https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/d5462ee88da269a24a71e1b65dd3d1e2.pdf 351fed69aa89941320442c915cd1527a PDF Text Text 9ENtTAHI N CLARK WHAT I S A SLA 'JE ? A slave is- - vrha t ? Nothing , anc that alone ! Hi s ti me--his wif e -- And e ' en his life , . O't·Jn. He dare not call ,ti lS A sla ve is - -what ? Ah ! dead.ful lot I s his that ' s d oomed to toil Hi th out rec;ard , Or just re1:ard , U~on n~othcr ' s soil . A slave is - -wl-rnt ? Ah ! cr~ol t~ OUJ~ t, In con ~tnn t strife , A s lave is--w~at ? .A pe r f0ct nau:;1,t, Shor n of bL: lecal r t c;bt; And the~ co~pelled To work, h0 1 a held The, rciwant of h i.s 1 :i.fe . �HF.AT IS A 8L'\ 1 7F? (c on t'd) Or stolen f rom ~i mself, B:r Chr i s ti ans , rho T1,ls trad e rursne For s ordid , raltr~ pe lf. A s lave i s- -Hh at ? Throuc;h out tl i;; Hide doma i.n; 1 Tbrou gh '1,o rr a nd c len, For lucre-- cPrs ec. c;a ln! A slave is--w½at? I pra:' do no t I nsist; I cannot know, Or, paint er ' s art , Describe a slave -- ah , no ! A slave is--uhat? Tell I can not,-The ta 3k I wou ld not cr ave~ If you would know, 247 �BENJAMI N CLARK 1 ,THAT IS A SLA1JI:? ... (cont ' d) And he your se lf a slave! ,JOSEPH SEAHAN COTT:CR ANSWE R TO DWTBAR I S "A:7':r':J:::!1 A VIS IT 11 S o , yon be ' n t o o 1 e Ke n tu c k:r , An ' you want to g o ag ' in? Well, Kentucky ' ll doff her kerchief An ' politcl! ask you i n . An ' she 1 ll loosen fro m her g irdle Key s that fit t~e othe r c uph oar~s Of her hospitality. Not th at she ' s incllned tD t old ba ck With th e good , and g i ve the worst; But, you know, in all fair dealin 1 'W hat ' s first must he tbe first. So , when s1':i c t akes ke~r the se co nd An ' gives it a twist or two , Ofa~rl)e I ousht not say it) It ' l l 1,1ost ni gh startle :rou. �JOSE PH SEAHAN COTTr,R ANSW.JR .. TO DTHIBAJ. 11 S 11 APTF.n A VIS I T II ( cont I cJ) An ' tlrnn ke:rs t1,e tl1ird a :1d fourth , sir , (Hot to spea. 1-: of a l l tl-Je rest ) Wouldn ' t stop at crncJ.dri' , ntto ns , 1 And your happiness wou ld find , sir, A momentum then and t~ere , 'T.11,at rnt1.lc1 c o.rr:r 1 j t a-sueer,in ' Througb tlrn stro;11}1olc1 cf despair . Now, the gripp i n ' o ' t he ~and, sir , . .'\.n 1 the 1.1 el c o111e that :,.ou say Wa s so f irm and tru e an ' all that En s a ~: i.nd o ' curious ua:r . At the f i r c t it ' s s orter slow like , Ti 11 :i. t f orrn.s a leagne wi t11 :rot1 , Then i. t rnalrns a kind of circuit Tbat But jest thr:i.11s :,ron tl,.,ro ' and thro 1 • 7a~1 8 I had bettor Not d i s c uss this a f ter ma th , For it mig½t stir up your fe e l i ngs To th e ri c;h teous point of wratl1 , As you 1)rood o ' er wbat :rou lost , sir, �,JCSEPH SEAI'1AN COTTER ANStn::::R TO DUNBAR 1 S "AFTER A VISIT" (co nt ' d ) B:r not s tayin I wi tl1 ns longer . Ah, we ll, come to see us often, Ole Ken t ucky 1 11 make you str onger. So, :rou be 1 n to ole Kentucl¼.r , An t you want to go ac 1 i n ? Nell , Kentucky 's □ tandin ' wa iti n 1 ,Test to take yon 1-1h oll:r i_n , An 1 s1- 1 0 1 11 loosen her vast ; lrclle So that you can fully see All the roots, frults, leaves an 1 br anches JAHES EDWIN CANPB:2:LL DE CUNJAB ?IAN 0 cl.., i llcn ru n , de Cunjah n:an, Hi m nio uf ez 1,eec; o z fr:ri :1 ' pnn , P.ha :rur s a r.1 s mall , 11 i. L1 eye s a n1 rai d , Hi m 11a:) 110 toof een 11im ol ' ha id, H:i.m 11a'I-) ,~i r-1 roots , 'r\ L n 1:n ' k b lm trick, TTi 8 roll hin eye, him Llok yon si c k-- Do Cun:an man , de Cun,jah man , O c'!.1:i"2..le n ru n , de Cnn .~a11 r::,an ! �D"C CUN.TAT-I ~T.l'-;. }T (cont'd) Him hid it un ' de kitc~en sta 'r Mam ,Jude huh !)2,rs urlon g dat way, An ' now hu1.1 hah nr sna i k , de s ay. Hi rn -wrop ur roun ' '!,uh riudd:r t i gh t, Fu11 e:res p op out , ur orful s i g~ t-- De Cunjal-, r.1an , de C1 :ija1" Him r~ut nr root tir. ' "L i j2_lo f s ::an, 1 ~aicl, An ' Him stamp him foot urpon de groun'; De snaiks come cra:wlin', one by one, Me h y uh um hiss, me break an' run. �JAMES EDWIN CAMPBELL DE CUNJAH MA.N (cont'd) De Cunjah man, de Cunjah man, O chillen run, de Cunjah man! W.E.B. DU BOIS THE SONG OF THE SMOKE I am the smoke king, I am black. I am swinging in the sky. I am ringing worlds on high: I am the thought of the throbbing mills, I am the soul toil kills, I am the ripple of trading rills, Up I'm curling from the sod, I am whirling home to God. I am the smoke king, I am black. I am the smoke king, I am black. I am wreathing broken hearts, I am sheathing devils' darts; Dark inspiration of iron times, 252 �• .E.D. DU BOIS THE SONG OF THE SMOKE Wedding the toil of toiling climes Shedding tre blood of bloodless crimes. Down I lower in the blue, Up I tower toward the true, I am the smoke king, I am black. I am the smoke king, I am black. I am darkening with song, I am hearkening to wrong; I will be black as blackness can, The blacker the mantle the mightier the man, My purpl' ing midnights no day dawn may ban. I am carving God in night, I am painting hell in white. I am the smoke king, I am black. I am the smoke king, I am black. I am cursing ruddy morn, 253 �'11 .E.B. DU BOIS THE SONG OF THE SMOKE (cont'd) I am nursing hearts unborn; Souls, unto me are as mists in the night, I whiten my blackmen, I beckon my white, What's the hue of a hide to a man in his ~1ght1 Sweet Christ, pity toiling lands! Hail to the smoke k_ing , Hail to the black! PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR SYMPATHY I know what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springi~g grass, And the rivers flows like a stream of glass; When the first bird sings and the first bud opens. And the faint perfume from its chalice stealsI know what the caged bird feels! I know why the caged bird beats his wing Till its blood is red on the cruel bars; For he must fly back to his perch and cling When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; 254 �PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR SYMPATHY (cont'd} And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars And they pulse again with a keener stingI know why he beats his wing! I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flingsI know why the caged bird sings! A NEGRO LOVE SONG Seen my lady home las' night, Jump back, honey, jump back. Hel' huh ban' an' sque'z it ti ght, Jump back, honey, jump back. Hyeahd huh sigh a little sigh. Seen a light gleam f 'om huh eye, An' a smile go flittin' byJump back, honey, jump back. 255 �PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR A NEGRO LOVE SONG (cont'd) Heyabd de win' blow thoo de pine, Jump back, honey, jump back. Mockin'-bird was singin' fine, Jump back, honey, jump back. An' my hea't was beatin' so, When I reached my lady's do', Dat I couldn't ba' to goJump back, honey, jump back. Put my ahm aroun• huh wais', Jump back, honey, jump back. Raised huh lips an' took a tase, Jump back, honey, jump back. Love, honey, love true? Love me well ez I love you? An' she a.nswe 'd, "cos e I do"Jump back, honey, jump back. 256 �mIAPTER V A LONG WAYS FROM HOME Sometimes I feel like a motberless cbild, A long ways from bome; A long ways from home. --Afro-American Spiritual I OVERVIEW Tbo di 3rnpt i on of ch r o ncl o~r Hi.11 1--,c :no:,·,e. e vide n t chapter than in preceding ones. l n tr is This is so because poets of the same age do not always achieve recognition at the same time. We have looked at James Weldon Johnson, for example, but we mention him again in this chapter. In fact--for reasons to be shown--Johnson overshadows almost the whole of Black poetry. Melvin B. Tolson, born before Hughes and Cullen, will be viewed after them in the so-called post-renaissance period. Since the primary aim of this study is to "cite" the most significant names and events in the development of Black poetry, our approach to this ch~pter will follow the others in that criticism will remain minimal. From this point on, Black poets--and Black artists of all sorts-- begin being viewed alongside all other writers of the world. Appraisals of Black poetry, then, become a bit more dii'ficult since up until the second decade of the 20th 257 �!- ' century, the Black poet was seen as somewhat of a novelty. He was a subject for "curious" whites or of a few dedicated Black historians and critics. The Black writers, until the 1960's, had very little armament with which to fight critical or literary "lynchings." Their models were essentially white (some con- temporary Black poets continue this practice) and so were their critics. In the 1920's they became one of many "exotic" escape routes used by bored and thrill-seeking whites who w~nted to "engage their new Freudian awareness and forget the horrors of the war." In the post-Renaissance their skills were often directed towards integration and various other social programs. Their approaches were often scientific and fact-finding. The most incisive and continual blow to the Black poet is a disrespect and rejection that parallel the general treatment of Blacks. Criticism of Black poetry is invariably political and racial in concern--just as most of the poetry is forced to be. Some poets lament this because it implies that protest and anger are reserved for them. It also says that the whole • range of human behavior is somehow placed off-limits to the Afro-American poet, criticized by whites for not being "universaln and by some Blacks for not being "Blackn enough. Needless to say, it is a dilemma of some magnitude 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--unavoidable--plagues to the Black poet from this period on in our study. 258 �In this chapter we will go up to 1960. Many poets (Mari Evans, Lance Jeffers, James Emanuel, Ray Durem, Dudley Randall, Zack Gilbert, Bob Kaufman, Russell Atkins, Frank Horne, and others) were publishing in periodicals before poets who had been publishing books during the years before 1960 (Hayden, Gwendolyn Brooks, Conrad Kent Rivers, Hughes, and others) brought out new works sometimes reflecting different themes and attitudes. Poets who had been publishing substantially in periodicals or anthologiei before 1960 will be noted in pa.sing. There will be no attempt to give individual attention to the scores of Black poets writing and publishing in the 1960•s and '70's. II Literary and Social Landscape Night is a curious child, wandering •••• --Frank J\18.rshall Davis A. To 1930: In 1910 the population of Black America was 9,827,763; Langston Hughes was a boy of ten and the NAACP was one year old. By 1930, however, the Black population would have increased to 11,891,143 (or 9-7~); a major migration of Blacks to northern industrial centers would have taken place; racial riots would have scorched more than half a dozen American cities; the