https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/efe6c634b118d7cbf0a40da224b42850.pdf ca15909d8f48fc93de485455eb1174df PDF Text Text CHAPTER III AFRICAN VOICE IN ECLIPSE: IMITATION & AGITATION 1746 - 1865 Slaves, though we be enroll'd Minds are never to be sold --from David Ruggles' Appeals, 1835 I Overview As we embark on a survey of the chronological development of Black written poetry, it is important to remember that any study of such literature concerns that which is "written" and "available." The fact that one writer has made more works accessible to the public than another writer does not make him/her the "greatest II or even "greater. 11 In every era., quiet and important writers have been passed over in favor of literature that is more "timely, 11 'flamboyant II and "relevant 11 --to use an overworked contemporary term. Here and following chapters, I am including brief representations of the poetry. And while this book certainly is not an "anthology," "samples" are given to reinforce comments on styles, themes, subjects, language and other aspects of the poetry. The poems included, it is hoped, will allow student, general reader and teacher immediate access to comparisons, contrasts and tentative analyses. There also is no over-riding effort to explain the works in a • 93 .I �poem-by-poem breakdown. However, Chapter VII will offer an historical "runnlng " a nal:,rsis of several poems with emphasis on how the poems can be read silently and aloud. Also to be examined are some of the consistencies (and similarities) in themes that can be found i n many of the poems. II Literary and Socia~ Landscape Blacks have he en in the Western Hemisphere almost as long as whites. After 1501, most of the Spanish exped:i.tions to the New World included Black explorers. By the time the 20 slaves- to-be were brought on a Dutch vessel to Jamestown in 1619, the presence of Blacks had been felt for at least 100 years (see Bennett, Franklin). Crucial to an understanding of early Black poetry are the circumstances surrounding slavery and the political and religious moods of ½oth England and Colonial-Revolutionary America. British America did not follow the Greco-Roman tra- dition of the well informed slave. It was quite unlikely, then, that a "revolutionary" Black poet would emerge from a social and literary landscape so charged with self-righteousness and Neoclassicism (or from the Romanticism of the lBOOts). Lucy Terry's "Bars Fight 11 (written in 1746 and published in 1895) could hardly be called "protest"; neither could the work of Phillis Wheatley, co nsidered the finest Black talent of the colonial era, caught between contrivances of the Age of Enlightenment and the approaching grip of the romantics. 94 The neoclassical �tradition that reached its height in the poetry of England's Alexander Pope, had already begun to die out with the death of Pope himself in 1744. All over Colonial America, however, white poets were imitating the stiff-collared conventionality of that period. The moral issues considered by most of the poets (Black and white)--universal brotherhood of man, quest for reason and order, the Jeffersonian ideals of freedom, liberty and representative government--were removed from the everyday brutality of slavery. Some of the most liberal men of the day (Jefferson, Washington, Hume) implicitly justified slavery by suggesting that Blacks were in some ways inferior. Despite Jefferson's pontifications on humanitarianism, he was unable to reconcile the disparity between his public stands and his failure to manumit his own slaves. Although Jefferson carried on a written correspondence with Black astronomer and mathematician, Benjamin Banneker, he considered Phillis Wheatley's work "beneath criticism. 11 On the general American scene, the Revolution behind, a national literature had begun to emerge. Fascinated with American employment of new technology (Franklin's lightning experiments, printing presses, etc.) and the prospects of unexplored regions of the New World, writers started recording travels and observing the mixture of races and religions. Although religious fervor was still high (Calvinism, Weslyanism and deism had run their courses), political problems dominated. Between 1790 and 1832 the new American government was being consolidated and the writings of men like William Bradford, • 95 �John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, Thomas Shephard, Roger Williams, Edward Taylor and Jonathan Edwards were succeeded by the embryonic nationalistic works of Franklin, Jefferson, William Byrd, William Cullen Bryant, Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving, William Gilmore Simms an:1 James Fenimore Cooper. Irving, Cooper and Bryant were to become the early writers most taught to American school children. Often called the "New England Renaissance," the early decades of the 19th Century saw increasing tension between New England puritanism and Southern aristocracy over the question of slavery. over slavery Debates continued up to the beginning of the Civil War. The early part of the century also saw the birth of many of white America's greatest writers along with romanticism and rugged individualism. :Mystified by the noble savage (Indians and sometimes Blacks) and challenged by the "new frontier," Americans began to romanticize their situation and especially that of explorers 1~0 became the first original folk heroes. White writers who dominated the period from 1826-1865 included Edgar Allan Poe (poet and short story writer, credited with creating the first detective in American fiction), Nathaniel Hawthorne (cons:J.dered the first great American novelist--The Scarlet Letter), John Greenleaf vJhi ttier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russel Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harriet Beecher Stowe (one of the first white American novelists to feature a Black protagonist in fiction--Uncle Tom's Cabin), Ra lph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, �Herman Melville (considered to have written one of the handful of "great Tl American no ve ls-- r-Iohy Dick), Walt '!rJhi t man ( termed the Tlgreatest" American poet--Leaves of Grass). Other writers, primarily political acti vists or abolitionists, included John G. Calhoun, Willlar:i Lloyd Garrison, and Abrahar,1 Lincoln. Using their own and Black materlal, a numhe r of white composers i mmortalized t he era ln songs-- man:- of t 1.1 em national:tstic. It wa s C.nr ing t hj_::.; r, e rio( t11at Fran c:Ls Scott Key wrote TIThe Star Spangled Banner. 11 Step:1en Foster b8. S since b een accused of merely putting to music the s on cs that were sung by slaves. There was no i.:;oncral encot1rage r:1ent, bowever, for Blacks to earn to read; but many slave owner s indul ged their chattel tn uriting exercises as pers onal pasttir.1es and h obbies. So nany of the early Black poets, then, grew up in relative security. To be totally free, David Walker ohser ved in h is Appeal (1829) to be economl cal ly insecure, socially ostracized and psycho- ':lrn : og1 cnlly oppres sed . Co nseque ntly, t h ose slaves priviledged to read and writ e invariably took European literary models. f~ta , of course, were not the only ones writing. In addition o n ol1tionists-essayists, like Walker and Frederick Douglass, '1h per iod of Black literary activity was highlighted by •lt1t tng slave narratives: ·r t troed slaves. autobiogra phical accounts of escaped The most popular of t h ese, and one of the rit rocorded, was The Interesting 'JITarra ti ve of the Life of Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789). includes it in bis Great Slave Narratives 97 Arna (1969). �Vassa, who also included penned some notable verses, c onstructe(l a story pattern that was to b ecome fa miliar to readers of early America: that of the escaped, freed or run away slave w1 o reported his or h er hardsh ips and struggles. Vassa descri hes his life in Africa up until the time of h is kidnapping . With vivid memory and detail, he establishes the orig inal bases for what we have come to call the nAfrican Continuum" in America. It is not just mere coincidence that t b is statement from 1789 almost fits parts of Black America of today. We are almost a nation of dancers, musicians, and poets. Thus every great event ••• is celebrated ·in public dances which are accompanied with songs and music suited to the occasions. Vassa's debut into this literary genre was followed by hundreds of other narratives, many of them fakes. Early Negro Writing : Dorothy Porter, in 1760-1837 (1971), h as d l scussed the problem of determining auth enticity of the narratives. Hrs. Porter is librarian of the Moorland Foundation at Howard University--which houses an outstanding collection on the Black past. book she included: constitutions and laws of beneficial societies; speeches before mutual aid and educational societies; the report of the earliest annual convention for the improvement of free people of color; arguments for and a gainst colonization; printed letters, sermons, petitions, orations, lectures, essays, reli g ious and In her �moral treatises, and such creative manifestations as poems, prose narratives, and short essays. Mrs. Porter thus sums up the intellectual and literary output of the early Africans. The word "African," was used generously by most writers and speakers of the era. 'When "African" was not employed it was i r:1plied through the use of "Coloured," "Black, 11 "an Ethiopian P.r incess" and other terms. Placed against the sometimes sophomoric and heretical accusations of some of today's Black critics, these early displays of pride in the African heritage makes one want to send many a loudmouth back to school! In addition to the plethora of pamphlets, broadsides, books and news organ that emerged from Black individuals and institutions during the period up to the end of the Civil War, there was also much political-social consciousness raising through oration. In the early years great religious and political leaders such as Richard Allen, Peter Williams, Absalom Jones, Prince Hall (founder of Black Masonry), Paul Cu:ffee and Daniel Coker, took up projects of "mutual aid" for Africans. Their work set the stage for missionary, ab olitionist and self-help programs undertaken later by people like Jarena Lee, Frederick Douglass, R. Martin Delaney, Sojourner Truth, and Alexander Crummell, to name only a handfull. The intellectual, relig ious and moral work of Blacks in the North was paralleled by the development of folk materials 99 �(the songs and stories) of Blacks on S outhern plantations. In general few states, North or S outh, allowed educational or vocational opportunities for Blacks. Thus the energies of early Black writers and intellectuals, Mrs. Porter and William Robison point out, were aimed at setting up of various '~frican" societies and free schools, and the promotion of literacy and self-betterment among newly freed slaves. Many educated Blacks of the North also acted as conduits for the Underground Railroad. The Rev. Allen, popular religious crusader and founder of tre Bethel African Methodist Episcopan Church, seems to have been referring to the sa:ne Black "sensib ility" described by Vass a when he said ( in 1793) that be was confident that there was no religious sect or de nomination that would suit the capacity of the colored people as well as the Methodist; ••• Sure I am that readin g sermons will never prove so beneficial to the colored people as spiritual or extempore preaching ••.