness ("Treat 'em r ough" ), and when he walked t he st reets J The Gals c ried Lawdy ! Lawcl ! ,,.. Kissie Lee is a throw_ ba ck t o llar <l=Heart ed Hannah (who would "pour water on a . man, ") : d rowni.ng J) she could shoo t 8l a ss door s o ff a the h i nge ~ Shine and othe r s . Hammuh recalls Do ~ He killed hi s ••. He was so "bad" that law of fri ght . • . . The cultural folk ty pes par a de be fore our eyes, much after the fashion of "Slim" and other characters i n St er l ing Br o·wn ' s Souther n Road . Margare t lfa l ker' s cot t1:µ tribution, a s":'.a oe,s Brown's, lies ~l~ in the area of history and linguis tic ~ _.,,,,----- Sl.<1 for both a re chroniclers of s uc h . Jjut ct.err 17' surpa sses Brmm in her sear ch A+ . iL ...+,.-e...-e Le ttie Con~t°Cflf., 1 for the vers e fo r ms to convey / l acl~ folk i f e . 4v1 1 I r0 ~ 1Ctl Yf l" p.l'll~e.11l of \J.J\mt¥\ IV\ he~ p6ems. .. Big J ohn Henr y tales ca n be f ound in prac t ica l ly every Americ an communi t y . Y t Margaret Walker places he r man in Us sissipp~ wher e and sorghum." ,s e feast ed on " buttermi lk As a Bi g Boy t ype (Wr i:-;h t, Hughe s and other s ), he as s aults the world throus h physic a l prowes s . lie is t he best co t ton picker, stronger t han ~ a "team of oxen , " t he champion boxer; he ca anchor hand," is taught by t he "wi tches" how to " cunjer ," a nd is undaun t ed until a "ten- poun' hammer" s pl i t " him open ." The ha l lad, app ropriately, is the primary form of the poems in t h is s ection . The third sect ion o f t h e book con t a · s six sonnets, capturing r emembrances and vignettes. The poet br i n~s he r mm r 1yme s cheme, stanzaic pa ttern and line-stress variations to the se piec e s . " Ch ildhood" r ecalls that of a ll the many human a nd natural pcs t i ences t ha t invaded the lives of the poor, including J 77 �the "hatred " that "still held sway ," tp) ..• only bitter land was washed away . ~ "Whores" are told t ha t their labors a rc ~ndi 6nified and warned (a dash of deepf wornan concern (feminism?)) that as t hey grow older they will f ind that their bodies, in this world of turbulence , wi l l neither give " peace" to men nor "leave them satis fied . " Endinr; , rightly it seems , with "Struggle Staggers Us," For .1y People reminds Bla cks t ha t t here is room to "stagger" but none to halt: , Struggle between t he mor ning and ni ght . .I This marks our year s ; t his se tt les , too , our plight. There are few volune s of poetry published since For Hy People that can be cor i ()rt'{ et- sidered aii_,elacl<{; ,in t he complex sense of t,e wor d. From the e<l clay of the e playgrounds t o t he teemin~ treachery of urban fus t lages; from the . / J,.;- a r to the pi e rcing cry of the hungry; fr om t he deeply (unquestioning1 s to the iconocla sti c and t he here t i c; from t he healthy racial to the ,... ·,g'iod · dose of modest y a nd na'ive t : { it is al f i e r e : wonderful sensitivity and a rich bank of poetry for all times . fl b,. ., A link to the writers o f t heAr.cna i s s ance , llar garet Walker has had contact with ~ . twenties poets ~ '--"' Ilu13hcs , 3ont em:is , Fenton Joh nson and Gwendolyn . Bennett: 'as well a s with l a t e r barJs : V Danner, Margaret Burroughs a nd Tolson . Dodson , Hayden , Gwendolyn Br ooks, Harga r et Fo r Hy People , in t he end, stands a s the rich digestion (synt1esi s ) of t e ma i n currents of the / enaissance an~ t he a esthetic consider a tions being de ba ted by Locke , Cullen, J ohnson, Brown and Redding . Wolke, Hargaret"-rnay have pro duced the volume of poe try many of the older writers Ja~:te& ,'to write . Wi t hout being se lf - e ffacin g or "unrealistic" about her plis ht :fJa.ri:4'Afro-American, ,\ .- ..:. ''-• ~-!. .,. she poetically r econs tructed one of the most balanced pictures �o f ~f lack humanit :i; withou t l esscnine or prof aning her obvious self- love . I ~~yth<\ b-e a u!. e he. w tl..4 .J ~ro(fu, in Southern Roa d , avo ides,I even mentionin& Af rica~ perhaps s8' fed ~ Jp ni.tL w~().7 a ~~ the romantic escapad e s of s ome "f\ena i s sance poets . ~ !!:~!:, ~e deserves no'\praise 11-1\s1 0 n1' p r,J ~A}ortfor that aspect of his " - ~ ~ Tolson and Haydenl (bo_th~ U Hant poets) ~ )-.... 1.,vere o i:-te r. _ _ +1 ~ ~ ~,. .rj t s ~oi sed in t he wi ng~ , ~ of t en r equir.QQll a signal from the academy before they could " slip the e a g le ' s claw." ~ }lore critical assessr.1.ent of ;!ar garet Wal ke r ' s work is needed . c~ Barksdale !Ya ent s in t he i r antholog! , j A Poetic Equatio n) Walker_:; 1 974) is ext r eme l y helpf ul in getting to the grit of the poet's ideas . Ther e are s eminal comments in Pa ula Giddings' "A Shoulder Hunched Against a Sharp Conce r n ': .....,Sor.1e Theme s in t he Poe try of Margaret Walker, 11 Black Worl~ XXI (~ecembe1 1971), 2oj 2s . See also ~ Whitlow's Black American Literatur~. ~ , Young ' s Black ~vr it e rs of t he Thirties , ~ -Jackson ' s essay in Black Po et r y i n A.mc r · ca , 1§f!!!II Gibson 's 1odern Black Poets, ~ anuel "'s ,5 and Gross '• Dark Symphony, ~leg ro Ca r av an , ~ Davis '~ From the Dark Tower, Redmond' s " The Black Ame r ic a n Ep ic : - It s Roots and Its Writers/' Bla ck Thou ht an 9'!!!!9&Henderson 's Understanding -------Tilac c Exp r e ssion and The Black Aesthe t i c. - Poetry, a nd - - - • Gayl e ' s ----------~ ____, -------f Ia r ~ \ - th e mos t celebrated lack poet of all timef , cwendolyn Brooks~ cont inues t o make he r home in Chicag~ where she presides as ~'-"t"" f1't't~~~ of t he/ ew~ nck/ oetry . ~ CUI She joins To lson, Hayden, Randall, Margaret Walker and others as poe t s of " t ransi t ion"/4 thos e who helped continue the literary //(I fe ,r r/4i % light of./:hel\Renaiss anc e i nt o and t hr ou.~h the Depr e ssion, World War II '/\,t ivil _;;,C y~d ;ti,., , f i ghts/\ nd Black Power,;\ . 0 Bor n the daughte r of l .ihori class parents in Topeka, Kansas, Gwendolyn Br ooks Has r ear ed i n Ch ic a g<?J where she attended public schools, ,I ( �g raduating f rom Eng lewood ll i ~h School in 1934 and Wi lson Junior College in 1936. -. Wilson represented the fi nal st ep in her formal e duca tion) and in 1939 she ma rried Henry Blakely . in ,rh ■M S he had a son and a daue hter . (D W f.n&Lf t1 · tft1ooks ~ be9att W1'itu., ~ tlt#ie ~ 4'f;and b~ the time she was in her late teens s he had published two mimeog raphed community newspapersA one being the €-am;l~ Weekly . numerous publications: Since the early 1940s her poetry has appeared in Poe try , Black World , Common Ground, Saturday Review of '- Literature, Negro Story, Atlantic ~lonthly , and countless others. jo1ted tbe Jiteranr :rd a i.a. the 7 BGOs sac ¢1 · j h Ii · c titta:l!CS .JltC£t sl: " r II mra bclitg a I.WO@ ii bill t.dlfJh 1 ' IP ,.,;{4 I iga · c o t shifts Eresdci d j Ro:: ts iBl rl 0 ( P r b L 1&B£L ti 11l 1st §810 frbbdl Cif@§@ i!ldctGi§ Iii ctldp&t ti.» Her first book 0£ poetry, A Street in Bronzeville (1945), won the 1lerit Award of e. lad. mo isel le magazin j and he r second volume, Annie Allen (1949) garner ed 4 ,...