country would have engaged in and ended its first national war, 259 �and lynchings would continue to be among the most fearful prospects for Black men. Booker T. Washington had chronicled the hardships and bitter disappointments of Blacks in his Up From Slavery. The new "freedom" was short lived and illusive, Washington observed, because the ex-slave had no skill, no land and no place to go. "Emancipated II Blacks were not faring much better than their fore-parents. DuBois had begun to raise some of the broader, global issues of Black oppression and place the Black Experience in its proper perspective in The Souls of Black Folks. Durinc; the second and third decades of the 20th century, Black scholars, activists and writers continued to record tbe Black Experience with telling accuracy and drama. Addi tiona.lly, a number of chane;es and de~relopments in Black cor1muni ties Sf,t off a chn.in reaction of cross-examinations, intense debates, calls for c":an c;es and V1e ch arting of r.iew directions. Accordingly, the student ~ust understand the mod of the times in terms of: L The decline of Dunbar's influence amonc poets. 2. Failing support of Booker T. Washington's "accomadationist" philosopb:,r. 3. The continued disillusiomIBnt of survivors and heirs of tbe 4. 11 Reconstruction. 11 The development of white bate and intimidation groups (Ku Klux Klan, etc.) 260 �5. The continued presentation of "stereotypes" of Blacks in the mass media and creative literature of the period. 6. The "Jim Crow" laws of the south; job discrimination and general segre gation in the north. 7. The splits and confusion in the Black community due to the "new" middle-class; the appearance of West Indians in America and class alienment according to color stratification (i.e., lightskin, dark-skin, near-white, etc.). Much of the literature of the period deals with the theme of passing or miscegenation. 8. Race riots in various parts of the country between 1905 and 1917. On the general American scene, science and industry were developing rapidly. Indications of this were the radio, wireless, technological warfare and the automobile. The "new Psychology" was taking bold and tbe realism of the previous literature was bowing out to naturalism. This new mode is seen in the works of such writers as Theodore Drieser, Evelyn Scott and William Faul:kner. Interest in local color and dialect, which had dominated the later portion of the 19th century, was also dying and the Black American was "re-discovered" by white writers as a subject f'or r .e alistic fiction, drama and poetry. White writers who published popular accounts of Black life included DeBose Hayward, Sherwood 261 �Anderson and Carl Van Vechten. characterized American society. Revolts in interests and manners Black critic James A. Emanuel points out (Nesro Dlg0st/Black World, Aug., 1969) that during the 20's, many whites went to Harlem to 11 .forget the war and engage their new Freudian awareness by escaping into exotic black cabaret li.fe." l Hughes records this exotic indulgence in his autobiography, The Big Sea (1940). Numerous other Black writers recorded these white "diversions": McKay in A Lop_g Way .from Home and Johnson in Along This Way (autobiographies). Johnson also notes it in his novel The Autobioeraphy of An F..x-Coloured Man. Drame of the period was dominated by Eugene O'neill who won Pulitzer and Nobel prizes. Two of O'neill's plays (The Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape} symbolically dealt with the psychological involvement of Blacks and whites and suggested a transracial mixture of fear, hatred and admiration. The Emperor Jones and All God's Chillun Got Wings .featured major Black characters. Before O'neill, America had not pro- duced a first-rate dramatist. Ironically, _though, ,one of the vehicles .for O'neill's theones was a Black actor, Charles Gilpin, who starred in The Emperor Jones. Th e reviews and general interests in Gilpin' s per.formances ( "naked body ••• dark lyric of the flesh") atain typi.fied preoccupation with the exotic savage--a trend that had continued from Jack London (The Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wol.f) and the white writers of local color: Page, Harris, Cable and others. However, many of the writers, like O'neill and Dreiser, had begun to shake 262 �off the mystique of tbe American Dream and deal instead with "illusion." Such was Dreiser's theme in bis novel, An American Tragedy ( 1925). The founding of Poetry: A Mae;azine of Verse, by Harriet Monroe (1912) signaled the birth of the New Poetry movement in America. Most of the new work, including that of the Imagist poets, was showcased in Poetry. In 1915, the anthology, Some Imagist Poets, appeared to rival dissident factions which wanted to dispense with traditional forms. Ima.gism was in- fluenced by Ezra Pound's theories and French Symbolism as well as Oriental and ancient Greek poetry. Chief spokesman for the Imagist poets was Amy Lowell who was joined by John Gould Fletcher and Hilda Doolittle, among others. During the next two decades the group waged a successful battle against the dissidents; but they also re-worked traditional forms and cornered a new reading market for poetry in America and England. Poet Vachael Lindsay, an advocate of using rhythm and the reading aloud of poetry, is credited with