• Much evidence exists, then, of Blacks b anding together for "mutual" concerns in the early days of America. The horror~ of slavery, the psychological pressures of Northern "freedom," white reprisals in wake of slave revolts (such as those led by Gabriel Prosser in 1800, Denmark Vesey in 1822 and Nat Turner in 1831), made for a most unsettling atmosphere (see Walker's 100 �Appeal). Reporting on white America's "need" to vent its fears and hatreds on Blacks, Winthrop Jordan (vJbi te Over Black, 1968) noted that whites initially feared tbree things: loss of identity, lack of self-control and sexual license. In an ei'i'ort to e.scape the "animal within h imself t11e white man debased the Negro, surely, but at the same time he debased himself." And a young Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, visiting America in 1831, said racial prejudice was "stronger in the states that bave abolished slavery than in tbose where it still exists." Needless to say, creative literature of the "arty" sort (though much of it was being done at the time) was not the number one priority for Blacks facing hell from all sides. Nevertheless a literary tradition did develop and flourish in Black America. The example of the narratives (including those by }Iarrant, Douglass and Truth) led to publications by the first Black novelist and playwright, William Wells Brown. novel was Clotel: Brown's or The President's Daughter (1853) and his play was called Escape: Or A Leap to Freedom (185,7). The second novel by a Black American was The Garies and their Friends (1857) by Frank J. Webb. Delaney published the third novel, Black, or the Huts of America, in 1859. Webb were both published in England. The works by Brown and Brown also worked on in the cause oi' abolition and other social reform programs. His Anti-Slavery Harp (1348 ) contained songs and poems whose themes are implied in the book's title. The pattern of the Black educator, intellectual or artisan carrying on the dual role o~ creator and activist, characterizes the history of Black • 101 �creativity in America. Yet many critics, Black and white, unaware of the stresses and demands on Black artists do not approach their subjects with the understanding required. Political journalism (see Dann's The Black Press, 1827-1890), also, was a strong vein in the development of Black American writing. Beginning with John Russwurm (the second Black college graduate and first Black newspaper editor, Freedom's Journal, 1827-29), and evolving through Ruggles' Hirror for Liberty (first Black magazine, 1838), Douglass' Monthly 1844) and North Star (1847), to Hamilton's Anglo-African Magazine {1859), the tradition of Black journalism and research on the African experience was firr;1ly established. Huch of the journalistic writing (like the poetry) took pros or cons on the question of imigration, colonization or the elevation of the Black man's plight in America. During the early and middle years of the 19th Century, white travelers through the South collected and compiled slave songs-Seculars and Spirituals. These songs would . later form the nucleus for much of the Black and wh ite writing themes. On the eve of the Civil Har, tbe Dred Scott decision (a hlow to slaves and abolitionists) help step up the demands for the abolishment of slavery. Brown's The Black I-Tan (1 863) was a capsule of one er•a which closed on the blasts of cannon and another that opened on tl1e sound of jubilant shouts. 102 �III THE VOICES ON THE TOTEM "mean mean mean to 1, e free 11 --Robert Ha:rden Age.inst the foregoin 6 b ackground, t "'.-: e poets of Colonia.1Revolutionary-Slavcry America appear c ur ious, tearful, exciting, paradoxical, fri gh tening and puzzlin 0 • Biblical i maGery, classical allusions and t bemes, batred of slavery and ambiguous praise for slave- masters, recollectio ns of Africa, appeals and condemnatio ns, all be come enmeshed in the intricate linguistic and psych ological uehbinc; of t ½is early poetry. In 1770, at 17 y ear s of a g e, t he privileGed slave girl Phillis 1'H-1eatle:r ;) ccame t 1~e first Black "exception to tbe rule" And for d ecades students of in English and A~orican po etry. American poctr:r 1.-w.d gone a1)ont t1-:ieir recitations and research a:::; though notbinc; or no o:1e of i mporte.n ce :~np::1e r:: ed IIiss Hll eatley Fig'bt"--tbo accou nt of a ::. 71.:. 6 I nc.inn r,1assacre in :D e erfield, , ~ -- -" ·, J_ L, • ..1... .L ,:_, . .Jupiter !!anmo n' s "An :Sveni n.:_: T:.1ou_::;:::t , Salvat io n h:- C"!:~ rlst, With Pen:i.tentie..l Cri es" (1761) :i.n t l'J o lTeH Yorl-: Historical Society, t hus establishinc Tiammo n a s t ~e first ~u½l ishe e African poet in America. 1 03 �Ue r.1ent5.o:1c d earlior t h at ~.:.a ny ant}; olo 6 ies omit "Bar's Figl1t. 11 Thin i n u nd or:J t anda1~l e si nc e T1iss Terr:r (1730-1 831) never wrote, or at lea s t pr e sented, anymore literary works. America's "first rccro poet," t h en, is i n porta nt primarily for being just tl1at--firs t . Lilre Hiss 1,n10atley, Vassa and oth er N'ew England slaves, she was ld.dnapped as a child ai.1d l)rought to New Enc;land (Rh ode Island). She witnessed t b e Indlan raid reported in her 2 3-line do seercl a nd ~as a flair for storytelling . Hence despite t ll e poe m's "ohviously weak literary merit," this Black writer performed one of th e earliest ser vices of' the poet--that of a singer of' h istory-- in recording actual names and places in her narrative. Since she was 16-:~ears-old and a servant girl, writing was surely not h er primarily respon- sibility. Yet "Bar's Figh t," ach ie ves some success when seen against tbe oral tradition i n poetry: Listen my children and you sh all h ear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. or Now, children, I' m going to tell you the story ab out raw-head and bloody-bones! and There was an old woman who lived in a shoe She had so many children she didn't know what to do. Compare the fore g oing lines to Aue ust 'twas, the twenty-fifth, Seventeen hundred forty six, 104 �Tbe Indians did in ambush lay, Some very valiant men to slay, The names of wbom I'll not leave out: Samuel Allen li ke a h ero fout, and the elemental connections will readily be seen. One has only to read this poem aloud to get b otb t h e effects and Miss Terry's apparent intentions. 1foen sb e wrote 11 Bar 's Fight 11 Miss Terry worked for an Eb enezer Wells of Deerfield, t~ssachusetts, but was 1:;iven her freedom ten y ears later when she married a free Black man, Ab ijah Prince, children. wh om she had six by Prince later b ecame tbe owner of considerable land and was one of t h e founders of Sunderland, Ver mont. Hilliam Robinson (Early Black American Poets) lists Hiss Terry with the "orator" poets and righ tly so. Other details about Miss Terry and the Princes can b e obtained from George Sheldon's A History of Deerfield, Hassacbusetts, 1 695. Slave poet and intellectual, Jupiter Ha mmon (1720?-ll300?), provides yet anoth er look into the capab ilities, mind-sets and limitations of Africans in Colonial America. Hammon is generally not regarded as an "i mportant" Black writer-- but is distinguished for being the first African in America to publish his verses. This he did in 1761 ( "An Evening Th ough t, 11 composed in December of 1760); 1778 ("An Address to Hiss Ph illis Wh eatley"); 1782 ("A Poem for Ch ildren"); and in the mid-17 80•s ("An Evening's Improvement 11 ) . In his nAddress to the Negroes of the State of New York" (written in 1786 and pu1)lished in 1806) Hammon linked in with a tradition that included pamph leteers, like • 105 �Quinn, Walker, Ruggles and oth ers of t b e period. Hammonts "Address" sought freedo m .for younger Blacks, claiming that 11 for my own part I do not wish to be free." This statement appears, on the surface, to b e the ultimate in self-debasement and self-denial; but one h as to view it in t h e context of statements by de Tocqueville, Walker, and others, along with the circumstances o.f the aging and reli gious Hammon. That Hammon himself was deeply reli e ious is reflected in his poetry--as with many Black poets, e.g., Hayden today-and he obviously labored under the influence of Methodism and the Wesleyan Revival (see Early Ne gro Writing ). In the poem to Miss Wheatley, he notes t h at it 1--1as throu gh that "God's tender mercy" that she was kidnapped from A.frica and bro.u ght to America as a slave. And Hammon seemed, generally, to reflect with prevailing wh ite attitude toward the "dark" continent: one engulfed in i g norance, ~arbaris m and evil. Obviously not as well read as Hiss l:Jb ea tley, Hammon was unable to take his themes to universal and intellectually arresting levels. He was born a slave a nd b elonged to t h e inf'luential family of Lloyd's Neck on Long Island and was encouraged by his masters to write and publish poetry. There is not a great deal of in.formation available on the life of Hammon; but it is difficult to understand why an intelli gent Black man, who lived such a long life, mirrored almost complete ignorance of the horrors of slavery--despite the almost daily local newspaper and verbal accounts a.nd discussions of the 106 ' '' �11 peculiar ins ti tut ion. 11 J:arimon' s li terar:r models were primarily f' the conventional material of hymns of t h e period. So his re- • i.,; ligious fervor--at t h e time of religious revi vals in Europe and Colonial Amer1.ca--coupled with his stylistic b orrowings from hymns constitut e h i s major poetic effort. Thought, 11 "An Evening which .i irs. Porter tells us was probably during tl1e deli ver:· of a sermon, 11 11 t chanted beGins: Sal va t ion co~e s b~ Christ alo ne Tb e o nl:r Son of .God; Tiedemp tion now to every one, That lo ve h is only word. Dear J"e s us He would fly to thee, And leav0 off every Sin, Thy tender Mercy well a gree; Salvation fro m our king ; Like Miss Terry, Hammon was not primarily a poet. And hence, J unlike approaching Phillis Wheatley, one sh ould not spend too t ...I Drnch time or be too h arsh in criticizing (or complaining about) him. The basic structure of the English hymn--wh ich merged I' with the Spiritual--as Ha mmon interprets it, is an alternation of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter combined with a rather clumsy ab ab rhyme sch eme. Compared to other bymns, it is no worse and is better t h an amny. Despite the times, pressures and censures, however, one is bardpressed to accept Harnmon's assurance to the s lave tbat: In Christian faith thou hast a share, Worth all the gold of Spain. 