https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/cb2e35d7b15c39f0f46a976d860bc966.pdf fe4dd022507740f7ba61f7d9fb7eca27 PDF Text Text rent voice, was bugg ing t h e rim of the "dream." And we were not yet "Bey ond the Blues." III THE POETS AND THEIR TOTEM Good mornin', blues, blues, how do you do? -- Leadbelly A. The Coming Cadence: Pr e - :1.eiw.issanc e Voic es As th e 20t~ ce ntu r y c ontinu ed to open its bewi l der ed ( some say "sh ocked ") eyes , al 1 s or ts of che. n13es we r e occuri ng-not t h e l ea s t a monc th ere in Black poetry and the arts. With the inc reas e i n t~ e nu~1e r of publ i cat io ns tak inG their work (due to t he pionoer i nr, efforts of Du n½ar , Car r oth ers, Campbell, Cott er, Sr ., and ot~ers ), Blac k poe t 3 c ou l d at l e as t a ntic i pate hav i ng t heir work read 11y wh it e ed i. tors . l'Ia ~1y of t h e poets i-rr i ting i n the f irst and se c ond de cades of the century would never be heard f r om a ga i n; h u t a few would he coffie "mi nor" li ghts of t h e Har l.2; m Ren a i s s ance . Th e poets i:rnrked l n a sur- prls ing d i ve r sity of styles , lineui stic-b e nts , t he mes, temperame nt s a nd a c e cate g orie s, and came from prac t ically every cor ner of t he United States , t h e West I nd ie s and South Amer ica. Among th e early p o ets were Kelly Mil ler (1 863- 1939 ), Les li e Pi nc k ney Hi l l (1830- 1960 ), Charle s Bertram Johnson (1800- ), Be nja~i n Brawl ey (1882- 1939 ), Raymond Garfield • 2 81 �) , James Da ndrid co (1 882 -193 0 ), Otto Lee Bohanon ( :Sduard I:1cCall (1n 8C- ), Anc015-na Held Grin:1'::e (13 D0 -l950:), J33sie Redmond Fauset (1 132-1<)61), Wal ter Everette Hawkins ) , i'Trs . Sarah Lee (Brown) Flem:t n:3 , Leon n. Harris ( 1033(1 80 6- ) , Effie Lee N01-rnome (l l305- ) , 1-!alter Adolpl1e nob ert8 (1 88 6-1965), Eva Alherta Jessye (1 8 97- ), Georcia Douglas Johnson (1 2f 6-1 966 ), Theodore Eenry Shackelford (lCSIJ-J.923), I\oscoe C. J amlso n (1 8/"3 6-l C)l'."' ), Cl:arles 1Hlson (1885- ) , 1:r s . Ifae Smi tl~ Jobnson (l 190- !razafker•iofo (1 295- ) , Andrea ), Be nja min E~e~azer Burrell (1292- '.!illiam Edgar Baj_ly ( ), ), Josep 1, Se a mon Cotter, Jr. (1 195-1919), Clarissa Scott Dela □ ey (19 01-1927), and scores !Jore. Eajor poeti.c contr1-h1.1tions Here t,m de b:r Tames Weldon ,fo), nson, Fenton ,Tol·rnson, Cotter, Jr. ( cut down to early to deve lop his promise) and a few ot~ers; yet it is i mportant lhat we at least note so:,10 of t110 l er; ser lichts of this period. '."' terlin c; Bro-i-m and ,T. Snunders Reddi nc feel not11:i.ng of L1i)ortance, heyo nd. tl, o Jo1- ns ons, occured i r. the first two decades. Dut, for purpose.::: of ou r stndy and co n tinuit:r, He must note that this was not a period of inactivity amonc poets. nically, there was s ome expe ri ment ation. Tech- However, most of the poets eith er ~elpcd ~ 1ase out t he dialect v og ue or wrote h armless piece s o n ~ature, l ov e, cardens, death and human .:iorro1v. Others wrote ·hars11l:r and hi tterl:r of tbe war. Miller, mat11e maticj_an and sociolog ist, was a leadinG 2 82 �Black spokes man of t h o d ay and onl:r occa :J iona 7.l~r wro te poet r :r. His prose-poem "I Sec and Am Sati s fi ed " pro v ided fuel for further discussion of conte mporary racial issues. Consistine of 25 stanzas, it i. s r c nr.i. n is c e n t of F e11 ton Job ns on ( "Tired 11 ) and Margaret Walker ( "F or II:r People"). Hi 11 produced 1:1an::,r good students while he was principal at Ch e:rney Tra:lnin 6 School for Teachers (later Ch eyn e~ ntato Coll e g e). Ile attended Harvard and taught at Tuske c;ee and bis literary i nfluences are Lon gfellow, ifordswortb , Mil ton and Bnrn :.1 . !-Ti s pn~) lis b ed works are The Wines of Oppression (1922) and Toussaint L'Ov erturc--A Dramatic History (192 ~). Roy L. Fi l l, p oet a nd edu cator, is a prote g e of the se nior Hill 111, 0 fe e ls t 1, e Afro-A me rican r' con strained O '"'pression ~ l 1_ 1.•_r1 •1 ~I,.rf nr:q. -~ to G,....ive. 11 Hi.s po e tr:r l1as a strenc; th laced Hith Washington-t:r po f e ol :i n 0 s a,...,0 1 1t rac e re latio n::;. us that he will "monrn t r e trav ail of ..::r rac e . 11 T-Ie tells TJ:ost g rippinc;ly memorab le, b ovre7er, i c 7i s nso Qu1.0tl:r," a p oe tlc distil~ati.on (a par:i pb l e t, 1 9 00 ) , T> o l ian tl o of Dti n 1·· ar a nd Otb or P,o e ms (a pam" "'d C" c,.1-~· of _--.,.r -o: o,L p~e ( 7'J 1 ci) ~ J.. ... c?. L.! r.) U..:, ed u cator a :-10. pre a c 1~c r b iri1, 11 l if o 11 if' a 11 _,.,!