--..... ) for her tite c-ovet~u.1 Pulitzer .;fr- ize (1 9 5()) as well as Poe tr ' )(~ ~ ,'&,t, Memor ial Awar d . Eunic e Tietjens v The recipient of a ~ award from the Academy of Ar ts and Letters and two Gug~enheim fellowships for s tudy (1946 and 194 7), Gwendol yn s -------- ~ />"AM"",,.~ ., Brooks'f list of awards and citations 4-8-- so b:mg it would take several p.ages to lis"t; them all. She has receivcc over a d: Y h onorary doctorat~S/legrees-,.._ served on special arts and cultural councils It been listed among the most in:t'l_u ential _and important Americans in numberle-ss .l . ~ reg ional'f-and national acknowledg..!,~ments. compilations/\ Literature (1964). ai.ln 1 969 ....__, 1 • She has won the Poetry UM,_---i Workshop Award, g iven by t he '.lidwestern Wr i ters' Conf~~ ~ ./ l 'W11-td the Friends Li terature Award for 1 e (th ree times: 1943p 45), A oetry (1964) , the Th,frmoa d fonsen Award for I\ ~ she anno unced that she would awa r d two prizes of $25 0 each to t he best poem and best hart story published each year by a / 1ack writer in Negro Dige st (now Blac: Ho rld) . Institu tions where she has taught · p �I include Columbia, El mhurs t, and ;forthenste rn Illi nois State Coll ege, a ll in Chicago; the University of Hisconsin, the College of t he City of :fow York , a nd many other public and p r i vate schools . For some , however, her crowning achiev~ ment was her selec tion in 1968 as/o etj aureate of the state of Illinois ( s ucceeding Carl Sandbur g). Other volumes of poetry are Ti1e Bean ~aters (19 60) , Selected Poems (1963), In the Mecca (1968), Riot (1969) , Family Pictur e s (1970) , Aloneness (1971) a nd The World of Gwendolyn Brooks (1971 , poetr: and prose) . the Centennial of the Burial of Lincoln (19 67) include A Portion of t he Field : and For Illinois, (1968). The poet has a so writ ten some much-praised {:Oetic fiction : '"' Haud Martha, .a, ~ (195 3) ~ and Jump Bad: _/ New Ch icago An t hology (19 71 ) . is most readily a ccessible i t A Broadside Treasury (1971) ----,..__ \\ ti Ile r pr e - B l ~ poe try Selected Poems which con tains her three earl ier section . ~ ~ Selected P ems shows @ ~ JS!l. JI I'reelte ~~Mt'!~~ - - ~ earn between t he int eg ra t ioni s t,h le.:1- bound wri ters and the firm, ~ and adamant voices of t;-ie 1%0s . / "StMELime s called the "most careful craftsman since Countee Cullen," she "--- ~ was (and to some ex t ent r emains ) greatl y indebted t o the mode r nist school of American poetry: ,_.,Eliot, Po und , Crane , Ransom, Joyce (influenced, as she says, by The Dubliners), Stevens, Frost, and Auden . I Read in3 these poets and th0 ack « 7M ones (Dunbar' ( 11 a family favoriteJ j ·1u~; hes , Cullen , Johnson , and othe~enaissance) ~ PPll!S.T9;)-,;aaill•flillldJ !J! her ~• . •"'1'J•ttn"" . . oedl f leant· choil <levelop11ent an,.t\>r-ovi ~ i.gn results were a bewi l de ring nrra y of tec~mlcal prof iciencies) which~ k.~~Ls for the thematic and psycholo;~lca1 _.-; _ J a in 1cr poetry. 1 · , II The a base Usually working wit:1 ,1/./W./ what George Kent c a lls ap propriat e '\lis t.:1nce ," this poet carefully sculptf - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - , Nld 8~6--if\\1097.5; G> Bronzev il l e Boys and Girls (1956'l A. Her work as an editor has been equally i~pres s i ve : books an<l a Special publications �poetic gems f r om t he r, r a ni te an ,l experienc e : t:ll~ chea:) rock. of u r ba n f lack Ame r ica ' s tenement housing , r e t urnin ,3 unsun z wa r h e roes , job lessness, cont' sumption , murder, endl e ss pov e rt y , l ov , uo.n- \mman rela t ionshi ps , womanhood and motherhood (es pecially) , no b i l i t v of the eco nomi c a l l yt presse<l and deep religious Ct, wettJdt/,yl) devotion . Commenting on th e effect o f the dis t ance and what ~ JtBrooks was able to perceive and achieve wi th i t, :·ent says (Bla ckness and the Adventure of Western Culture) she master ed Dr.:. such modernist techni ques as i ronv; unusual conjunctions of words to evoke a complex sen s e of real it y (Satin Leg s Smith rising " in a clear delirium" ); squeezing the ut mos t fr om an image ... , agility with mind - bending f i gura tive l a nguage , sensitivity to the music of t he phr ase , inst ead of imp risonment in t raditional line beats and meter; experiment a t ion with the po s s ibilities of free verse and various devic e s fo r sudden em phasis and ve rbal surprise; i_:nd authoritat ive managemen t of t one and wide- ranging lyricism . V''f- And one is struck, i n r ead in~ , wa tch inr; , or t a l k ing wi th the poet, by her intense \ yet relaxed lovef affair wit h words . lier prose is poe ti c; her manner is poetic. 1/.rn Report from Part One , her autobio r r a phy , s he disc usses her life as poet, mo ther, wife and traveler. There a re va lua ble i ns i ght s into the womar who shifted from " Negro" to " Black" in 196 7 . a dozen poems . f:.e por t also pr,...vi de s her own explication of at leas t About poetry wr iti'1 f~ sh says : \so much is involved in t l1e i:r i t in~ of po etry~ and sometimes, j) - - -- - -- -- although I don ' t like s u~gcs t ing it is a ma 3 ic process, it s eems you real ly hav e t o ,,a into a b it of a trance, self- cast t rance , because " brainwo r k " seems una b le to do it all, to do the whole job . -- - - - -- - - The sel f -c o. st tr:ince i. s po ssible when you are - - �Ll:l:!1portantly exc ited about an idea , or sur mi s e, or e~otion . Ce r t a inly the "trance" quality is found in the ea rly a nd l ate r Gwendo lyn Br ooks , One has only to comparef poem ~ "the pr eacher: "-J rumina t e s be hind t he s ermon" (A St r eet in Bronzeville) t o "Malcolm X" (In the Hecca) to see t he stayi ng power of the mystic, the seer and the entrance r . v ibrant yet static poetic sculpture . Bronzeville is a I t came in 194; under the influence of ;c t he poet ' s wide reading and experimen ~,·•· James Wel don .Johnson had hel pfully cr it i qued her wo r 5 a nd the results, she a cknowleges, we r e that she became a sure r, more prec is e poet and critic. The couple in t he " kitchenett e building" are