107 .. �Hammon's works can be found critically introduced in Robinson's anthology, in Stanley Ransom's America's First Negro Poet, the Complete Works of Jupiter Hammon of Long Island (1970) (and in Barksdale's and Kinnamon's Black Writers of America, 1972); critical-biographical attention is in Vernon Loggins' The Negro Author (1931) and J. Saunders Redding's To Make A Poet Black (1939). Yet another slave, Phillis 'Wheatley (1753 ?-1784}, has to be examined. There has been substantial critical-biographical treatment of Miss 'Wheatley, so no attempt will be made here to give her full consideration. By far the most gifted and com- plex poet until Dunbar, Phillis ,fueatley was also priviledged as a young child and allowed access to the Boston library of John Wbeatlye--to whom she was sold after being brought from Senegal when she was six or seven years old--where she read voraciously. By the time of her teens she had learned to speak and write English, and acquired a New England education which put great emphasis on the Bible and the classics. ·Her poetry, like Hammon's reflects deep interest in and knowledge of religion; but it is alsb steeped in classical allusions and conventions of the neoclassical writing school. Critical attention to Miss Wheatley (who, like Dunbar, lived a short life) has been both raving and unkind. Benjamin Brawley (The Negro Genius) reports that Jefferson viewed her as beneath the dignity of criticism. Yet, other great personalities of the day generously praised and received her work. 108 George �Washington, so moved by her poetic tribute ("To His Excellency General Washine;ton"), invited the young poet to visit him at his camp at Cambridge, Massachusetts--an invitation which she later accepted arrl was treated as roy alty. Miss Wbeatley's earliest verses were penned during the · years of her adolescence. "On t h e Death of the Rev. George 1770, 11 re.fleets the elegaic theme which occupies Whitefield: much of her poetry. Manumitted and sent with other members of the Wheatley family to London in 1772, because of frailness and poor health, Miss Wheatley was received like a visiting dignitary in London's literary circles and hailed as the "Sable Muse. 11 Th e next y ear (1773), while in London, she became (at 20-years-old) the first African, a~ the second woman from America, to publish a book of poems: Poems on Various Subjects, Reli g ious and Moral, by Ph illis Wheatley, Negro Servant to ~Tr . Wheatley of Boston. The volume, the only one she ever publish ed, became an i mmediate success in both England and America and won her an everlasting place in the history of Engli sh poetry i n Amer i ca. Upon her return to America, Mis s Wheatley ' s misfortunes seemed to come in such lightning succession that one wonders how sh e withstood adversity as lon g as she did. First, t h ere was t he death of :tv".irs. Wheatley and t h en, during the l 770' s, t h e deaths of t h e remaining Wheatl e~rs. The poet t h en married a Joh Peters, who "proved to b e both a t1bitious and irresponsible," for whom she b ore thre e childr en--all of wh om died in infancy. 1 09 �Additionally, t he Peters family li ved in squalor a nd poverty, like so many New Encland Blac ks . Commenttnc on the circum- s tances surroundinc her de ath , Barksdale a nd Kannamon (Black Writer s of Americ a ) observe wi t b stoRach -curdli ng accuracy that: l t Her early death pr ovides a COQmen t ar y o n the de sperate marginality of life among Boston 's free Blac ks at tre.t time . an extre .. :.c >· To Phillis 1-n~eatley , benig n ma ::; ter-8 Gr-rr.n t relation- ship , freedom's uncertainities and insecur- ities were overwhelming . Certainly, h ad she been initially free in Boston, she would probably never have had the time, the opportunity, or the peace of mind to write poetry. For the state of freedom for the Black man in the 1780's--even in godly, liberty-loving Boston--was indeed precarious. The preceding explanation, coupled again with the observations of Walker, de Tocqueville and others, make Hammon's statement about pref'erring not "to be free" somewhat more tolerable if not plausable. We noted that Phillis Wheatley has been praised as well as condemned. Some critics denounce her for not being inventive and original enough, claiming that she simply followed the conventions and themes associated with neoclassicism: Salvation, Mercy and Goodness. 110 Truth, Some resent her so-called "pious • ! �sentimentality" and accuse her of calling on Christ when she should be calling for the abolishment of slavery. Still others, during the current period, have accused her of not being "Black enough." Considered on the landscape of the times, however, Miss Wheatley comes off as a genius--with hardly an equal among ·Back or white contemporaries. James Weldon Johnson, during a comparison of Miss Wheatley's "Imagination" to Anne Bradstreet's "Contemplation," said "We do not think the black woman suffers by comparison with the white" (Negro American Poetry). During h er l i fe ti me Miss Wh eatley published some 50 poems, almost half of them elegies, five or six political and pa~riot pieces ("General Washington" and "Liberty and Peace"), and the remainder consumed by religious and moral subjects--as she states in her title. Though she never deals with the question of slavery--and makes only tentative reference to her own predicament--her work sustains a high level of emotional, linguistic, religious and general poetic force. S-ince her greatest models were Pope, Dryden, Milton and the earlier classical writers, one must examine these sources to uncover some keys to her techniques atrl allusions. But one only has to read (aloud) the following passage from "Rev. George Whitefield" to feel impact: I l, "Take him, ye wretch ed, for y our only good, "Take h i m, ye starving sinners, for your food. ''Ye t hrifty , come to t h is life- giving stream, I, ; . 111 .... �'~e preachers, take him for your joyful theme; "Take him, my dear Americans, he said, "Be your complaints on his kind bosom laid; "Take b im, ye Africans, h e longs for you, "Impartial Savior is his title due; ''Washed in the fountain of redeeming blood, '~ou shall be sons and kings, and priests to God." More will be said of this poem in Chapter VII; but we should state that some of the previously harsh criticism of Miss Wheatley has been tempered in light of increasing :feminism and, especially, efforts by Black women writers, scholars and intellectuals to reevaluate h er. Much of her work is done in the heroic couplet which dominated the period o:f poetry-writing. These pentameter couplets (which would be popularized in the 20th Century as "unrhymed iambic pentameter" by Robert Frost) call for end-line rhymes to appear in twos, with 10 syllables per line. Roger ~n1itlow (Black American Literature) complains that Miss Wheatley "falls short . in what Pope called the 'correctness' of diction and meter, that near-perfect choice of word and measurement and weighing of syllable." One could agree, if Miss ll'Tbeatley's sole aim were simply to imitate. But there is a great evidence that she--like Black poets always seem to be doing--was trying to achieve a readable poem without losing the essence o:f the couplet. After all, as Stephen Henderson (Understanding the New Black Poetry) has suggested, many Black poets have their ears and thought rhythms attuned to the spiritual and phonological 112 �demands of the audience that loves "extempore" delivery, when the written lines are strict and tight. Also, in placing "Their colour is a diabolic dye" in ✓ "'---- quo tat ions ( "On Being Brought from Africa to America "l, Misa Wheatley suggests that others deem her color negative but that she may not. This remains a possibility despite her closing couplet: Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as C.a in, May be refined, and join the angelic train. Yet there is firm evidence that Miss "Wheatley was not insensitive, at least to her on predicament as a slave without a fundamental and geneological identity. Honourable William, Earl of Dartmough," In nTo The Right she says Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song, Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung, Whence flow these wishes for the common good, By feeling hearts alone best understood, I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate. Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat: What pangs excruciating must molest, What sorrows labour in my parent's breast? Steel'd was that soul and by no misery mov'd That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd: Such, such my case. And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway? The capital "F" in "Freedom," the phrase "cruel fate," the sorrow felt for her parents and the reinforcement of the agony • 113 ~' • I .. •' . II I �via repetition ("such, such"; see Margaret Walker's lines "How Long!"), place her alongside other Black voices that searched for answers to the pall of racial insanity that enwebbed them. hymn form. Miss Wheatley also experiments with the In "A. Farewell To America II and "An Hymn To Humanity" one bounces along her alternating lines and rhythms. We stated earlier that Miss vJheatley's critical image has somewhat shifted. Perhaps the capstone of this shift was the Jackson State College Poetry Festival, held in November of 1973 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the publiEbony magazine (March, 1974) cation of Miss Wheatley's Poems. did a five-page picture essay on the festival, organized and hosted by Margaret Walker poet-novelist and Director of Jackson State's Institute for the Study of History, Life and Culture of Black People. According to Ebony "eighteen Black women poets converged" on the Black college campus to salute Miss Wheatley, read their own poems and discuss poetry and life. Writer Luci Horton noted that recently there has been more respect for the 11 slave girl who, under unspeakable cir- cumstances, was able to write poetry or any literature at all." In addition to Dr. Alexander, the list of poets included in Naomi Long Madgett, Margaret c. Burroughs, Marion Alexander, Margaret Esse Danner, Linda Brown Bragg, Mari Evans, Carole Gregory Clemmons, Lucille Clifton, Sarah Webster Fabio, Nikki . . Giovanni, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Gloria c. Oden, Sonia Sanchez, Alice Walker, Malaika Ayo Wangara ( Joyce Whitsitt Lawrence) and Carolyn M. Rodgers. Gwendolyn Brooks' absence '· 114 �was conspicuous. The festival was also the subject of a six-page picture essay by Carole Parks in Black World (Webruary, 1974). One of the most revealing comments was made by Paule Giddings, a young editor at Howard University Press: There is something wrong with a critical tradition that makes Phillis Wheatley an historical footnote •••• Phillis Wheatley was black and . this is the difference (between her and other poets of her day) and also the contradiction: the contradiction between her blackness which she recognized and never was .free, to forget by a thousand humiliations and white mercantile England, a world that was never to be hers, but whose values she seemed to accept. She was in a slave world, but not truly of it •••• It does no good to reproach a child for yielding to attractive influences when within herself there is no strong residue of any other influence or tradition. It is easy to say she had no racial consciousness. It would be .fair to look at the choices she had and ascertaln whether or not she was capable of enduring even more intense isolation. Ms. Giddings has asserted ·what appears to be a balanced answer to the protestations o.f Redd inc , Brmm, Brawley ( "no racial 115 �value") ~ and others. It remains to be seen as to whether current and future generations of Black and white students will keep Miss Wheatley a "statute in the park" or bring her to the table and "examine her hlood and beart." Critical treatment of this first Black woman of letters already has been extensive: Juli.an Mason's The Poems of Phillis 1~eatley (1966); Barksdale's and Kinnamon's critic a l introduction; Robert C. Kuncio's "Some Unpublished Poe:m3 of Phillis Wheatle~~" I (New Entland Quarterly, XLIII, June, 1 S'7 C, 2 27-2°7); Lor:Gins' I The Negro Author (1931); Bra.wley's The Negro Genius; Redd1ng's To Make A Poet Black; Shirley Graham's The Story of Phillis Wheatley (1949); and Jerry Ward's and Charles Howell's article in the Summer, 1974, issue of Freedomways. We have already mentioned Gustavus Vassa (1745-1801), one of the most interesting of the early writers, in another context. Born the seventh and youngest son of a chieftan (in Essake, now Eastern Nigeria), Vassa (African name: Olaudah Equia.no) was first sold to a Virginia plantation owner. His journeys later took him on several Atlantic voyages and then to the Mediterranean where be served in the Seven Years War . Vassa held technical jobs on ships as a result of bis adeptness at the English language and his mastery of basic mathematics . He became a tireless worker for the abolition of slavery and worked, briefly, in behalf of efforts to colonize poor blacks of England in Sierre Leone. Vassa is chiefly known for his Narrative (1789) which was a best-seller among abo- 116 �l1tionists in England and America. Slave narratives, we have observed, were a part of a branch of Black writing which gave rise to the more sophisticated autobiographies (that stretch from Douglass through Baldwin and Cleaver) which in turn laid some of the foundation for American fiction. Vassa was not the first writer of a slave narrative, as is popularly thought. Briton Hammon (no relation to Jupiter) published in London A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprisin5 Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man (1760) and John Marrant published (also in London) A Narrative of the Lord's Wonderful Dealings with J. Marrant, A Black ( 1785). Vassa, who we turn to briefly for his efforts in poetry, included "Miscellaneous Verses" in his Narrative. His verse is interesting because it helps to establish the portrait of a complex and many-sided man; it also provides further insight into the workings of the African mind making contact with white culture and especially Christianity. While in his prose and speech-making Vassa was firm in his attacks on slavery, he proves in the end to be a believer in some ultimate force of "deliverance." In the last line of the last stanza of his "Verses" he reminds us that "Salvation is by Christ alonel" Which is, of course, reminiscent of Hammon's opening line: Salvation come by Christ alone Nevertheless Vassa's language is less saturated in Biblical terms than Hammon•s. And the former, as verse writer, has a better control on the language. In the "Verses" he applies a • 117 �driving iambic tetrameter meter with an a ab b rhyme scheme: Those who beheld my downcast mien Could not guess at my woes unseen: They by appearance could not know The troubles I have waded through. Lust, anger, blasphemy, and pride, With legions of such ills beside, Troubled my thoughts while doubts and fears Clouded and darken'd most my years. In the first stanze quoted Vassa presages the duality and mental pressures that more skilled writers would describe in years to come. Implying that the job of the oppressed Black is to keep his head even and up, Vassa says even those who see him in his sorriest state cannot envision the sufferings he has endured. Dunbar would say the same thing in a different way in ''We Wear the Mask" more than a century later. And Countee Cullen would state it more than 130 years later in yet a different way. This apparent ability of Blacks to "keep cool" and adapt (see Johnson's The Autobiography of An Ex-Coloured Man) under the most trying circumstances has been promoted, nurtured and praised by leaders of the race. Vassa, then, is important as an early writer, not only because of his skill, but for the insight and understanding he brings to the social and religious pressures, demands and choices around him. There is a releasing therapy in Vassa 1 s work which acts as only one of numerous L 118 �conduits for Black anguish and outrage when the options were slavery or death. Vassa's Narrative is most accessible in Bontemps' Great Slave Narratives (1969). In 1967 Paul Edwards published an edition of the Narrative including a comprehensive introduction. Edwards also did a two-volume facsimile reprint of the first edition (1969). See also Africa Remembered: Narratives by West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade, edited by Phillip D. Curtin (1967). Loggins assesses the Narrative and Robinson provides a handy biographical-critical introduction. More on Vassa can be found in Marion L. Starkey's Striving to Make It My Home: The Story of American frQm Africa (1964) and in Whitlow's Black American Literature. In the summer of 1974, Darwin Turner conducted a graduate and postgraduate seminar on Slave Narratives at Iowa State University where he directs the Center for Afro-American Culture. The early and middle years of the 19th century witnessed the maturation of Black autobiography, political journalism and abolitionist activities. George Moses Horton .was 34 years old when William Lloyd Garrison founded The Liberator (1831), the most influential and famous of the abolitionist newspapers. And by 1830 there were more than in America. SO Black antislavery societies Blacks in the United States had been stireed by slave rebellions both here and in places like Haiti, the Carribean and Trinidad. Especially inspiring during this period was the 1839 revolt of slaves aboard the Spanish schooner L'Amistad. Led by Joseph Cinque, a Mandi-speaking 119 �prince, the fifty slaves, killed the captain, set the crew adrift and demanded that ship owners steer the ship to Africa. Apprehended, the Africans were escorted by a United States brig to New Haven where the would-be slaves faced murder and other charges. Ex-President John Quincy Adams defended the Africans' right to return to their homeland and in 1842 they sailed to Sierre Leone. Ironically, neither the international press nor most Blacks knew of the connection between .Cinque of the Symbionese Liberation Front, apparently headquartered in northern California during 1973-74, and the Cinque of the L'Amistad revolt. In light of the growing consciousness among Blacks, it was to be expected that A George Moses Horton (1797-1883) would appear to inveigh against tyranny and slavery. Born a slave near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Horton is considered to be the first Black to employ protest themes in a volume of verse. His Hope of Liberty (1829) ranged over the whole area of general and personal protest. The poet was first owned by a planter named Horton who later rented him in the service of a janitor to the University of North Carolina. Horton exploited the academic environment by reading the English classics and composing poems. Often called the first professional Black writer, Horton hired his poetic skill out to students who paid him rather handsomely for composing "personal" poems. His second book of poems, Poetical Works of George M. Horton, the Colored Bard of North Carolina, was published in 1845. 120 �Horton's hopes that he would gain enough money from the sale of his books to secure bis freedom were never realized; and he was not freed until Union soldiers arrived in 1865 when his last volume, Naked Genius, was published. Horton's themes are not devoted exclusively to protest and he has been criticized, along with Phillis Wheatley, Hammon and Vassa, for writing such lines as those that appear in "On Hearing of the Intention of a Gentleman to Purchase the Poet's Freedom": When on life's ocean first I spread my sail, I then implored a mild auspicious gale; And from the slippery strand I took my flight, And sought the peaceful heaven of delight. ••• •••••••• ••••••••••• • •••••••••• ••••••••• Hard was the race to reach the distant goal, The needle oft was shaken from the pole; In such distress who could forbear to weep? Toss'd by the headlong billows of the deepl Horton goes on to say that ''Eternal Providence" saved him when he was on the "dusky verge of deep despair" and when "the last beam of hope was almost gone." Yet Horton writes bitterly of slavery as well as lightly of love and humorously of life in general. Influences on his poetry are Byron, Wesleyan Hymnal stanzas, and other sources from books that he had read. In the poem from which the stanzas above were taken he pursues a rather monotonous iambic tetrameter meter. But in a poem like "Slavery" (published in The Liberator, March 29, 1834), he can vary the hymn pattern in the ·way that Phillis Wheatley does in ' 121 �her hymn-inspired works. The effect is almost ballad-like: When first my bosom glowed with hope, I gazed as from a mountain top On some delightful plain; But ohl how transient was the scene-It fled as though it had not been And all my hopes were vain. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Is it because my skin is black, That thou sbould'st be so dull and slack, And scorn to set me free? Then l e t me h as t en to t be grave, ~1e onl~ ref us e fo r t h o s l ave , Ubo mourns for liher t:.r. Also effective and sustaining in po1ver is "The Slave's C~mplaint" when features seven thre e-line stanzas with a final indented one word refrain: "Forever n which is followed by either question mark, colon or exclamat i on ~ar k . Horton handles well some of bis love poems and in "Th e Lover's Fare1-10ll" is able to touch base with that broad and painful understanding of what it means to say goodbye: I leave my parents here behind, And all my friends--to love resigned-'Tis grief to go, but death to stay: Farewell--I'm gone with love aHay! In this and other pieces Horton makes good use of dashes--which allow him to develop suspense and render his statemepts more 122 �dramatic. Because of its various uses, the dash has arrived as an important ingredient of modern and contemporary Black poetry. Contrary to many of his learned contemporaries and predecessors, Horton apparently consciously thought of, and worked toward, his freedom. This fact is reflected both in his life's work and his poetry. His own position, coupled with his sanguine delivery of folk wit and emphasis, can be seen in the following stanza from "The Slave": Because the brood-sows left side pigs were black, Who sable tincture was by nature struck, Were you by justice bound to pull them back And leave the sandy-colored pigs to suck? For appraisals and selections of Horton's works see Robinson's anthology, Collier Cobb's An American Man of Letters--George Moses Horton (1886), comments by Barksdale and Kinnamon, Whitlow's· study, Brawley's Negro Genius, Loggins' work, Redding's study, Richard Walser 1 s The Black Poet (1967), Brown's as~essment and Jean Wagner's Black Poets of the United States (1973). Horton, of course, trails and precedes a long line of orators and poets, many of whom we know very little about today. In fact, comparatively speaking, there is a wide disparity between the readily available insignificant information on white writers of the period and the lack of vital data on Blacks. We do know that the early decades of the 19th century witnessed a developing Christian and political consciousness among Blacks 123 i �and that most northern Black writers, intellectuals and educators turned their attention to the educational, physical and educational needs of free and enslaved Blacks. Of these and other matters, Mrs. Porter provides ample proof and discussion in Early Negro Writing. Occasional verse was also somewhat of a tradition among many learned Blacks as was the practice of writing hymns, psalms and other spiritual songs. One such recorded item is "Spiritual Song" by Rev. R~chard Allen, probably "changed or sung during the delivery of a sermon." Rev. Allen employs internal rhyme by repeating similar sounds in the middle and at the end of lines. Varying his meter and using an irregular end-line rhyme scheme, he expresses the religious fervor that consumed many Blacks of the period: Our time is a-flying, our moments a-dying, We a.re led to improve them and quickly appear, For the bless'd hour when Jesus in power, In glory shall come is now drawing near, He thinks there will be shouting, and I'm not doubting, But crying and screaming for mercy in vain: 124 •' �Therefore my dear Brother, let's now pray together, That your precious soul may be fill'd with flame. Another such example is a "New Year's Anthem" written by Michael Fortune and "sung in the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas" on January 1, 1808. Fortune's anthem is tra- ditional in its use of materials from Methodist hymns . He tells the congregation to "Lift up your souls to God on high" Who, with a tender father's eye Looked down on Afric's helpless raceZ Robery Y. Sidney composed two anthems "For the National Jubilee of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, January 1st, 1809." "Anthem I" begins: DRY your tears, ye sons of Afric, God has shown his gracious power; He has stopt the horrid traffic, That your country's bosom tore. See through clouds he smiles benignant, See your nation's glory rise; Though your foes may from indignant, All their wrath you may despise. This stanza is followed by a "Chorus, " "Sole" and "Recitative." In ."Anthem II" an abbreviate form is employed and Sidney drops the solo and recitative--keeping only the chorus: Chorus. Rejoice that you were born to see, 125 �This glorious day, your jubilee. Sidney also wrote a hymn which Hrs. Porter includes along with hymns by religious leaders Peter Williams Jr., and Williams Hamilton. Both men., using the English forms, celebrate freedom., call for mutual aid among Blacks and preach the virtues of the Christian God. Williams praises the "eloquence/Of Wilberforce" after whom a predominantly Black university was named in Ohio. For detailed information on sources for these and similar writings see Hrs. Porter's Early Negro Writing: 1760-1873. The collection includes two very touching examples of writings "On Slavery" and "On Freedom" by 12-year-old boys from the New York Ai'rican Free School established in 1786. In reading into the life and works of Daniel A. Payne (1811-1893), one is immediately struck by his dedication to the task of upgrading Blacks. Educator, university president, missionary and poet, Payne was born in Charleston, South Carolina of free parents. He was orphaned at 10-years-old, apprenticed to a carpenter and then to a tailor. ,Later trained in classical education at the local Minor's Moralist Society's school, he taught free Black students for a fee and slaves free of charge at night. Payne's travels took him to various places (New Orleans, Baltimore, Canada and twice to England) where he helped expand the programs of the African Methodist Church. Trained in the Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he was ordained in 1839, after preaching for several years, he was made an M.M.E. Bishop in 1852. In the political and educational spheres be helped urge Lincoln 126 �(on April 14, 1862) to sign the bill to emancipate slaves in the District of Columbia, and spearheaded the purchase of Wilberforce University--serving as its president for 16 years. Payne devoted most of his life to the cause of free and enslaved Blacks and to writing poetry and religious history. His Pleasures and Other Miscellaneous Poems was published in Baltimore in 1850. He also ,;. rrote . books on the history and mission of the A.M.E. Church. Especially valued for its social and intellectual insight into 19th century Blacks is Payne's Recollections of Seventy Years published in Nashville in 1888. As a poet Payne is erudite and imitative. Robinson correctly observes that a major problem with the poetry is "the repetition of end stopped lines, and his diction, a hybrid of classical and Biblical vocabularies, can prove distracting to many readers." Nuch of this we can forgive, however, when we understand Henry Dnrnas' remark that "a Black poet is a preacher." Certainly a preacher--in fact or as poet--knows very well the meaning of and need for repetition. convince us of bis seriousness. Yet Payne never fails to So hurt was he in wake of the 1834 South Carolina law that, effective in 1835, made Black literacy illegal, Payne wrote "The Mournful Lute of the Preceptor's Farewell.n We find bis enbossed concern for students in these lines: Ye lads, whom I have taught with sacred zeal, For your hard fate I pangs of sorrow feel; Ob, who shall now your rising talents guide, - Where virtues reig~ and sacred truths priside? 127 �Payne is a handler of the language, observing that "two revolving moons s:iall lj__s11t the shores" after tbe dread law 11 s11Ut the do ors 11 on cducat1. on for South Carolina Blacks. Engulfed in tb0 rclic;:i.oua and r1oral fervor of r,10.ny Black minist01 s of tbe period, the poet n nd orator reflects age-old 1 concerns about deceit a nc1 mistrust in sucb pieces as "The Pleasures." He complains that Men talk of LovoJ But few do ever feel . The speechless raptures uhich its joys reveal. Hen "mistake love, 11 Payne notes, For grovelling lust, that v:lle, that filthy dame, ·whose bosom ne'er ever felt the sacred flame For insight into Payne's life and works one could go to any one of his "considerable number" of writings. Among others, they include The Semi-Centenary and the Retrospection of the African Methodist ~piscopal Church (Baltimore, 1866) and The History of the A.H.E. Church (Nashville, 1866). .Josephus R. Goa.m's 1935 (Philidelphia) biography: See also Daniel Alexander Payne, Christian Educator, Robinson's comments and Brawley's Negro Genius. Unfortunately too little is known of romantic poet John Boyd, especially since his work reflects genuine gifts and talents. Boyd's poetic images are brilliant, sustained, searing and generally accurate even if they are not always 128 �connected in a way that makes them readily acessible. The only record of Boyd is made available by C.R. Nesbitt, EBq., Deputy Secretary and Registrar of the Government of the Bahamas. Nesbitt must have recognized the talent and the promise and he aided Boyd's poetry through publication in London in 1834. Boyd, it seems, was self-taught on New Profidence Island where he remained all his life. His poem "Vanity of Life" was published in the February 16, 1~33, issue of the Boston-based Liberator. His 1834 volume is entitled The Vision/ and otber/ Poems,/ in Blank Verse/ by John Boyd/ a man of Colour/. Practically unedited, the manuscript is what Robinson calls a "publishing scramble." Like most of the poets of the period Boyd's work owes debt to Milton, the Bible and classical influences. "The Vision/ a Poem in Blank Verse" is immediately reminiscent of