_ · t :1 II:i. sf'c11r :i. a nd 1;'" ~.:-:c c~ s on ,:::: ." ..... ,, 10 . ... ~, • 5. s p oetr:- :i. s J oth li crit An oc c-a s i onal p oe t , P,rm-rle~r �( .. ,-. - 0'i .,_ .I - · · '- ' I\ ,1, l. t'l-i e d evelo pme nt of 'llla c 1- Amo r 5. can po c t r :r. !!o wrote stories a r~d poer:s t1• a t ' ,o.d :,ot ½con c ol:_s ct ed at the t l.110 of h is de at'I; . Dandri dc;o ' :.:. po c tr~r 5. s r l cl~ a nd ~o .. :o t i me:J ra d .al. l n co n- and contemporary violence against Blacks, he asks: Or can it be you fear the grave Enough to live and die a slave? "Zalka Peetruza 11 recalls McKay's "Harlem Dancer 11 in that pa.rt of the woman is dancing "--save her face. 11 A native of Cincinatti, Dandridge suffered a stroke when he was 30 years old which le.ft his legs and right arm paralized. Thereafter writing most of his poetr:r from his bed, he published The Poet and Other Poems (1920) and Zalka Peetruza and Other Poems (192 Dandridge also wrote competent poetry in dialect and, in this form, was a disciple of Dunbar. poetry to various magazines. Bohanon and McCall contribute A teacher from Washington, D.C., t Bohanon did not publish a volume. Neither did McCall who became • ;1,t~ ;!l an editor of the Independent after being made blind by typhoid., l An13e lina Grimk6 published a three-act play (Rachel) her poetry remains uncollected. 284 Born in Boston, she was �educated in various schools, of several states, and later taught English for many yea.rs at Dunbar Hic;h School in Washington, D.C. More than slightly resembling Gwendolyn Brooks, Miss Grimk~ 's poetry contains some of the most distilled language in modern American literature. Brilliant, precise and poignant, she writes of' love, seasons, darkness and high spirits during her maturing years--typified in the phrase "the New Nee;ro. rr Although she had been publishing poetry in periodicals her first big break came when she was included in Cullen's anthology, Caroling Dusk (1927). Not until the sixties would suqh lines as the following take on tbeir full political/cultural significance: 'Why, beautiful still finger, are you black? And why are you pointing upwards? In 11 The Want of You" even the moon and clouds join in "the crying want of you." work. Long overdue is a detailed study of Miss GrimkJ's But she is included in the best anthologies of Afro- American poetry and literature. Critical comments on her work can be found in the work of Kerlin, Kinnamon and Bttrksdale, and Brown ( 11 irony and quiet despair 11 ) . A brilliant student in college and for several years literary editor of the famous Crisis magazine, Jesse Fauset also served as an interpreter for the DuBois-inspired Second Pan-Af'rican Coneress in London. A native of New Jersey, she attended Cornell (Phi Beta Kappa) and the University of Pennsylvania, and published four novels: There is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun (1929), The Chinaberry Tree (1931) and Comedy, American �St~rle (1933). Her poetry appeared in numerous periodicals during the twenties and thirties. "Oriflamme, 11 Her skill is evident in her most famous poem. Inspired by a quotation from Sojourner Truth, the poem views the Black mother "seared with slavery's mortal scars" but vows that ber sons are Still visioning the stars! Black poets apparently spent time reflecting during the period between the beginning of the century and the Renaissance. So much of the poetry takes us into their private lives--sometimes into racial tones and sometimes not. Some of J essie Fauset's verse, for example, mirrors her knowled ge of French (she taught the language and translated into English several West Indian French-speaking poets). This is seen in the titles of some of poems and in other places where she interpolates French words into the texts. Generally her tone is quiet, neat and well written. Hawkins (a native of North Carolina) graduated from Kitrell College in 1901 and worked for many y ea.rs in the railway mail service. In "Credo II he announced t h at I am an Iconoclast. With obvious irony, Hawkins goe s on to claim he is "an Anarchist," (see Brown) and "an Agnostic." Additional irony and cynicism is seen in such poems as "A Spo.de is Just A Spade" and "The Death of Justice. 