baving "discovered" Langston Hughes. Black poets who participated in this "revival" of American poetry were the innovator Fenton Johnson and the anthologist William Stanley Braithwaite. The most significant development of the period, however, was the Black cultural flowering, principally in Harlem, which has become known as the Harlem Renaissance, the Negro Awakening and the Negro Renaissance. Central to the "renaissance" (critics differ over whether it should be called such) was the 263 �migration of' soutbern Blacks to northern urban centers. With the working-class Blacks also came (and grew) the Black intelligentsia, artists and activists. Current Black creativity or scholarship cannot be understood unless the Harlem Renaissance is placed in proper perspective because the Harlem period is the most important bridge existing between slavery and the modern and/or contemporary eras. Hence, it is necessary that we sketch out the important political and artistic developments which led up to (or happened during ) the Renaissance. A partial listing of' these developments must include: 1. Founding of' the Boston Guardian by Monroe Trotter (1901). 2. Founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1909) and establishment of The Crisis. 3. Founding of the Urban League (1911). 4. Founding of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History 5. by Carter G. Woodson (1915). Establishment of The .Journal of Ne gro History by Woodson ( 1916) • 6. Black troops involvement in World War I. 7. Great Migration of Blacks to northern urban centers (1916-1919; but the trend continued through the middle of the century). 8. The recording of Black achievements in all areas; Black scholarship is brilliant and sustained 264 �throughout the entire period. 9. The writings, especially, of W.E.B. DuBois, Charles s. Johnson, Alain Locke and James Weldon Johnson. 10. The high point in the influence of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (Garvey, who came to the U.S. from Jamaica in 1916, preached a back-to-Africa movement. He was imprisoned in 1925 for mail fraud.) 11. Founding of Opportunity, A Journal of Negro Life (1923; Opportunity and The Crisis published much of the new work of the Renaissance poets and prose writers and offered annual prizes). 12. The flourishing of Black Music and musical dramas (Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake do Shuffle Along, I •i .,. 1921; Louis Armstrong, with his own band, opens I at the Sunset Club, Ch icago, 1927; Duke Ellington opens at the Cotton Club, Harlem, the same year). 13. The post-war Pan-African Congresses (Paris, 1919; London, 1921, 1923; New York, 1927; DuBois wa,13 primary organizer.) James Weldon Johnson edited the first ..., anthology of Black poetry, The Book of American Negro Poetry 1rf ,. , 1922. Johnson's work was followed in quick succession by five other poetry anthologies: Negro Poets and Their Poems (Robert Thomas Kerlin, 1923) 265 �..., An Anthology of American Ne gro Verse (Newman Ivey White and Walter Clinton Jackson, 1924) An Anthology (Clement Wood, 1924) Negro Songs: Caroling Dusk (Countee Cullen, 1927) Four Negro Poets (Alaine Locke, 1927) Of' note also was F.F. Calverton's An Anthology of American Negro Literature (1929) which contained 60 pages of poetry. Cn l l e n J.110 L oc ke u crG t wo of t 1-rn ;,: a5or f:! ~·ur e s of t 'he Farl e m Jean Toomer. Locke edited the anthology which heralded and chronicled the new Black mood and achievements: The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925), :-:l1 5. c 1 ' r emains a classic today. He also wrote the equally important A Decade or Ne gro Self Expression (1928). A Rhodes Scholar from Pennsylvania, Locke received a Ph.D. in 1918 from Harvard and is still considered as the foremost interpreter of Black creativity of the Renaissance. Cullen published Color, his first book of poetry, when he was 22 and instantly reco gnized as one of the b est young poe~s in America. Like Claude Nclfo~r, Cullen urote in t h e n ore formal tra.di tion of English poetry. Considered t h e be s t "formal" writer of the Renaissance period, Cullen was meticulous and careful in his poetic workmansh ip. 20 's who went to 11 IIe was a mons t h os e Black writers of tbe S:'he De.rk Tower'' to 1Trood over be in c; called "Negron !:)oets. In addition to Cul l en, other key poets of t h e Harle~Awakening also published i mportant v olu~e s or antholoGies and 266 �added to the creative and critical flutter. Joh nson and his brother, J. Rosamond, edited The Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925) and The Second Book of American Negro Spirituals ( 1926). America. JlticKa~r published poetry in England and Johnson said lfoKa.y belonged "to the post-war group and was its most powerful voice. poet of rebellion. n He was pre-eminently the Hughes and Cullen won national (and poetry awards) at about the same time. the comparison ends. There, however, Hughes was one of the widest traveled of all the renaissance writers. He was also the most prodig1oua and multi-talented, writint; successfully in all genres. Hughes. who when he died in 1967 was the widest translated American author, is known as the international poet laureate o.f Black people. Johnson recorded much of this creative outpouring in various ways. As a scholar, he is known for his anthologies and his seminal interpretations of Black cul ture--music and the Spirituals in particular. Of great importnnc~ was his 1922 anthology- wherein an illuminating Preface, he cited the four major Black artistic contributions to America: l. The Uncle Remus stories, collected by Joel Chandler Harris. 