Milton 1 s Paradise Lost. Boyd skirts a rhyme scheme but employs a f'airly regular iambic pentameter meter. All things considered, his work partially cancels the criticism by Sterltng Brown that Black poets lag in their stylistic awareness. opens brilliantly with: Me thought the Moon, pale regent of the sky, Crested, an:l filled with lucid radiance, Flung her bright gleams across my lowly couch; 129 "Vision" �And all of heaven's fair starry firmament Delightful shone in hues of glittering light, Reflecting, like to fleecy gold, the dewy air. In his "Vision" Boyd encounters characters of both the heavens and the hells. When the narrator, "dreamer" joined the train Fervent hosannas struck the astonish'd ear, As when in the midbour of calmest night, Stillness pervadeth the awakened wave, Roused by the secret power that moves the deep, It heaves its loud surge on the sounding shore; The nvision" is also peopled by "grim death and ghastly Sin" who "lay coiled, like snakes in one huge scaly fold," and consider their "inexpiable doom--." Boyd's tones are sacred and surreal and be assembles harmlessly complex subordinate clauses that help build an exciting linguistic crecendo as in "Ocean": 'When t he fiat of the most High, Thy fountains burst, a copiously 130 �Thy secret springs, with ample store, Pour'd forth tbeir waves from shore to shore Wide as the waters roll, oh, wave. Boyd's work has yet to be appraised in terms commisserate with its importance. Robinson makes brief but significant comments " on his poetry. Ann Plato, another romantic poet, is also one fpr 'Whom there exists little of the important factual data. This second Black American female to publish a book almost skirts the racial theme completely. Her Essays:/ Including/ Biographies and Miscellaneous Pieces,/in/ Prose and Poetry was published in Hartford in Hl41. What little is known of her comes by ~ of an introduction to her book which was written by Rev .. J.w.c. Pennington, pastor of the Colored Congregational Church in Hartford, of whicb she was a member. Except for her "To the First of August.," written in celebration of the 1833 abolition of slavery in the British West Indies., there are ~>nly allusions to slavery. Her book also contains essays on religion, mod- eration, conduct and other conventional themes. These same themes are pretty much paralleled by the 20 poems, in her book, which deal with home life, deaths of acquaintances and moral issues. "Reflections, Written on Visiting the Grave of a Venerated Friend" begins: Deep in this grave her bones remain, She's sleeping on., bereft of pain; 131 �The language and the subject matter are stock but "Forget Me Not," each stanza of which ends with the title, is well handled and has flashes of the preachment of self-control that Vassa alluded to in his verses: When bird does wait thy ab sence long, Nor tend unto its morning song; While thou art searching stoic page, Or listening to an ancient sage, Whose spirit curbs a mournful rage, Forget Me Not. Her interest in oral literature and the storytelling tradition is apparent in "The Natives of America" where sbe asks: "Tell me a story, father, please," · And then I sat upon his knees. Again, as in her contemporaries, we f'ind the inf]uences of English writers of a preceding generation or so, the debt to Biblical learning and much imitation. For brief' critical notes on Miss Plato see Robinson's Early Black American Poets. Another abolitionist-minister and orator-poet Elymas Payson Rogers (1814?-1861) who, after teaching public schools in Rochester, New York, took up pastoring in Newark, New Jersey. One of Rogers' students as a teacher was Jerimiah w. Loguen who later become an important social-religious leader and a Bishop of the A. H.E. Church. Fugitive slave Loguen's bio- graphy (see Negro Caravan) appeared in 1859# in Syracuse, under the title, The Reverend J.W. Loguen, As a Slave and as 132 �a Freeman. Known, as were many of the orator-poets, for reciting his poems orally, Rogers' themes are unashamedly abolition, Black betterment an::l political hypocrisy. Working politically on behalf of Blacks, Rogers apparently designed The Fugitive Slave Law (Ue1-1 ark, 1855) and Repeal of Missouri Compromise Considered (Newark, 1856) to be read aloud from platform. Like, James H. Whitfield, who came later, Rogers gave up hope in America's ever giving Blacks a fair deal and sailed for Africa where he died after contacting a fever a few days after be arrived there. His incisive no-holes-barred approach to the political climate and conditions of the time is seen in "On the Fugitive Slave Law": Lawl What is Law? The wise and sage, Of every clime and every age, In this most cordially unite, That 'tis a rule for doing rigbt. And the ringing cry of the elocutionist can be beard later in the poem when, in discussing the f'ugitive bill, he asks and answers: That Bill a law? the South says so, But Northern f'reeman answer, Nol Anticipating the fiery and torrential Whitfield (and 20th century "angry voices") Rogers continues: That bill is law, doughfaces say; But black men everywhere cry "Nay: We'll never yield to its control While life shall animate one soul 133 �At times biting and over-bearingly harsh as a poet, Rogers resounds in "The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise Considered" with these words: "I want the land, 11 was Feed om' s cry; And Slavery answered, "So Do IJ By all that's sacred, I declare I'll have my just and lawful share. The Northern cheek should glow with shame To think to rob me of my claim." With built-in drama and careful cuts, Rogers assessed the state of the nation during his time. In a line like nLawZ What Law?" he purposely begs the question in order to wring the emotional and rhetorical power from the words and to evoke responses from audiences. References to Rogers can also be found in Robinson's Early Black American Poets. Mathematician, poet, educator and Black community worker, Charles L. Reason (1818-1898) was born in New York City of Haitian parents. He attended the New York A.frican 'Free School 1vhere be later returned as a member of the all-Black faculty. Seeking the ministry, Reason was, for racial reasons, forbidden full time attendance at the Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Eventually, hm-rnver, be became eligible for a professorship in Na.thematics and Belle Lettres (181~9) at the New York Central College in l:cGrawville, Courtlandt County. William G. Allen and George B. Vashon were also on the faculty there. He held various educational jobs j_ncluding a princi- palship of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia 134 �ii~"- ' and grammar shcool No. Go in New York City wbi1e H. Cordelia Ray was a teacher tbcr o.. :S.eason ·was an intellectual and a scholar but was not blind to the practical needs of AfroAmoricans . He oppos ed plans to colonize Blacks, claiming instead that the7 ne eedod to pursue v ocational careers hers in America. AGain, not primarily a poet, Reason is competent as a poet in "The Spirit Voice" which opens with: Come! rouse ye brothers, rouse! a peal now breaks From lo1-1cst island to our gallant lakes: 'Tis summoning you, who in bonds have lain, To stand up r:i.anful on tbe battle plain, and urges Blacl:s to fi.ght for freedom and opportunity. The poem {whose complete title is "The Spirit Voice or, Liberty Call to the Disfranchised") is indebted to the rhyming couplet so famous during the era and which had been used with great skill by Phillis 1fueatley. It appears in William Simmons' Men of Mark (Cleveland, 180?). Like that of other orator-poets, Reason's work is designed to be read aloud in order to stir and move poeple to action. Therefore he exhorts, reinforces, demands, warns, admonishes and issues veiled threats. His "spirit voice" (see the idea of African Spirit Force) longs for the time when freedom's mellow light 135 �Shall break, and usher in the endless day, That from Orleans to Pass'maquoddy Bay, Despots no more may earthly homage claim, No slaves exist, to soil Columbia's name. The poem was written in 1841 and shows Reason's poetic abilities etched out under the strain of racism and the countless chores demanded of an educated Black of the period. Elsewhere ( "Freedom") he gave this familiar cry: 0 FreedomJ FreedomJ Oh, how oft Thy loving children call on Theel In wailings lond and breathings shoft, Beseeching God, they face to see. How reminiscent of and "not unlike" the Spirituals this burst isl Certainly the student of this peirod of Black poetry will want to keep his rhythmic lyres attuned to the Biblical and innovative cadences of those "Black and unknown bards.° For assessments of Reason see Robinson, Brawley and Kerlin. More of Reason's work appears in A Eulogy on the Life and Character of Thomas Clarkson (1847) and in Autographs for Freedom (1854). Anticipating the Afro-American poignancy and humor in this line by Langston Hughes, America never was America to me 136 �and this one by Lance Jeffers to make me more American than America James M. 