pro ducts of " dr y hours and the i nvoluntary pl a ~ ' who smell " yes t erday ' s garba ge" i n t he ha ll. After the fif th chi l d ha s finall y eme r ged fr om the ba t hroom ~--' We think of lukewarm wate r , hop e t o ge t it . The memorabl e poems in Bronzeville a r e " the mot her , " " t he pr ea cher , " "of De Witt WilliaI'l s on !1is way to Lincoln Ceme t e r y, " "The Sundays / f Sat inf Legs Smith ," "the bal lad of choce l ate Mabbie , " and selec tions from a ser ies of s onnets called GAY CHAPS AT THE BAR. ~-·r The mother recalls abortions : You remember the children you got t hat you di d [] no t get, a nd pl edges he r l ove to the dead ch i l dr en. s he "loved " them " a ll." Even t hough she knew them "fai ntl?.," Taken from their "unf inished r e ach, " the aborted l ives "never gi gg l ed or planned or cried. " Rumi nat ing "behind tne senno" the preacher4 revealing deepening l evels of conc e r n and ps ych i c distress~ wonders how it f eels " to be God ." The god of t he wor l d t he prea che r discusses from t he pul pit is perha ps no t the god of the "rea l " �world. Consequent ly the p r e ac;:er "r·1:1;.w1tcs" on whe ther anyone will ~ Buy Him a Coca-Cola or :. '.)l.'C:r, Pooh-pooh His pol.it ics, c.1 l. ;'.ie: .1 foo l? Being god has to be lonely , "::it!10ut a hanJ to hold . 11 </te Witt Williams is carried to the cemetery behind the r efrain: (gJ Swing l ow swin 6 low ::;\\•eet sm~et char iot. Nothing b u t a plain hlack - Rf: 11 ,. (t, \te pla in . know he may hav e been anyt.1ins But if h e ~ just ; a plain black boy " we uill celebrate t'1e places where he hung out (pool hall , show, dance halls, whiskey sto re s) an,l \-:as knm•m (4 7th street, under the " L"). De Witt ' s journey is t h e J l au, .\ner ic an (~ ou t h to no rth) od,ssey depicted by ~ Wright, Ba ldwin, Claude Brown , ,:md co~.;r:1 (~, Born in Alabama . '--'" Br ed in Illino is . He was no t hin: b u t a P lain b l a c k boy . Satin Le g s Sl'l.it h is another cut off t'1' block of the/ '71h e y>o -1 lack jxperience . In · immo r taliz i n g hi m,~ITT18GH,Joi.ns a '.10st of / a ck bards , known and ~ n known, who have a cknowled ~ed t he i M~ortance anJ inf uencc of folk culture. Probably 11 lik e De Wi tt Williams , Sr1it h co:;tes fn".: a "heri age of cabbage and pig t a i l s. o.: He is remi n i s cent ti# Poppa Chi.c'.c. in the opening lin es, is to a c•1 ~ G__.,.. ~[arga ret The analo gy, i.s "ta~-rne , r e luctant , royal." Rising in the morning) Sa t i r Legf s n::t ·~:es '.1ir..!;01f of "shabby days" when h e "sheds" his pajamas. t hat , when l ~ He ba t hes , pu ts un th,~ best bocly s cents , and goes to a wardrobe istecl , soun<l s l i::e a re'.1 ay cf t\1e whole era of the zoot-suiter and ,., the / e bopper • : - diamonds , pearls , suits of yel low , wine , "Sarcastic green, " �an d II 1 . .ii. eu. I co b a 1 t " ; ,.-i., . 1. .:> ze b ra-str ip 1 n • l :,11,) 1. ,,'l" taper, hats t ha t rese:nble ur,c. · .:. <1 .,, . , : " · · .,t,, rical ti es." his imar, e and blot s ou t the r ,': . .:.n,:t.•.· ., does not hear"; " s ees and d uce ·1 .1• ;1...1 C:u1.ng , ballooning trousers that He is enmes h e d in p,,ve rty and ugliness. 1 :· •r He "hears and ovin~ his music and his lady, he ft,::- ·. '. 1ic ' 1 t1c re tir es (at home) to her body-l takes his d a te to " Joe ' s f.at :f /\'\ lt ~s a ~ osaic$ like study complete with "new brown b r ead/- · · soft , ar·,; ,1bs.JL 1t e . " the down-home ver s us Promis e...: L.111,'. t· ,'-':-:. , . {(The tle g r o llerolic " to hero) "had t o kic k " ~;hite t h e m. 11 :•i.: ·e r ": ~est .~c,rh. SU ':! i,h?'1 1 :; a 1:o rld War rr/ :"to'.:: e ir te eth" before he could "save ·, ....... r ~ .,":,( .. J.l. , Being / lac k , it was t h e ship was goinr, dm-m , to c-r-' un ,Instead of j umping ove r j boar ,~ hero invo k e d t h eir "~vhite- •~o,· th ick and thin of b a ttle when 0:-1 t :w ~alley and save the white sailors . ~. 1.c~1v:.·, ~ avy c oo k turned tlie:-1 to the ir fate, li k e Shine , this 1 and f oug h t a t their side de spite ~,'.s bile-fret1hid . • ~ statement by a s o ut:1 er l I n <l eed, I' r · ::·1 ,. Indce J , I ' r t Or r i.dJ e n () o f a flood ' T 1an saved ,y - • b n c k n a n ' s blood. i:·· "~-Ieg r o He r o " s ymbolic :i l · r / ♦ in Chri stianity anJ _,Y'c '1cc , -: _,.-~ the idea was lof sinr, ,., r o und -- ~ 0 .-,~ r esentment of such " '. ,e r- ic ,. chaps at tl E' '1Gr" l ' !1 • s . n e rican self. l /1 ,; ;-i t ' T .~~ '1('' 1• i-- ·, so 1 1; " r s ' Bro nz e ville Experimenta ] , ({jf-_Y CHAPS AT THE in <; does not prepare them to tr :1 i repel {!) As a t heme, b ut it would be s ome years b e fore ! ~v,,,t Ly ex r essed. 1 ·• c ·i nn n "soldier s onne t s" c1pp c a r in In l, '·~" r · can d oing his dut y , belie v in8 1 .. ' e- To h o l le r Jown the 1 l o::s in t '1 f-. ai r . �~ ~ In "the progress" the phrase is questionable when the soldiers hear the ma rch Of iron feet again. ~ • The Pulitzer / rize,$winning Annie Allen shows Gwendolyn Brooks sustaining her balance bet ween the modernist influences and her o,;.m intuitional phrasings inter est. Some migh t call it the least / l ack of her vo l umes., especially since it contains the enigmatic and diffusive "The Anniad." And while her ' children of t he poor" series ref'states t he plight of the "unheroic," she is nevertheless generally mo re withdrawn than in Bronzeville. -- Yet t he titles of both volumes signal her continuing int eres t in, and empathy with , " everY,<lay ~ In her first volume, she had written ex tensively about women (" t he mother," "chocolate ~bbie," "the hunchback").> and she opens Annie Allen ~ ;, •' with OTES FR0~-1 THE CHILDHOOD Al~ D THE GIRLHOOD'- Her neat words and stanzas - deal with a neat lifein "the parents: people like our marriage." "white Venetial1 blind" sit._,f "pleasant custards." Behind a "Sunday Chicken" is a humorous comparison between carnivores who eat human flesh and those who eat chicken. Iler excavating of poetic jewels from non-hero types takes her through the death of an "old relative" and "the ballad of late Annie," too " proud" to f i nd a man good e nough to marry . The reader is encouraged to avoid easy solutions in "do not be afraid of no ": f .It is brave to be involved , To be not fearful to be unresolved. And condescending people in high stations are brought low in "pygmies a r e pygmies still, t hough percht on Alp s." The high and mighty sometimes feel they are better than others, and {J_J But unbeknow~ Pity the giants wa llowing on the plain. to t he " percht II ind ividual, - - - - - - - - - -- -- - -- - -- -- - - 't'Jru; ~Y\e.. r no alps to reach. II �~ "THE AllNHD " c ontains @ ..,,Z,,-line stanzas, adapted, so Hi ss Brooks says, from the Chauceria n f hyme/ oya l. As a modern poem, it places the author in the 111t1,.y • M,U.e .. middle of t he modernist tradition with other } lack poets: _,Hayden, Dodso) lnd ~..