2. The Spirituals ("to which the Fisk Jubilee Singers made the public and the musicians of both the United States and Euroep listen 11 ) . 3. The Cakewalk (a dance which Paris called the "poetry of motion"). �4. The Ragtime ( 11 American music II for which the U.S. is known all over the world). Johnson is also noted for his work with the U.S. diplomatic corps, his pioneering work with the NAACP and his brilliant employement of Black idioms and psycholog,J in his poetry and discussions. "Lift Every Voice and Sing, 11 called the Black national anthem, was written by him in 1900. One of the most unique voices of the Harlem Repaissa.nce, however, was Jean Toomer, who along with HU[shes, Cullen and McKay make up Lock's Four Negro Poets. A complex of person- alities, talents and racial mixtures, Toomer was a constant enigma to critics and fellow writers. Although he admitted that he was of seven racial strands, he acknowledged that 11 my growing need for artistic expression has pulled me deeper and deeper into the Negro group. was published. 11 In 1924, Toomer's Cane Set primarily in the deep south--in Georgia-- it also deals with the urban impact on migratine; Blacks. Love, racial conflict, sex, violence, relie;ion, nature ~nd agrarian themes are all explored directly and allegorically. Race pride, the lower side of Black life, and a romantic engagement with Africa were the main thrusts of the renaissance literature. activists. So too with the painters, musicians, scholars and Garvey had set up a reeal court reminiscent of ancient Af'rican Kine;doms and had infused his followers with visions of returning to the 11 homeland. 11 His "court" was resplendent with hierarchical titles and lavish regalia for 268 �I for parades. ships. Black Star Line was t h e name of l1is fleet of The prevailing spirit of the day was one of Black indulgence and many whites sought for, and · got their share of, it. The Black Awakening was not t h e exclusive property of Harlem. For as Kerlin points out ( Preface, Negro Poe_!;a a Their Poems), the mood of change spread to other sections ot the country. Some of the re g ional or community anthologies published were: The Q.uil~ in Boston, Black Opals in · Phila- delphia and The Stylus in Washington, D.C. Important, too, were the collections and studies of folk songs. "Noteworthy. collections for tre period included: Negro Folk Rhymes (Thomas W. Talley, 1922) Tbe Ne gro and His S onc;s (Howard W. Odum, 1 925) Ne gro Workaday Song s (Howard W. Odum, 1926) Rainbow Round My Sh oulder (Howard w. Odum, 1928) Wings on Hy Feet (Howard W. Odum, 1929) American Ne gro Folk Songs (Newman Ivey Wh ite, 1929) Other brilliant and exciting poets and writers shared the Renaissance scene--though they are normally over-shadowed by Hughes, Toomer, McKay , Joh nson and Cullen. Some of these writers--most of wh om did not publish volumes until the later period--were: Arna Bontemps, Geor g ia Doug las Johnson, Waring Cuney, Robert Hay den, Gwendolyn Bennett, Sterling Brown, Owen Dodson and Melvin Tolson. Prose writers of the period included Eric Walrond and Rudolph Fisher as well as Hu gh es and Toomer. Bontemps, antholog ist, critic, lib rarian, poet and novelist, 269 , �published in leading magazines of t he period and won numerous awards for poetry . Brown pursued tbe fold tradition wh ile cultivating an ear and technique that rivaled some of the best · modern poetry. His debt to fol k idioms and characters is ob- vious in such po ems as 11 ody s s ey of Bib Bo~r, n "Memphis Blues," and "Long Gone." 11 S outh ern Road," Brown contributed to peri- odicals of the period, wrote a re gulnr column for Opportunity, and later pub lish ed i mportant critical studies. Dodson wrote verse plays and collab orated with Cullen on at least one writing project. and poetry. He too won numerous awards for h is plays Hayden and Tolson, b oth s i e nificant modern poets, were to be heard from in succeeding dec ades as critics and outstanding teach ers. B. 1930 - 1960 1:l ben t h e stoc k mar ket era.sh ed in 1929, white patronization of Blac k artists ended. Blac k creativity and scholarship, · however, bad grown up during the frist t hree decades of the r.t '4 l ,;,. century, and i mportant writing and mus i cal de velopment continued. , i'<;J; • Migration of Blac ks to north ern urb an centers was stepped up before and after World War II--wi t h many Blacks being attracted by shipbuilding and oth er war manufacturing industries. Afro- Americans have participated in every U.S. military conflict 1. t \. The wri tj_ nc of :"" oetr~~ c o·1t :t nued but pub lishing slowed down • .James o. was Young, in Blac k Writers of t h e Thirties (1973), notes t h at "Black writers produced less t h an one 270 �since Colonial days. During World War II and Korea, however, they were used almost exclusively a.s f'ighting troops (between 1943-45 Jim Crow as abolished in the Armed Forces). Nevertheless, Black soldiers, returning home fro m European and Pacific war theaters, still faced unemployment and