'Whitfield (1823-1878) voiced some of the most powerful and angry protest yet heard in Black American poetry when he published America and Other Poems in Buffalo in 1853. Barber, worker for Black colonization, poet and pioneer journalist, Whitfield had earlier authored various types of writings: Poems in 1846; "How Long?" (published in Julia Griffith's Autographs for Freedom in Rochester, 1853); "Self-Reliance, Delusive Hope, and Ode for the Fourth of July" ( in The Liberator, November 18, 1853); "Lines--Addressed to Mr. and Mrs. J.T. Holly, on the Death of Their Two Infant Daughters" (In Frederick Douglass' Paper, February 29, 1856); and Emancipation Oration (San Francisco, 1867). Whitfield is known chiefly for America which was received so favorably that he was . able to leave his barber shop and devote full time to making speeches for the abolitionist cause, working for colonization programs and general Black development. He had personal contact with both Dourlass and novelist :rvrartin Delaney who called the 1854 National Emigration Convention of Colored Men which Whitfield attended. respected and admired Hhitfield. Douglass apparently But the two men differed on the question of colonization and participated in a lively debate. Pursuing his own position with vigor, Whitfield established the African-American Respository, in 1858, as a pro-colonization propaganda organ. Though born in Exeter, New Hampshire Whitfield 137 �spent most of bis life in Buffalo where he barbered and conducted most of his colonization efforts. He apparently died on his way to look into the possibilities of colonizing Black Americans in Central America. Delaney had changed his mind and the emigration scheme was never realized. Like most of the orator-poets, Hhitfield is writing to be heard, listened to and read aloud. Consequently much of his poetry (though not lacking in religious fervor) r~inforces bis ideology and negative views of America. America, the Sweet land of liberty becomes for Whitfield, "America" Thou hoasted land of liberty,-and To thee I sing becomes It is to thee I raise my song, Thou land of b lood., and crime, and wrong. Like Rogers., 1-Thitfield did not believe America was , capable of redemption; and., again like bis predecessor, he died on a journed to find something better. The 1.dea of "giving"· up on America would appear thematically in the poetry of later writers like Fenton .Johnson, Lee, Baraka and some of the Muslim poets. It would also be implicit in the expatriation of writers and artists such as Paul Robeson, Wright, Baldwin, Chester Himes and Katherine Dunham. In a driving iambic pentameter meter (in couplets), whish has all the openings for spontaneous interjections and expletives, ·wbitfield in "America," accuses 138 �the United States of killing the Black sons who fought for her and of general hypocrisy. Here one can see Whitfield anticipating current slogan, which Hayden makes use of in "'Words in the Hourning Time": Killing people to save, to free them? Though more general, Whitfield continues a similar assault {stating life is hell) in "The Misanthropist" but tones down to a reverent salute "To Cinque": . ' All baill though truly noble chief, Who scorned to live a cowering slave; Thy name shall stand on bistory 's leaf, Amid the mighty an:l the brave: Whitfield praises the revolutionary Cinque who "in :freedom's might" ,,' Shall beard the robber in his den; and ••• fire anew each freeman's heart. Since Whit.field's primary goal is to get a politi9al "message" over, his poetry, as art, leaves some things to be desired. Robinson points out that Whitfield "is genuinely angry" {despite the inf'luence of Byron) and that the bitterness and force in his work is not to be mistaken for romantic ori linguistic cosmetics. Lastly, we must note that Uhitfield expressed concern .for global oppression; quite modern in this, he served, more or less, as a chronicler of world turbulence and a harbinger of the direct and emphatic assaults that today's Black poets heap upon tyranny. He viewed the "Russian Bear" {reflecting 139 �on European despotism of the mid 1800 's) in his poem ''How Long?": I see the "Rugged Russian Bear" Lead forth his slavish hordes, to war Upon the right of every State Its 01-m af'fairs to regulate; To help each despot behind the chain Upon the people's rights again, And crush beneath his ponderous paw All constitutions, rights aril law. Selections of Whitfield's poetry can be found in the Robinson anthology, in Negro Caravan (1941), and in the Barksdale and Kinnamon text. Whitlow discusses Whitfield's poetry and im- pact as does Loggins, Brown, Brawley, Wagner, and Ruthe Miller (Black American Literature, 1971). The most popular Black 19th century poet before Dunbar was Frances E.W. Harper (1825-1911), the first Black American to publish a short story ( "The Two Offers," 1859). Born free in Baltimore as Frances Ellen Watkins, she was educated in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and spent most of her adult life in the cause of antislavery and other types of social reform. She worked in turn for the abolition movement, the Underground Railroad, the A.M.E. Church and the Women's Christian Temperance league. According to Dunn (The Black Press) she contributed to news and propaganda publications. Her reform work was slackened by her marriage to Fenton Harper in Cincinnati in 1860. But after his early death in 1864 she resumed her efforts, lecturing in all but two southern states and promoting Black �sel.:r-help programs. Her fame rested primarily on her Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects published in 1854 in Philadelphia. A vecy popular volume, it went through twenty editions by 1874 (William Still 's Underground Railroad, 1872). Her literary activity was stepped up after the Civil War and included Moses, A Story of the Hile which went through three editions by 1870; a volume entitled Poems came out in 1870 followed by a second edition in 1900; and attempts at prose f'iction including Southern Sketches {1872, enlarged in 1896) and a novel, Iola LeRoy, published in 1892. has not been located. Her first work, Forest Leave~, Critics generally agree that Mrs. Harper's poetry is not original or brilliant. But she is exciting and comes through with powerf'ul flashes of imagery and statement. Her models are Hrs. Hemans, Whittier and Longfellow, and so we f'ind an overwhelming influence from the ballad. In reading her poetry in public, Hrs. Harper was · able to appeal to what J'ohnson (God's Tronbones) called a "highly developed sense of' ' . sound" in Af'ro-Americans (see, again, statements by Rev. Allen and Vassa). She apparently kne1v her limitations, for Robinson tells us that her popularity ••• was not due to the conventional notion of poetic excellence, l1rs. Harper was fully aware of' her limitutions in that kind of poetry, it was due more to the sentimental, emotionfreighted popularity what she had given the lines wi.th her disarmingly dramatic voice and gestures and sighs and tears. �----------Up until the Civil ifa.r, ::irs . Harper's favorite themes were slavor~r, its harshness, and tbe hypocrises of America. She is careful to place graphic details 1-1'!:iere tbey will get the greatest result, especially when the poet-:-is are read a.loud. An example of t!1ls is f onnd in "The Slave ?-Toth er": Ho is not hers, for cruel ha~ds The onl~~ ~-rreath of household love ~"'tat binds ber breaking .h eart. A. similar pla:r on the emo tions is se en in poer.1s like "Bury He in a Free Land, 11 "Sone;s for the People," ''Double Standard" (with its stirrings of feminis1;1 ) ahd 11 The Slave Auction." A woman is not solely responsible for her "fall," she suggests in "A Double Standard" adding that And wha.t ls wr onG i.n a woma n's life In man's cannot be right . Highly readable nnd less academic in her use of poetic techniques and vocahttlaries, }1:rs . Harper is nevertheless quite indebted to the Bible for• mu.ch of her imagery and moral message. And she is able to merge and modify tho folk and religious forms in a poem like 11 Trnth II where she opens wi tb a debt to the Spirituals: A rock, for ages, stern and high, Stood frowning 'gainst the earth and sky, And never bowed his haughty crest When angry storr:1s around him prest. Morn, springing from the arms of night, �Had often bathed his brow with light, And ld.ssed t~1e sbe.dows f1•om 'his face w·i th tender love and gentle grace. Several religious songs are suggested here; but she also loves to return to the theme of women as she does in "A Double Standard" and "The Slave Hother." In the ballad "Vasbti" she tells of the heroine who dared to disobey her dictator-husband. The strength and determination of womanhood is expressed in the last two stanzas: She heard agaln the King's command, And left her high estate; Strong in ber earnest womanhood, She calmly met her fate, And left the palace of the King Proud of her spotless name-A woman who could bend to grief But uould not bow to shame. Certainly a comprehensive biographical-critical study of Mrs. Harper is long over due. Selections of her work can be found in Kerlin's critical anthology, in Negro Caravan, in Robinson's book., in :Hiller's anthology, in the Barksdale and Kinnamon anthology and in numerous other recent anthologies. Mrs. Harper's works are critically examined by Loggins., Wagner, Whitlow, Brawley., Bro·wn and Sherman (Invisible Poets: Black Americans of the 19th Century, ·1974). Like other writers, educators and activists of his day., �George B. Vashon (1822-1378) contributed to the influential Anglo-Af'rican I-l:agazine which was published intermittently between 1859 until the encl of the Civil War. Vashon had a good solid education--in classics and history--at Oberlin College whe1"e he received bis A.B. in 1844 and M.A. in 1849. Vashon, known chiefly for his "Vince nt ogi," which Sterling Brown tells us, "is the first narrative poem of any length by a Negro poet." Vashon distinguished himself as a teacher, lawyer, lecturer and 1,: riter. He Pl"acticed law in Syracuse, taught school in Pittsburg, served on the faculties of College Faustin in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, New York Central College (where he was a colleague of Reason and Allen) and Howard University in D.C. where he was a. ]aw professor. Huch of Vashon's poetry reflects debts to his strong education and the influence of Scott and Byron. All are seen in "Vincent Oge," ' inspired by the courageous (hut foolish) . ' . efforts of Vincent Oge, a Haitian mulatto who was "entrusted with the message of enfranchisement to the people of mixed blood on the island. n The order bad come down from the Con- vention in France, of which Haiti was a colony. Internal disruption in France (due to t he Rev olution, 1789-1799) had f echoed to its colonies in t h e Caribb ean ·wh ere Oge led a short-lived armed uprising that cost him his life when be was rei'used asylum in Spanish Santo Domingo and rem.anded to the French authorities in Haiti. As punishment and a warning to others, the French had Oge' tortured on the wheel and severed his body into four parts each of which was hung up in the four 144 ·I �leading cities of the island. ' Oge's followers were either put to death or imprisoned and their properties confiscated. ' example as was Whitfield by Vashon was as moved by Oge's In the lengthy poem, "Vincent Oge," ' Vashon 1mmor- Cinque's. ' talizes Oge in an admixture of classical and Biblical language, using a pleasant iar.:i.bic tetrameter meter and an over dose of dissonance in his rhyme scheme which features an alternating a b a b/ a a bb. The style is somei-11,at reminiscent of 1'IT11tfield who breaks his rhyme scheme (see !!America TT) after each group of eight or nine lines. "Vincent ogi II and . 