-.o,ui ontfl\So Tolson,,. At least on e level o-.r complexity- i s reveai ed i n t he appearance !of-ffi I\ wo-!'."ds and phr a ses ~ ".rarad isaica l," "thaumaturgic lass , " "theopathy," ().,, I\ and ref'erences to " Prophesying hecatombs, "A" Hyacinthine devils sing , " / ; lato ,• .._• Aeschylus , t_• seneca, , • Himnennus ," ....t Plinf' and *Diony sus . • the poe t's own admis s i on , "THE AllNIAD" is " labored, a poem that's very intere sted in th e mys t e ries and magic of technique . " With Hayden ' s "The Diver," the poem carri e s you dee pe r and deeper into the underbrush ... of self and psyche. Annie b ecomes Anni ad , t he poe t's way of giving another unheroic character i ·<iii?' t he stature of t he heroic-k t his time the Iliad. z When you think of Annie (Anniad)1 you a r e t ol d to (t Th ink of s we et and chocQlat a,afl/ The blurr ed ima gery and perc ep tions of Hayd en's diver 4:s again anticipated in the line ( r' What i s ever and i s no t. (Remember Sat ir Legs hearing a nd not hea ring , seeing and not seeing?) Ful l of ma gic, history, l ore , my thology, supernaturalism, "THE ANN IAD" plunges t hr ough the mental and spiri tual spher es , and "crescendo-comes," f) Surrea l ist a nd cynica l. Anniad is needed , hungry , c ourt ed , and won, as she desc ends and -ascends the " demi- gl oom" of lif e, of now and t hen . ~ Thi nk of s weet and c hocolate at the be ginninc of the poem, you are to I \J_; J ust as you were to Think of almo st t hor oughly Derelict and d im and done �as the poem closes . And, perhaps it was all{\i'\after all·J t dream as Anniad stands VKissing in her kitchenette J The minuets of memory . /' " ANNIA " includes the nowt famous invention i n title and in type . "the sonnet- ballad," The tradi t ional sonnet is enlivened'Mgiven a ballad stance a nd t emperament; the young woman whos e soldier-boyfriend is dead wonders what she can use " an empty heart -cup for .J C ,I The achievement of Annie Allen, however, is " HE WOr1ANHOO t he five sonnets on "the' children of the poor . " and especially Childless people "can be hard " since they will not , like those wi t h children, Hesitate in t he hurri cane t o guar d . In number t wo, a mother asks wha t s he can give t o po or childr en. The fo urt h sonnet, seeking per haps to resolve t he sur r eal dr eam , adv ise s the poor to "Fir s t fight . Then fiddle. " There is nothing wrong with rising "bloody, " For having f ir s t to civil i ze a s pace \fuer e i n to play your viol in with e race. It is t he same unmut ed ca ll t o militancy rendered by .1ar ga r e t Ualker in the final stanza of "For Hy People. ,(ft/Beverly 1-l. ilP, Chicago" takes an interest i ng l ook, through~ ack and po or eyes , at the people who "live till they have white ha i r." To say Beverly Hills a nywhere is to evoke images of splendor and richness , of glit ter and high life . The denizens of Chicago ' s Beverly Hills "walk their golden gardens " as the poor sight =-seers drive t hrough the neighborhood . Here the "ri peness rots" though "not raggedly . " Decadence is neat, says the poet: J ·\Not that anybody is saying that these people have @.. 0 no trouble . Herely that it is trouble with a go ld- flecked U beautiful banner. t �The po em ' s theme is one that is dear to Blacks in their daily conversations: that whi t es , especially rich wh ites , do not really live; that they are mannikins, (>II~~ f~~ for the well- landscaped life; that they are inhibited and not free in t heir expressions. The s e peop l e , the poet reminds us, also "cease to be , " and sometimes J. Their passings a r e even more painful than ours. But they often live " t i ll their ha ir is white." They also make "excellent corpses," as it wer e , " among the expensive flowers." Nevertheless the poor sight;=-seers have been changed , no ticeably , by what they have seen, and the cha nge ~ e,. is no t ed in~ 'l i tt le gruff " tone5 of their voices as they " drive on." The Bean Eat ers finds t1e poet leaping back into the tra nsitional b rea ch where sh:'~s battle wi th problems and eneraies of the unheroic. She ga t hers up the pr ide, passion , despair, disillus ionment, joy and anguish of "bean ea t e r s " and r e l a t ed gourmets . The book opens with an elegy to her fa t her ("In Honor of w,Jt,,. ~a-.,, Brooks, :ly Father") and , reflecting debts to dar gare"Fugl'"~~, / /[J._• • iivi i i gh s I ___,.-) ~lack music, and the ~eat ~ vement, moves through a tumultuous (i:. spectrum of vignettes and perc eptions : "My Little ' Bout-Town Gal," "Strong Nen, iding Horses," "We Real Cool," "A Bronzeville 1other Loit e rs in ,.{ississippi.# " Heanwhile , A :-1ississippi r1other Burns Baca o{ 1" "The Last Quatrain of the Ballad Emme t t Till," "The Chicago De fende r Sends a Han to Little Rock," "The Crazy A. Woman," and the powerful s aga "The Ballad of Rudolph Reed . " The death of David ttl:-derson Brooks has lef t ~ l ___-/ //,)' v A dr ynes s upon the hous e .• .• J Absence of the man who "loved and tended" gives the poet pause, makes her recall how he tra nsla t ed "p r i va te charity" of the old =time religion into "public love." · ,,--- ;(;1 1 1 �, ).. The nan::at:or I s " ' bout-town gal" gall, vants with " powde r and blue dye " ~~ . h the moon. whjo i l e }l waits wit 11 Wat ching -t..R& weste r n movies , the speaker in '--- S trong Hen, Riding" (not reminiscent of Brown ' s poem) r ealiz e s tha t ~ 'gesterns are products of Hollywood , t hat the strong men are "Too saddled." Heanwhile the speaker has to deal with real life-Lthe fears , the dark..Land is Iv\ 11 old yellow pair" in their lives 11 11 11 not brave at all. 11 The irony, of course, is that the viewer is often braver. t he 11 Eating beans "mostly , The Bean Ea ters 11 put ter around their apartment, recalling with t winklings and twinge s. 11 kind comes to the dramatis person~of ' 11 Desolation and tragedy of another We Real Cool" in which the poet employs ~ a Hughes ian j azz pattern wi t h j a gged rhythns reminiscent of / eat poetry, Babs Gonza l es and King Pleasur e . The poem r ecites t he "live- fast- di e- young 11 pattern of many urban)31-a ck youths: We real cool . ve Left school . Lur k l a te . \e \· e Str i ke straigh t . Sing sin . Jazz June . l· e \e t.:e