lynching; and in some southern cities were f'orbidden to appear on the streets in military uniforms. Baldwin is one of many perceptive American writers to note that Black men, seeking the f'ruits aqd the realization of the American Dream, tried throughout history to adjust a.nd "fit" into American society. So, in face of official American contempt for his humanity and his welfare, the Black soldier marched also with an "equality" of' death into the Korean War. 2 James Weldon Johnson had opened the dismal period of the Depression with Black Manhattan, a social history of Harlem. Black Manhattan was one of the dozens of' studies on urban Black communities which had been begun by works such as DuBois' Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (1899). Like .Johnson, many of the poets and artists turned their writing skills toward the recording of Black social problems and artistic achievements (e.g., Johnson's Black Americans, What Now? and Charles S. Johnson's The Shadow of the Plantation, bot'!:1 in 1934). Some volume of poetry per year hetween 1929 and 1942." 2. This turned out to be not so true in the Viet Nam war of the sixties when a dead Black veteran was refused burial in a white cemetary near his home in Georgia. 271 �o:f the writers were subsidized by WPA grants wbile others managed to obtain jobs as teachers and journalists. like the common folk, walked the soup lines. Others, It was during the period of 1930-60 that white schools o:f higher learning started accepting more Blacks, as students and teachers. Generally, America witnessed rapid advancements • in science and industry. Radio drama became a cultural mainstay and the motion picture industry provided a new and exciting diversion. Baseball continued as tbe 11 national pasttime" {for Blacks, it was the era of Jackie Robinson). Jack Johnson had already {in tbe previous era) dazzled America with his pugilistic skills. {the But it was the prize fighter Joe Louis 11 Brown Bomber"), however, who captured sports-minded America with one of the greatest records in the boxing history. Louis's defeat of German Hax Schmeling (193 8 ) came at a crucial time in U.S. history--when America's rising might among the world of nations wo.s being challenr-;e d on the battlefield by Hitler. Two yes.rs earlier, a racist Hitler had refused to acknowledge the feats of America's Black Olympic track star Jessee Owens. In prose and drama, white American writers continued to straddle a thematic pathbetween realism and the American Dream. A distinctl~r 11 post-wa.r II sroup of writers emerged. Domina.ting the period were Dreiser, Sberwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, Willa Cath er, Thomas Wolfe, 0'ncill, William Faulkner, Ernest Hc nin gway, Tennessee Williams, Jo11n Dos Po.ssos, Katherine Anne Porter, Erskine Caldwell and Co.rson HcCullers. 272 Using �syniliolism and alle gory to attack war, de cadence and the atomic bomh, A.merican wr5_t or s o.ftc n took as n:od. e ls such Russ inn writers as Chekov , Dostoevski and Tolstoi, r:tr e ::-,:;1 ;__,f Me ny employed t h e co n::::c: -..J P ;--·c :-:::i t e cbnique --a st:;"!. e i n.fluenced 1):r t be "new psycholo s··y 11 a nd Irj_sh writer James Jo:rce--wh ich al lowed for uninterrupted explorations on t h e t li on 0b ts of characters who "streamed II their referG nces. A si rnila.r r.:iood pre vailed in the poetry--much of wh icb dealt witll s ocial dect\dence, war a.nd the mechanization of uan. E .E. Cumminc;s, known for h is typo- graphical trickery and general linguistic a.nd s y ntactical experiments, was one of t h e most relentless critics of bureaucracy and war. Such t h emes h ad nlso concerned T.S. Eliot, considered one of the greatest modern poets, in such poems as "The Love Song of J. Alfred Pro.frock II a.nd Th e Waste Land. The Ima.gist poets persued t h eir development via such voices as "H.D., 11 Ezra Pound and Harianne Moore. Oth er modern poets were Conrad Aiken, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, .A rchibald HcLeish, Hart Crane, Joh n Crowe Ransom, Allan Tate, Richard Eberhart, Randall Jarrell, Rob ert Frost and Carl Sandburg. Crane, Eliot, Pound, W. H. Auden and Stevens h ave been called the amjor voices of t he modern American Poetry . Historically, Black Music had been marked by white imitation and exploitation. 11 Th ere always exists the need to create a wbite" musical face t hat can be di gested by Americans at large. From the minstrelsy of plantation day s to t h e sophisticated operettas and musicals of th e twenties, t h is pattern ran un- 273 �i broken. During the modern period, Be Bop became the musical heir to Ragtime, early Jazz and Tin Pan Alley. ·w11ile tbe big band and Black composers--Basie, Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, w.c. Handy, Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, etc.