11A Life-Day" were both printed in Autographs for Freedom for 1853. For Vashon, the struggle is very much alive, ' And Oge stands mid this array Of matchless beauty, but his brow Is brightened not by pleasure's play; He stands unmoved--nay, saddened not, As doth the lorn and mateless bird ' and Oge, dedicated to struggle, presses on. Vashon carefully weaves the graphic details of his protagonist's execution into the narrative and anticipates the more fire-tipped pens of later Black ( lynch.:.theme) poets sucb as .Johnson, IfoKay, Hughes, Brown and Dodsen: Frowning they stand, and in their cold, Silent solemnity, unfold The strong one's triumph o'er the weak-The awful groan--the anguished shriek-The unconscious mutterings of despair-- 14.5 �The strained eyeball's idiot stare-The hopeless clencb--the quivering frame-The martyr's death--the despot's shame. The rack--the tyrant--victim,--all Are gathered in t!-:la.t ,Tudgment Hall. Draw we a veil., for 'tis a sight But fiends can gaze on with delight. Freighted with emotion and terror like much of the wo~k of Mrs. Harper, and setting the stage for such awesome poem's as Wright's "Between the lvorld and Me, " McKay's "The Lynching.," Dunbar's "The: Haunted Oak" and Dodson's "Lament," Vashon's relentless . . narrative signals a new and sustaining power in the work of ' Black poets. Compare, for example, the last two lines of the stanza above to McKay's couplet in his sonnet "The Lynching": And little lads, lynchers that were to be, Danced round the dredf'ul thing in fiendish glee. Unlike McKay., however., Vashon cheers up at the end: Thy coming fame, OgeJ is sure; Thy name with that of L ' 'Overture, And all the noble souls that stood With both of you, in times of blood, Will live to be the tyrant's fear-Compare this ending., if you will, to the ending salute to "General Washington" by Hiss Wheatley. "A Life-Day" is a ' shorter poem, in three parts, and, like "Vincent Oge, is founded 146 ' . �on a factual event: the love-arfair and eventual marriage of a young white man and a light-skinned Black. For selections of Vashon's works see Autographs for Freedom and Robinson's anthology. For critical discussions sec the works of Brown and Brawley. As we prepare to move to the next phase in the development of Black poetry, it is important that we tarry long enough to pay brief attention to some of the Creole poets. ·We select Pierre Dalcour, Armand La.nusse (1812-1867), Victor Sejour (1817- 1874), Nelson Debrosses and Nicol Riquet. Somewhat of an anomaly in Afro-American literature and poetry, these Creole poets are nevertheless important if the complete portrait of this many-sided and complex tradition is to be understood. There is nothing typically American in their poetry--not even in terms of American imitators of English forms--and they rarely display any racial consciousness or concern for slavery and general injustice. Host were fluent in speaking and ·writing French and from that influence their wor·k derives a spicy melody and an unhibited treatment of romantic love and revelry. Huch of the work is also intimate and sophisticated in its use of conventions and materials gained from French educations. The Creole poets' works appeared as "the first published anthology of Negro verse in America" in a volume called Les Cenelles (Hew Orleans, 1845 ). In addition to French, the Creole poets also wrote in Spanisb, Latin and Greek and were generally from tbe wealthy land-owner class �and owned slaves. About Dalcour lj_ttle is known except that he was born of wealt11y pa.rents who sent hin::. to France in tbe early 1800's to receive a good education. Returning to Hew Orleans af'ter his schooling, be 1-ra.s unable to accept the racial temper and again took up residency in France. Hhile in 1Tew Orleans, however, he wrote a num1:,er of poems, one of which was "Verse Written in the Alhu1:1 of Eadar,1oj_selle. relives the 11 1t The poem touchingly vanlted skies" and "gentle flas b es II whicb, to the poet, are "less lo-vol:r 11 1-:hon see n a gainst tbe lady's eyes Beneath their brown lashes. Lanusse, Le r.enelles editor, contributed to New Orleans CTreole newspapers, L'Union and La Tribune, serv ed as a conscripted Confeder a.to ~oJ.dier in tbe Civil War, spent some time as principal of tb o Catholic 8cl~ool for Indigent Orphans of Color. He also encouraged literary and other artistic expression amonz; f ellm i artists and 8olici ted work for Les Cenellen. He eulogized h is brother, Hm·,ia, in tbe poem Tttrn ' ' . Frere/Au Tombeau de Son Frere," reca.lli n 6 t :i a.t "unf e lling death has cut you dmm." :rz:sew~Jere La.nusse refers to death as "some other band shutting ~,rour eyelids." Some·what naughtier and more poignant in ":Spigram," Lanusse gives the account of a trwoma.n of evil" Hh o uants to "renounce the devil" but, asks" Before pure grace takes rne in hand, Shoulcln't I show m~r daughter how to get a man?" �f Sejour lived most of his life in France and only returned to New Orleans for hr:tef visits to his mother. Son of a wealthy i'amily, he wrote several plays, 21 of which were staged in France and three in new Orleans in the 18,Sors. S~jour's literary abilities 1-rere praised hy napoleon III and he rubbed shoulders with major French literary personalities of his day. His scope is wider than some of the other Creole poets. His "Le Retour de Napo1Jon 11 ("The Return of Napoleon") is · an elegy and a celebration all in one. ' While eulogizing Napoleon, Sejour praises both his and France's triumphs and glories. poem of flowing, g·ra.phic exaltation. It is a Opening on the scene of a "sea" that "groans under the burning sun," he narrates the growth and collapse of France as a ·world power: And on and on she swept, an unleashed tempest wild, and France moved on ahead. :No more. All is over • ••• Yet, hail, O, captainJ Hail my consul of proud bearing. Admonishing France to ''·J eep, France, weep, 11 f Sejour reminds the country that "death has lightning struck the people's giant." Little is known about the personal life of Debrosses which, according to Robinson, "seems in keeping with his Haitian gained experience in Voodoo, aspects of which be practised in New Orleans." In Debrosses' "Le Re tour .au Village aux Perles" ( "neturn to the Village of Pearls"), be seems to anticipate what Waring Cuney sees through the "dishwater" in his poem 149 �"Images." The Creole poet returns to the village to find that Her spirit dances here and there in these enchanting places and to locate --that flower-bosomed grove again, the witness of our secret passion, and too, the cherished brook to which my soul would on this day confide its happy memory. A cigar-maker by trade, Riquet lived all of his life in New Orleans where he pursued a vigrous avocation of writing light verses. His "Rondeau Tiedouble/ Aux Franc Amis" ( "Double . . Rondeau/To Candid Friends") leaves no doubt that Riquet saw himself as at least serious in his avocation. A rondeau is a French-originated lyrical poem of 13, or sometimes, 10 lines. There are two rhymes throughout the poem and the opening phrase is repeated twice as a refrain. The form is remotely reminiscent of the blues arrl Spiri tus.1 f'orms of' Afro-American poetry. Riquet says that since his "candid friends are calling for a rondeaul" he and his "}fose ••• must work a wonder." Other Creole poets included Hichel Saint-Pierre (18? - 1866), Camille Threrry (1814-1875), Joann! Questi (18? - 1869 . compiled an Almanach of Laughter) and T.A. Desdunes whom Jahn says "is reminiscent of the Senegalese poet Birago Diop." The duty of the poet is to "rhyme in an uncommon way" or he will "earn the name of poetaster--from our candid friends." 150 �The Creole poets are examined and represented by selections in E. naceo Coleman's Creole Voices (Washington, D. c., 1945) and in Robinson's anthology . See also Charles Rousseve's The Negro and Louisiana (Xavier University Press, 1937), and the critical selection by Jahn. Lanusse and Lecour also appear in Hughes' and Bontemps' The Poetry of t h e Uegro (1949, 1970). There were other poets writing a nd publish ing during this same period. Hany of them published their works in ~ingle editions, and copies of some are no longer extant. Brawley refers to a poet known as "Caesar" who allegedly wrote but whose poetry is not available. are: Other poems and their collections Haria and Harriet Falconar, Poems on Slavery (London, 1788); James Hontgomery, James Graham, E. Benger, Poems on the Abolition of the Slave Trade (London, 1809); Anonymous, The West Indies and Otber Poems (1811); John Bull, The Slave and Other Poems (London, 1824); Rev. Noah c. Cannon, The Rock of Wisdom ••• To Which Are Added Several Interesting Hymns (New York,? 1833); Anonymous, "The Commemorative 1freath: In Celebra~ion of the Extinction of Negro 3 lavery in the Bri tisb Dominions (London, 1835); Anon~rmous, Anti-Slavery 1-Ielodies (Hinghar.1, Nassachusetts, 1834); George 1,n1i tfield Clark, compiler, The Liberty Mi nstrel (New York, 1844); William. Uells Brown, Anti-Slavery Harp (Boston, 1849); "A West Indian," Charleston, South Carolina: a satiric poem showing that slavery still exists in t h e country which boasts, above all otbers, of being tbe seat of liberty. (London, 1851); Sara-----------------Darkness Brought to ligbt (Derry, 151 �New Hampshire,? 1855); George ·H. Clark, The Harp of Freedom {New York., 1856); and Abel Charles Thomas, The Gospel of Slavery ( New York, 1864) • In 1860 Blacks represented population and were by 4,1~41., 830 l4. l % of strong. the United States The sour tastes left the worst internal social in.flagra.tion until the 1960 1 s and 70's, the problems of caring for and protecting the soon-to-be-released slaves, the need to develop and ate.ff educational facilit'les for Blacks, all engulfed Afro-Americans 1·n a deluge of h orror and hope. Although it is clear that the works of many poets leap the arbitrarily-imposed chronological boundaries, the temperments, themes, dictional preferences and limitations discussed generally hold for most of the poetry of the period. Despite the surprising successes, and the flashes of brilliance intertwined with mediocrity and comedy, the Black poet would labor long to remove "the image of a :face" that, in the words of Corrothers, "Lieth, like shadow on the wild sweet flowers. 11 The following poens are included as examples to enhance and possibly cla1•ify the for ego ing discussion on the "Imitation and Agitation" of '¼frican Voices In Eclipse." 152 � 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. Text Any textual data included in the document 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_08_02 Title A name given to the resource Copy of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Chapter III. The African Voice in Eclipse: Imitation and Agitation, p. 93-152 Relation A related resource Eugene B. 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