Die soon . The longes t poem in The Bean Ea ters ( 11 A Bronzeville Mother Loiters In rlississipp'i. Neanwhile, A . lississippi }lot her Burns Bacon.") is a collage of journalism , day$1reams, fai ry-t ale histo ry, and r acial hor ror. slain & The mother of year~old Emmett Till ( l ynched in 1955 in Missis sippi af ter allegedly 300 { \ \ �-e ak.ing "passes" at a white housewife ) toys over the rema ·ns of her son and her at the same tim<;, a white "mother ' mus es over the " c rime" childhood fair t ales of the " Dark Villain" pursuing the "milk- whi t e maid" (rescued by t he " Fine Prince"). The whit e mother ~ clares to doubt the need to lynch young Emmett as she imagines she is sexually assaulted by the "Dark Vil ~ n." The poeml includes news r epo rts of the crime, the lynching , as ...,/ well as accounts of t he tr/ljl and the "acqui tt a l." In "The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmet t Till" Emmett ' s mother " kisses her killed boy" while sitting in " a red room" and "drinking black co ffee ." • 'IZ' Unable to describe the~ija t W 1 3 mother's gr ief , t he poet ga thers --. t he b l u rring pa in into a metaphor: Chaos i n windy \grays through a red prairie. ,n journalism, history and mythology with "contemporary f act," Again coml:ijng Gwendolyn Brooks portrays one of the hi~h points of the fivil iights era in "The Chicago Defender Sends a Han to Little Rock" (1957). People i n Little Rock, the poet t e l ls us in the opening lines, have babies, comb their hair, and r ead the papersJ like other Americans . She then etche s out the contrnclic t ions and ironies in t he nsoft women softly" who "are hurling spittle , roc k ." These "bright madonnas," like those wi t h "eyes of steely blue " in rlcKay ' s "The Lynching ," become "a coiling storm a- wr ithe ." The l ast line .of the poem, e "" was our Lord_, The loveliest lynche"t has since been ~ repudiatedj• e t()et new _ Is 11\'8 feels that the greatest trage<ly, slavery and "---------- dehumanizFof Blacks, makes for more important and urgent "news" than the c rucifixion of a white Jesus. ~ ~-the boo~J Later j in the~sectit'll\ a woman who refuses to sing in May because she feels (V A Hay ~ong shoul<l be gay \ �is admonished+ af ter she chwes t o sing a " gray" song in November. ~ Critics call he r "The Crazy Woman."fone of t he more well-=- known poems in Bean Eaters is /\ "The Ballad of Rudolph Reed" who, along with his wi fe , son and "two good girls," ) was "oaken." Rudolph Reed , seeking the Promised Land in the *orth and riding on the crest of the new push for integration , buys a home in a white neighborhood because he wants to avoid falling plaster and the l ghe ttol .J. roaches Falling l ike fat rain. But t he times are not quite right fo r integrated housino/ and t he Reed family exp erienc e f vio l ence when t hey move~ i n : ,._.., ~ the fi r st t wo ni ghts . ro cks are t hr own through thei r windows - The r epe tition a nd i ncrement ation are almost ironi c in the ballad a s Reed , fil led with grief and anger when one of his daught ers is fina lly hit wi th a rock, goes V ~ to the door with a thirty- four and a beast l y buwer knife . He attac ks f our white men before he is finally slain and kicked by neighbors_) who I t i s an unpleasan t story ; but a s a chronicle of t he themes and consciousness of a poet, it places Gwendolyn Brooks on the thresh! old of t he new militancy , 5~ some of which is unveiled in the <f2i_w Poe' section of Selected Poems. J oems ev- ~ "Riders to the Blood-Red Wra th" and "Langston Hughes" show her " concerned with s truggle and t he spiralfing fury of social unrest. At the same time, she -.;/ salutes a white poet, as in "Of Rober t Frost ," and continues her pr actice of ~\verse , 5 C mining the unheroic for poetry in a section of~W A Catch o f Shy Fish . f: The "ride~ (perhaps a parody of the ,gurple ~age riders) lurch into the breach of human struggle and social chaos. - - -- - - - -- - - - - - - stylistic efforts They are the freedom �ridersM seeking what is "reliably ri ght" i conducting sit-ins, wade-ins, lie-ins, sing-ins , pray-ins and voter=registration drives . '£!!!ill called them "shock troops" of the ~ "revolution." f Hy scream! Carnichael ha s 0F/tl>-e1>1 One A.s tates : unedited, unfrivolous. ✓ Hy laboring unlatched braid of heat and frost. 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 1fr r emembe r kings . '-.../ A blos soming palace. Silver , I vory. The conventional wealth of stalking Africa . This rider r ecalls his past, projects his future, and surveys the state of the worldJ from China to Israel. Ile is going to mal~e the "bloody pea ce" a s ked by wu.ker Ma r ga r e \ Democracy and Christianity ef Recommence with me . And I ride ride I ride on to the end-ML Where glowers my continuing Calvary. With his "fellows, " he intends to see the battle through, r (J v To Eail, to flourish, to wither or to win . We lurch, distribute, we extend, begin. "To Be / n Love" is also to extend and "fall" along a golden column ~ Into the commonest ash . Diverse , explicit and splendid, the poems in this section achieve balance as / _____ __________ ,.._ - - �Frost and Hughes . salutes t wo senior p, Iron at the mouth. j With a place to stand Frost has And he has much more t han immediate physical space, but a permanent position on the world ' s poetry totem . f As "merry glory, " Hughes Yet grips his right of twisting free. His "long reach" encompasses "speech," "fears," "tea rs" and "sudden death ." s Hughes 'f j ob is not done , a nd as a "headligh t" he must press on ~ Till t he a ir is cur ed of its feve r. 6.1.<;.0 The poetAr e turns to he r ~arden of non-heroes in poems about garbage men, the sick, old people, stern women, and "Big Bessi:," who "throws her son into the street." Sculpture, precision, exp l icitness and terseness a re key words to remember when approaching the poe try of Gwendolyn Brooks. Not prir.iarily of the academy, but of t en shar ing s ome of its virtues and fa~lts, she has been f ree to deal pr imarily wi t h pictures swirl ing a r ound her <lur i ng childhood and adulthood in Chicago. Sometimes her poetry about night life and t he South carries a fo rc ed );r feeling, since thes e a r e not t hings she is in intimate cont act with , but 3ilil!!