--continued their important work, different kinds of experiments were going on among other musicians. From these new for mations and probings came some of' the giants of modern Black Music: Miles Davis, Charlie ''Yard Bird II Parker, Lester "Prez'.' Young , Sonny Rollins, Gene Ammons, Art Blakey (wh o studied drums in Africa), Ornette Coleman {see Four Lives in t h e Be Bob Business), Chane Pozo {Af'ro-Cuban), Dizzy Gillespie and Bab s Gonzales (Bop poet and singer: I Paid My Dues, 1967). From t h e musicians and their supporters emerged an underc;round 11 h ip" language. This tradition, of' talking in metaph ors and encoded cultural neologisms, had be gun during t he renais s ance. vocalists were featured with t h e musicians. Often, too, Black Some of these song stylists were Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaugh n, Billie Holliday and Bessie Smitb --wh o died in 1937. The migration to cities also sa~ the continued rise of urban or bi g city Blues. By 1960, h owever, t h e Blues h ad gone t hrou gh several important periods of de velopment. Some names associated with the modern period were Louis Armstrong , Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Bill Broonzy, Pops Foster, Eddie "Son" House, Robert Johnson, Johnny Temple, Roosevelt Sykes, Elmo James, B.B. King, Leadbelly, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Josh Wh ite, Sonny Boy Williams, Howlin' Wolf, Joh n Lee Hooker, Li gthnin' Hopkins and Big Joe Turner. These men inh erited t h e flames be gun by 274 �Leroy Carr, Blind Lemon Jefferson and W.C. Handy. Several notable Black literary explosions occured during the period between 1930-60. Important were: the publication of Native Son (Richard Wri ght, 191tO); the publication of For My People (Margaret Walker, 1942); the appearance of Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison, 1952) and the winning of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry (Gwendolyn Brooks, 1950 for Annie Allen}. Nati ve Son , a novel, featured a Black protagonist named Bigger Thomas who symoblized (and in many ways contained) the anger, ra ge ind pressures felt b y urban Blacks. Th e b ook was the first by a Black author to make t h e best seller list and was also a book of the month club choice. DurinG t h e same period Wright, who died an expatriate in France in 1960, published several other novels, short stories, books of essays and miscellaneous prose. appeared. In 1945 Black Boy, his autob iography Wri ght is si gnificant for many reasons, fore most among them being t hat he was the first Black writer to deal, ' accurately and on par with the be s t fiction writers of the ~ day, with the philosophical and psy ch ological complexity of the Black urbanite. In doing t h is, h e opened a new ran ge of possibilities and ehlped free Blac k fiction in many ways. There were other excellent fiction writers durin g this period: Rudolph Fisher, 7ora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Hu ghes, Arna Bontemps, Ann Petry, DuBois, Frank Yerby , Eric Walrond, Chester Himes and Sterling Brown. Wri gb t, h o·wever, was the first to for ge and sustain a major Black art piece out of mythical and racial materials in a. wsy that no other writer bad. 275 �Baldwin, whose reigh succeeded Wright's, made his entry in 1953 with the publication of Go Tell It On the Mountain. His other brilliant work includes Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Giovanni's Room (1956). Miss Walker, a Mississippi housewife who teaches literature at Jackson State College, was 22 years old when she wrote "For My People"--one of the most famous Black poems. Her book by the same name won the Yale Series of Younger Poets- award in 1942. Rich in cultural folk references, Black phonology and social history, the slim book brilliantly traces the hope, humor, pathos, rage, stamina and iron dignity of the race. The winning of the Pulitzer Prize by Gwendolyn Brooks (and Ellison's accolades) told the world that Black writers bad mastered the "ultimate" English literary crafts of poetry and fiction to a degree which no longer called their abilities into question. Many Black critics feel, however, that there were excellent volumes, before Annie Allen, which should have received the Pulitzer Prize. These critics say Black artists, like the Black Experience, come periodically into fashion (e.g., Harlem Renaissance)--to be tolerated at the whims of white literary bastions, despite their proven abilities. The citation of Miss Brooks (who published A Street in Bronzeville, 1945) was a citation of the Black Experience, however--despite the fact that the prize was not a major announcement in the Black community. Blacks, caught up in the post-war mood, job- searching and a quest for social equality, were not reading 276 �much poetry. Ellison, who bas not published a novel since Invisible Man (1952) remains one of t h e most controversial figures in American Literature; much of the controversy arising from what he says outside of fiction (see Introduction). Communist-oriented papers generally condemned Invisible Man when it first appeared. They held t hat it was a "dirt throwing" ritual for Ellison--who comb ines naturalism and complex symbolism in the book. Black novelist John Oli ver Killens also gave it a ne gative re v iew. Generally , h owever, t he work is considered, by Blac k and wh ite critics, to b e a great novel-perhaps the greatest American novel. It won t h e National Book Award in 1952 and in a subsequent poll of 200 journalists and critics, it was judged the most distin guis h ed single work of fiction since World War II. Enflamed by t he sp i rit and example of t h e Harlem Renaissance, Black poets of the pre- and post-war y ears continued exciting experiments. Miss Brooks r e calls t b at a brief encouragement from the "great 11 James Weldon Joh nso n wh en s h e was · a ch ild spurred her on her way . Some of t he poets of t h e renaissance, however, quit writing alto i:;eth er or be gan writing in anoth er genres. J ollns on reported in 1931 t ha t Fenton Johnson h ad been 11 silent 11 for ten years. Poet Bontemps also wrote novels--the most famous of them being Black Thunder (1939), an adaptation of the 1 831 Nat Turner-led slave re v olt. He edited and wrote, and sometimes collab orated wit h oth ers on anth ologies and biographies for youn g readers. 