~is always skillful and e conomi J 0 uer world has not been "wide" in t he way that Tolso 1 \and Hayden's(have been "wi<le ." But it has been deep and multi layered, complex and womanly, tragic and profound . Her poetry has not, at this writing, inspired a book-length study, but she has been the subject of much critical treatment. here sinc e bibliographies are widely availab le. Se lected studies will be listed Fo r example, CLA Journa ]j XVII �( Sept ember l 1973),! (a special issue on Br ooks , Hayden and Baraka) bibliogr aphy . lists a @ - page @ She is represented in every a nt ho logy of Afro-American poet ry { beginning with Poetr y of the Negro (1949 ed . ) and in many general American anthologi es of poetry and l iterat ur e . Hel pful a n]@§# Ken t ' s "The Poe try ,,,e,S of Gwendolyn Brooks" (Black:Aand t he Advent ure of West e r n ·cul t ur e , 19 72); t he critical entries in ~ ck Writers 5:.f America Barks dale and Ki nnamo 1 ; ,. f 7 I Davis 'fl From the Dark Tower; . . ...., J a ckson's essay in Bl a ck Poe try in America (1974); essays ir - - 1od ern aGili> Gi bson's a) Bl a ck Poe ts ;AReport from Part One , ..... t1'-i ~de,"fi t,·•1111 ( Owen Dodson's first volume of poetry, Powerful LonJ Ladder (1946), was one ~ of the casualties of the diQ!nterest in/ lack poetry during the post~ enaissanc e and war years. The book did not go entirely unnoticed, however, for Time magazine described it as standing " peer to Frost and Sandburg and other white American poets who are constantly recited in our schools." Powerful Long Ladder appeared in the mids t of Dodson's busy (and successful) career as dramatist and tea cher . His interest i n wr iting and dr ama began in his you t h in Br ookl yn , New York, where he was born and a ttended publ i c s chool s . He wen t t o Ba t es College, obtaining a B. A., and Yal:., wher e he was awarded the M. A. in dr ama . student at Yal~ t wo of his plays~ Divine Co~ Whil e a and Garden of Time~ ~ere produced . Since t hose year ~ Dodson's work in drama anclAwriting has been prodi ~ us. He taught drama at Spelman Col lege i n Atlanta and was commissioned to writ e a pl ay on the Amistad mutiny for Tallad ega College. He directed summer t heat{(e) a t Hampton I ns titute, the Theatre Lobby \vashing ton, and at Lincoln University. Dodson finally settled at Howard University--------as drama instructor, later becomi ng head of the department and remaining the{until 1969 • . �In 1949, he took t he Howard University Players on a successful State Department= sponsored tour of Scandinavia and Ge rmany . His novell Boy at the Hind owl was published in 1950, an<l his short storyt "The Summer Fire} ' won a Paris Review prize (1961) and appeared in the Best Short Sto r ies f~om that publication . received many other awards and forms of recognition : I,., He a Rosenwald -fellowship, a General Education Board Fellowship~ a Guggenheim grant to study and travel in . ct Italy (1953), and a Naxwell Anderson Prize for,.,verse play. - libretto for Hark Fax's opera. and prose He has comple t ed a number of manuscripts in poetry have never been pub lished. One of his most rec ent exciting works was The Dream Awake (1969), a cultural history of f by Spoken Arts He also wrote the ack Americans ) released and consisting of color f ilms, records , textbooks, illustrations, and other .aaterials rr;:;- ~ show the r ange of Dodson ' s talen t s and i nt e rest. In 197 0, his second volume of verse, The Confession Stone: ._)long Cycles, was publishe~ but the poems were written before 1960 . About his work as a poe t, Dodson reports with some d i spirit in Intervi ews r7ith Bl ackpHritets: jI have ~·i* written three books of poetry . The f irst was-/4 1 would say-1-somewhat propa ganda , but the third was fill ed with stories , ✓ M di a r ies , a nd remembranc es of Jesus. They are r ea l l y frame d i n diaries by Ma r y , Martha, Joseph, Judas, Jesus, even God . This, I believe, is my most d edica ted work(, ... I have written and fou ght somehow in my writing , but I know now that the courage and forthl ri ghtness of writers and poets will change something a little in ~ r dilapidation . 1.-P f:eri,,e_ dfo That "first" voiJmeN-s obviou sly J:_Q.werful Long Ladde~ but Dodson does not have �"' to <leprec#ate the wor1) since it will hold him in good stead as a poet . not one poem in the book "poetry." ~ 1 cannot be aesthetically or stylistically called And this is not a claim that many poets can make. influences can There is Dodson's st yl istic be traced to t he American modernist s. And there is no doubt that , in his recurring despair , he shares sentiments wi th Eliot , Pound, Auden and Yeats . Yet, in his lilt and his language , he also pays his debts to Hughes , Dunbar , Cullen (whom he eulogizes) , James Wel don Johnson and t he whole web of/ lack folk and spiritual life . Dodson's note of despair , which pervades the book, is sounded in the opening f;J /4 poem ("Lanent"} w~te JJ he lynched boy is addressed: Wake up , boy, and t e ll me how yo u died : What sense was alert las Re lying heavily on h is exp eriences and interests in drama, Dodson carefully underscores the repulsive act and the guilt . In an italicized sectio~ he giv es details that recall other poems on the theme: f the Mississippi drank itself one night, t he b ridge from which you hung thr ew i t{ arms up , folded into mud like an old obscene accordion, the crowd dispersed count ed on its finge rs one by one •..• The invisible/ lack viewer of the lynching , going beyond the actual act to the nat ure of dea t h i t self , ge ts curious about the last moments and questions the dead boy : (V Tell me wha t road you took, Hha t hour in the da y is luckiest? The nar r ato r wants a si8n ("the acrostic , the cross , t he crown or the fire") , �something tom ; e his own way easier, bearable : 0, ,,ake up, wake! ~ We said several strains of f lack and modern poetry can be seen in Dodson ' s work , not the least among them being t he folk idiom . Sterling Brown . In "Guitar" he reminds us of The six-string guitar has a " lonesome" wail and cannot "hold its own" against the howl of a Georgia hound . ii) Ain ' t And the guitarist-singer had nobody To call me home From the ele ctric cities Where I roam . An adaptation of the blues mo tif in styl e and t heme , i t employs incr emental refrain &:,-~~•- -~- and the aflb ivalent drive-sulk oft e bl ues troubador . ~ -........ ,,., ( nr, C ~-::'·~ ,. •~...,,...,.-..,,..,.. -· - ~-- ,,J, ✓. 4,f,<· T 1is somber tone of Dodson ' s persis t s i 1}\ poems~ "Sorrow is the only ;:: ' Faithful One" ("I am l es s , unmagic , black" ), " Bl ack dot her Praying" ( "black a nd ,Py burnin in these burnin times " ), /\ 'The Signifying Dar kness, " and there are tinges of it even in celebratory poems such as "Pear l Pr imus" and " Poem f or Pearl ' s Dancers. " But t he grand s t atemen t of poetry is a l ways lurking or l e ading ("Pearl Primus") : "the sun is like a shawl on their backs," and " pistoning her feet in "' the air . " In " Someday We ' re Gonna Tear Them Pillars Down" a woman comp lains: Cf) They took ma strong- muscle John and cut his O manhood off •..• The Bl acks in " Rag Doll a nd SuI!llller Birds" sit in their cabin (like "The Bean Eaters") "wai ting fo r God." The fire in t he stove goes out ; the newspapered walls ·, " telling of crimes ," curl u? and (!) In ~ the Blackness stars are not enough ! Includ ed in Powerful Long Ladder are three verse choruses from Divine Comedy . �Dodson was t he first / 1ack dra:-aa tist to ex ploit t he meaning of t he Fa t her Dt•vine ~ t~ n verse draPJa . ~'hen a cult leader is gone , the dr ama contends, the people are fo rced i nwa rd to find a replacement. Divine Comedy is bizarre , with shifting uncertain t ies , horror, violence , religious extremism and r a cial intensity . The first chorus a s ks (in a r efr a in): Cancel us . Let doomsday come down Like t he fo ot of God on us . A charact.e r called " One " not es: ~ I A A We ar e cl ear and confused on many issue se ••· " Girl" says ; I dance wit hout legs . "One" remind s us ; -M'ra't! l·;ar , war will bomb you r eyes open. a "Blind I[an" beseeches the o t hers: 1 Don ' t l eave the b lind t o wander Hhe r e the wind is a wall ! one of Dodson ' s heroes, had suggested t hat Blacks we r e not made " e ternally to weep " (" From the Dark Tower" ~ and Dodson has a "Yo ung Man" say ✓ Thi s shall not be fo r ever. In t he sect ion called Poems f or :ry Bro ther Kenneth, Dodson delicately recalls remembranc es of his dead brother . The somber tone and weightiness return as the poet , addres sing his brother, asks for some answer to the "long tanks" that " creep" and the " dark body of the ruined da r k boy ." .f) But \ There was no reply : .. �You gave me a smile and returned to the grave . In Interviews with 1:nack Wri ter s Dod son claims that Cullen did not <lie f rom disease but "was pushed into death" by "us because we <lid not rec ognize the universal quality of what he wanted to say." ·"··------Revie ,, section) In his eulogyl "Countee Cullent ' Dodson bids farewell to his friend_J who died in 1946} by likening his plight to that of Socrate~~ ...._, : t We hear all mankind yearning For a new year without hemlock in our glasses . ,t,,r. stagnant hour." Later)-. "Drunken Lover;• we find tha t this is "the interest i n ~ f And Dod son's tu,~ ti A.is seen in "Jonathan ' s Song": ~SS'1€S 11 Jew i s ndt a r ace Any longer j -but a condition. /V' Finally Dod son closes t he vo lum 7 appropriatel~ wi th "Open Lette1/ wher e i n he asks for toler ance and understanding in a time of wa r, ha tred , domestic violen ce JJ. -r'1 ,t poe:/ ~ 11jonathan 's Song" l& alignedl\l · and racism. ff with the j ews being ma s s ac r ed '-' in Germany : ~ I am~part of t hi .. . . So"Open I\. Letter" calls on the universal brotherhood : f Bro thers, let us discover our hearts a gain, Permitting the regular strong beat of humanity there To propel the likelihood of other terror to an exit. 0-A. The war is almost over, he says,/\'planes stab over us . " The word "hallelujah" can be understood in the language of f All the mourning children~ and The torn souls and broken bodies will be restored ____ - .._ - - �when war has ceased forever . Signaling his non-black 11 brot1;=,:s," a tone and posture quickly fading fron1/1ack poet r y, Dodson challenges t heml: ..... Brothers, let us enter that portal fo r good I' q_, When peace surrounds us like a credible universe. Bury that agony, bury this hate, take our black CJ hands in yours . It was the "We Shall Overcome" call) t would die in the mid-sixties, though a few (Hayden, Hughes and ot hers ) would continue to walk the difficult tigh r ope o f unive r s al brotherhood . poetry . There ar e f ine rhythms and keen per ceptions i n Dodson ' s o. 1-.e bette:.- t<vi~w'1 • I'.is t echnical skill surpass es many / l ack and whi t e poets whoK3 iibi ·:a '\ - wor k done i n the f orties and fi f ties. , ' ti lii:1111,1111.,.,111,.,.,•-••••■..;-c■•iililr111111 1 ,.., I thoue h published in 1970, contains The Conf ession Stone : .. , •· "I D1 1111 l!!!la"s",-sa"a"dl-!zl!"cl!!!!t"'al!!!lc,_J,.•111■11■1111101110..,.,_...,5..,..3..,._,..,,_, sd it ■ b ohf§ " fjJlr:■-ft It is a strange "cycle," which moves among "The land of t he living and the land of t he r i s en dead. " The groupings (many wr it t en t o be s ung) are "The Confession Stone, " "Ma r y Passed this Ho rning," "Journals of the Hagd ~ene," "Your Servant: _, Judas , " " Fa t her , I Know You' re Lonely ," "Dear, 1y Son," and "Oh 11y Boy , Jesus . " The cycles recast /iblical stories surrounding Jesus Christ and the crucifixion, updating them by adding contemporary language y/lack idion at times) and technology, In poem@ of "Confession Stone," J esus is quieted with the words , r,/ shushhh, you need the rest. f"lJl'll\:){V' J lacnc, -ask\lJ ~ la I ~ if he knows "Lazarus is bacl~ " In to save him from the cold and icy Jerusalem ground: Let me rock him aga in in my trembling arms. .,.I L -- -- - - - -- - - - - - Jesus',-mother vows ....., e �"Mary Passed fhis Horning" contains "letters from Joseph to Martha ." Number ~ is a poetic telegram : C\ V Hartha Mary passed this morning funeral this evening D stop Near six o'clock tell the others stop Raising bus fare for you stop signed Joseph 1/:rt Dodson is reliving the life and times of Jesus is clear after a while t hat dlso t he old search' fo r t he ·Promised : La nd moti f through/ lack cha r a cters; he~ses ~ Q:Jright, Ellison , Baldwin , Brown) . In number I of "Journals of the l1agd~ ene" /Ttj efap~<m /s't li:l\tco••AMllliillla(\vows even to "crucif y mys elf " in order ( to be with him. Amen . Writing a letter t o Je sus in number t9 of "Your Ser vant: . .