277 With IIue;h es, he edited The �Poetry of The Negro: 1.764-1-949, c nn ~d-t:.e red a break through in modern Black literary activity. One of the handful of Renais- sance Black writers to survive into the Seventies, Bontemps died in 1973. Sone have called the period 1-')etween 1930-54 the age of Lanr,s ton Hughes 5-n Black letters. Indeed, Huc;bes remained prominent and productive t!u•o u 0h out tl1e t!1ree periods-Renaissance, 19J 0-5L~, o:na. the Contempora.ry era. Dur inc; the pre- and post-ws.r periods, Huc;hes continued to turn out everything fro m newspaper fictio n columns (Jesse B. Simple) to juvenilia to plays. Hughes in poetry, like Wri e;ht, Ellison and Baldwin in ½rose, faithfully recorded the Black mood. Like the others, h e also predicted t h e social violence of the sixties. Poets and other volurr..es of the period include: Sterling Brown, Southe~n Road (1932); Cullen, The Medea and Some Poems (1935); Hayden, Heart-Shape in the Dust (1940}; Naomi Long l'-18.dgett, Songs to a Pha1,tom Nightingale (1941}; H. Bings Diamond, We 1rJho Would Die ( 1943); Tolson, Rendezvous With America (1944); Dodson, Powerful Long La.E§e~ , (1946); Cullen, On Tbese I Stand (posthumously, 1947); Hayden, with Myrom 0' Higgins, The Lion and the Archer (1948); Tolson, Libretto for the Republic of Liberia (1953); Selected Poems of Claude McKay (posthumously, 1953); Ariel W. Holloway, Shape Them into Dreams (1955); John C. Morris, Cleopatra and Other Poems (1955); Alfred Q. Jarette, Black Man Speaks (1956}; Beatrice Wright, Color Scheme (1957); 1-fary Miller, Into the Clearing (1959); Percy E. Johnston, Concerto for Girl and 278 �Convertible (1960); Oliver Pitcher, Dust of Silence (1960), Gwendol"'rn Brooks, T:1e Bean Eater (1960 ); and Dodson, Th e --------- ~ Conf es::: ion Stone (1 960 ). -- Also writing and/or translating during this period were Dudley Randall, Samuel Allen (Paul Vesey), Margaret Danner, Richard Wrigbt (who also wrote poetry), and many others. Black and white poets exchanged ideas and socialized, as Black and white intellectuals had done throughout mos·t of the history of America. Many of the Black poets of the period, consequently, were introduced to publishers and the reading public by well-known white poets or critics. Such a practice was to come under fire, during the late 6o•s and 70's, by some Black poets and critics who felt that whites could not judge on Black writing. Reviews of the period were generally favorable to the Black writers who showed great finish in their work. Hayden, Walker, Brooks, Tolson and Dodson were among the poets who received high praise for their technical virtuosity. Stephen Vincent BenJt wrote tbe forward to ·Miss Walker's For My People, Allen Tate to Tolson's Lihretto For the Republic of Liberia and Hayden won Hopwood Awards twice and accolades for Poetry: A Magazine of Verse--regarded as the white American olympus of poetry. One of the most important anthologies of the post-renaissance period was The Negro Caravan, (1941) edited by Brown, Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses Lee. Tbe best inclusive anthology of Black literature, it remains today one of the outstanding textbooks. 279 �Brown also published two important wor ks of criticism, The Negro in American Fiction and Ne gro Poetry and Drama, b oth in 1937. And J. Saunders Reddin g published his critical work, To Make a Poet Black, in 1939. Anotr er item of i mportance was the establishment in 1940 of Phy lon with the venerable W.E.B. DuBois as editor. In 1954, 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 Black 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 b een more than just a hint at the wh at was to come. Wright would witness some, but not all, of the ingredients of Pandora's box, as b is death would occur in 1960. But when a Black woman in Montgomery refused to c ive her seat on a public but to a white man, a new era of Black struggle was born. A successful boycott of buses was led by Martin Luther King , Jr., founder (in 1957) of the Southern ' Christian Leadership Conference. Like flesh-fla mes, hordes of young Blacks (and some wh ites) be gan sit-ins and various other "in's" as the Freedom cry reached a new pitch . This was the ges- tation period for t he Congress of Racial Equality and the Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. White youth took to television and swayed to the rhythms of Chubby Checker, the Chantells and the Five Satins. But as America "twisted the night away" another and different mood, expressed through a 2 80 � 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_05 Title A name given to the resource Copy of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Chapter V. A Long Ways from Home, p. 246-280 Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B.