__,J udas," J udas s aysJ / _,, Dear J e sus, I killed myself last nigh t. The "cycle" is completed as Dodson ends t he small volume with t he opening poem: "Oh My Boy: ,__,Jesus" .... and the mother saying , in the manner of t he preacher in Johnson's "Creation": '--' "rest on my breast." Of Dodson's fr equently anthologized poems, "Yardbird's Skull" (a tribute to saxophone player4 Charles "Yardbird" Parker) is one of the most enduring and p PLe powerful. Parker (1920 1 ...., 55) is also saluted by other poets and _.,,, writers: ._J:uney and John A. Williams, to name just two. He is a major fi gure in the development of jazz, American music and contemporary jazz literature. In statement and style, "Yardbird's Skull" ele~!cally captures the psychic and �rhythmic layerings and wanderings of "Bird' s " horn. When "the Eird" died, Dodson thinks, s o did "all the musi ~ ' and "whole .sunsets" were deprived of this great mus ician ' s v oice. A s kull becomes the me taphor for the historical t~;-a tftt~ ~ , 6 corridor s o f musis a nd Dodson's f ingering of the skull , like allows h i m to retra c e Bird 's j our n ey to grea tness: ~ to air; to brotherhoo') whic~ sired t he musi c ; t o soaring b i rds ; to Atlantis, even ; and to .i Pla c es of dr eami ng , s wi muing lemmings. There has be en only slight criticism of Dodson's poetry · __,Barksdale and Kinnamon write briefly of him . /(,;e i s in most a nthologies of/ lack poetry beginning wit h Kerlin's Negr o Po et s and Their Poems . s Gwendo lyn Brooks' f winning of t he Pulitzer/ r ize for poetry in 1950 momentarily br ought new a ttent ion to the poetic ac tivities of Afro- Americans. ~ Bu"-f_, though a;; her name hung like antic ipat ion ove(.'.; Oecade of the fifties , the period in fact was dominated by f iction writers .....,',i> pecially t he articulate expatriat e Richa r d Wrigh t, Ral ph Ellison!, and James Ba],dwin. Wr i ght had e ~ tablished a tradition, and many we re a ttempting to follow in his foot steps/\'\ ---, including John Oliv e r Killens, William Attaway• and Chester Himes" t (Barksdale ..::,_,; and Kinnamon The wo r ks of the fic tion wr i ters and their a ccompanying dialo gue with ,ila ck and whi t e cri t ics and ea ch othe rt helped develop "a national, almost globa l ccnc ~r for the identi t problems of Ame rican Blacks ,lt•IFiction writers also wrote in a diversity of style s , from "Wright ts" school to Demby Is "consciousness'" However ~ e t s were wr .,_ ting d"ilu l:'u ulis i1ing in var i ou s pl a cesi during the b.f>lt>~~ fifties, but mo st of their activit i e s wer e part of t he g round swell that would reach a c rescendo in the sixties and sev enties. Ha ny of ,{t:~ pr ••s can be found in such an t ho l ogi e s as ~egro Ca r avan (1941), The Poetry of the Neg ro (1949) , America n Lit erature by Neg r o Aut ho rs (1950) , Lincoln Universit y Poets (1954), Beyond the Blues (1962), Si xes a nd Sevens (1962), Burning Spear: v An Anthology <C.,J I .,. �of Af ro-Saxon Poetr y ( 1963 ) , a nd Soon One ~lorni ng : , ,New Wri t i ng by Ame r ican r:egroes , 1 1940.f ,. 1962 (19GJ) . As i ndiv i duals and 3roups , t he ' po e ts continued t o make t hei r work available eithe r t o eac:1 o t her o r t o the s mall ~ poctry "'-r ead i ng audiences of the period (colleges, schools, c hurc hes) . Hughes , Ha yden , Gwendoly n Bro oks and others , who had establish ed r e putations in the f orties, continued writin~ It g'w~biiah .\ And --■ -. v dl:h h1?oi:t; lf u I tr 1 a I Ji the younge r o r l e sser :: known po e ts of a • . -:iiii/19 µ i-:e.= this /\transit ional s t age (Wright , ~ Danner, O' Higg ins, Allen/!Ye s ey , Randall, Dureft: Ho l man, Jeffers , Pa tt eron, Atkins , Evans , and othe rs) ~ publishe d .~et\ littl e maga zines M" / :,,/ won v a r i ous reg iona l and nat ional wr iting conte stsM p rimar ily through s chool s a n d coll e g e s. Opportuni ty , The Crisis , The Negro Story , TTecro l! istory Bulle tin , Phylon and nume r ous c o lleg e pe rio dicals continued t o provide forums. Some of the po e ts who a pp ear ed in The Cris i s during the thirties and forties, for example , vA/U n•VW[lliiP' Grace E . Barr, Edna Ba r re tt, Hilton Brighte , Sophy Hae Br y son , - Cla r i ssa Buc k l in , Lillian Byrnes, Po l ly .Iae Hall, Al ice 1:fard Snith, Paul A. Wren , Wa l t e r Ad ams, Ethel Collins , Edit h }! . Durham , and Max Reyno lds . ..__,., Ot he rs Ill!> pub l ished in r e g ional ma gazines o r b rou r,ht out col l ection s of t he ir own works ~ : Noy Joseph Dickerson (A Scra p Boo k , 1931) , Th omas At k ins (The Ea g l e , 19 36), Leslie M. Collins (Exil e , / Book o f Vers e, 1938 ), Hi lliam Wa l ke r (who published @ volumes 7 between 1936 and 1943), Olive Lewis Handy, Claude T . Eastman, Nick Aaron Ford (Songs ,l'r om t h e Dark, 1940) , !Iaurice Fields (The Collect ed Poems o f I ~urice Fields , 1940), RiF. Boyd (lioliday Stanzas, 1940), fol k lorist J . ~1ason Brewer ( 'four books of poems), William Holmes Border,< (Thunderbolts , 1942), Anita Tur peau Anderson (Pinpoints: , p roup of Poems and Prose Wr i tings, 1943), Alo ise Barbour Epperson (The Hills of Ye s~erday and Other Poems, 19114), Nary Albert �Bacon (Poems of Color, 1948), Harrison Edward Lee (Poems for the Day, 1954), Willie Ennis (Poetically Speakins, 1957) , Paul Vesey (Ivory Tu s ks, 1956)i and Arthur Wesley Rea son (Poems of Inspiration for Better Living, 1959). (and SdmP_& c.K) -Hle., 11 Among white~poet"s: t he fifties were aglow with the fe rvor o fJJ:J..:!at 1; ovemen)~ Kenneth Rexroth, and ~ Kaufm9 E.F. Cummings, Lawrence Fifrlinghetti and Gin~berg . Hughes \ especially} played a great part in introducing the/ ea ts to t he poetic lyrics of jazz and the jagged-lined interpre tation of post$ 1ar blues of the "lost generation . 11 Ano t her influence on the beats was Russell AtkinsJ who, with Helen Johnson Coll ins, founded Fr ee Lance in Cl eve land - . . . a ( l 95g). -------- An avant-earde "l i t tle " maga zine, it played an uns ~ng par t i n t he dev elopment of ideas and t echniques of t he_}(ew America1;./oe try . the "style" @ At the dawn of the sixties, of f1- a c4·~ils o f i gur ed pr or.1inen tly/1s ~ always / ~ in t he fte pacing of ~ lit er ary and cul tur al concerns . The op poet Babs Conzales, a/ Y!. ..n t-e/1dlt>1'i along wit i\jazz- poe try narrators Htt:e Kin3 Pleasure, influenced t ~~ of"" 1' f m] ] t ihlilj Pof~n a s e , ~ s ~ gnaled a call for r e-examination of the "ear" traditionally used in t he silent writing of a poer.1 . As t he fifties closed, t he prec i s e passion of Gwendolyn Br ooks and the troubador's gai t rlfl ~idl.w /4u unified, of Hughes hurled a dual , -:J!ir,t cha llenge a~ a ck poets . /; 4 ~ � 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_09_10to12 Title A name given to the resource Editors proof, Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Chapter V. A Long Ways from Home, typed with handwritten edits, p. 208-405 Description An account of the resource Editors proof, Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Chapter V. A Long Ways from Home, typed with handwritten edits, p. 208-405. Includes the backside of p. 290, numbered 290(a). 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. 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