11 In h is rush of language and boldness of subject matter, Hawkins anticipates Tolson. .. His Chords and and Discords was published in 1909 and h is work appears in 2 36 �The Poetry of Black America (ado.ff, 1973) and Kerlin's anthology which includes critical notes. on Hawkins (a 11 Brown also comments .foreshadow" of new nNe gro Poetry "). Harris, Mrs. Flemi nc; , Hrs. Newsome, Rob erts, Hiss Jessye, Shackelford, Jamison, Wilson, Mrs. Johnson, Raza.i'ieriofo, Burrell and Bailey were among oth er poets contributing to various periodicals of t h e day. Harris brougbt out The Steel Makers and Otber War Poe ms in pamphlet form in 1918. · He served as editor of the Richmond (Indiana) Blade and published shortstories in The Century. "The Steel Makers II is emotionally and technically akin to some of the work of Whitman (Walt) and Sandburg. It praises t he steel workers--amone whom Harris himself numbered at one time. In another place, Harris asks the white man to accept him since, despite color and feature dii'ferences, The NeGro's the same as the rest. Harris' work can be found in Kerlin's book. Mrs. Fleming published Clouds and Sunshine (1920) in Boston at the inception of the Renaissance. Mrs. Newsome, wb o writes primarily for children, did not publish a volume of poems until 1940 (Gladiola Garden). Among the "earliest Necroes to employ free-verse with artistic ei'fectiveness" were Razaf'keriei'o and Will Sexton. Sexton contributed to various periodicals as did Razafkeriefo whose work appeared in Th e Crusader and The Ne gro World. through the t h eme of t h e day, Sexton announced I am the New Negro. 287 Carryinc:; �Taken i'rom "The New Negro", this line will be seen a.gain in various places and temperaments including in Tolson•s "Dark Symphony. 11 In "The Bomb Thrower" Sexton plays the role of "America's e'1il e;enius II and sardonically proposes a reversal of the ideals of Democrac:t. Razai'keriefo, born in Washington, D.C. to A.fro-American and Hadagascaran pa.rents, only had an elementary education. He asks, in "The Negro Church, 11 for "manly, thinking preachers 11 And not shouting money-makers, after declaring (in the manner of a Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X or Rapp Brown) t h at t he church has great "power." Preachers, he warns, should work to "fit the Negro" For this world as well as heaven. In addition to anger and impatience, this poet also expresses race pride and praises 11 Tbe Negro Woman." to him to pick a woman for 11 If it were left up queen of the ball of fame," be would "select the wonderful Negro woman. 11 Burrell, who con- tributed poetry to magazines, echoes Razafkeriefo in Nee;ro Mother. 11 11 To A In four eight-lined stanzas (using iambic octa- meter) Burrell celebrates the "grace and fortitude" of the Black mother. Recalling that greatness of Black history, he asks earth mother to Create anew the captains of the past; Build in your soul the Eth iopian power, ... The preceding two poems call to mind Hue;hes' "The Negro Mother," Watkins' '1Ebon Maid and Girl of Mine," Hrs. Johnson's "To 28 3 My �Grandmother, 11 11 Owen Dodson's Black :1vi: oth er Pra.y inc; ," and other moving tributes to t h e Afro-Americ an woman. 11 Wilson's body's Child" is not good poetry but its subject is. Some- He worked a s a pr :1.nt cr and tbeatr i cal performer a nd s e r v ed time in t 1.1 e llioso ur i St a t e: Peniter~ti nr:r d'...1r i n::; w1·, :T. ch ti me 11e put togeth er a small b oo k of l 1i s ver ses. of Co.nada who s·::, c~.Y-~ ::-,t 11 Ph ilad e lph ia. Art ?lus e um . Shac kelford was n native i_:x1-_,st,:-- ia ~- tra.i ni nc; s ch ool and t be '1'' His b oo k , ~,tr _Qoun t r :r and Ot11 er Poems, was pub lish ed i n Pb ilaclelpl1 ia. in 1 91 ,'.J . Jamison publish ed Nccro So l diers n.nd Oth er Poe ms in S outh St. Joseph , Hi ssouri, in 1918. Jamison wri te s ab out :rca.stles i n t r e Air, nHopeless ness II a nd 11 Th e :tfoc;ro Soldiers." 11 love, Th e latter poem has someth ing of t h e flav or of Dunba·r 's "Colored S ol diers n and salutes the bra.very and courac e of Black troops whose "souls grandly rise. 11 Th ese troops, Jamiso n points out, fou ght for America instead of se eking 11 venc e nce for t h eir wrongs. 11 A native of Hissouri, Bailey's only volume of poems (The lt,irstlin 0 ) was released in 1914. "The Slump II makes a baseball (via Christian s y mb olis m) game an a lo r; ous to t h e hardships of Black life: Well, we'r e all at t h e b at-and warns that t h e "ball may be hurled" as a plea. "Hr. Self 11 is at the bat b ut There's the Be ggar and Gate-and a wh isperinc voice from above calls "Strike t h ree." Miss Jessy e wrote movine:; poetry but is much b etter known 289 �for her work in developing and leading professional choruses. Born in Kansas, she received musical training at Western University in Kansas and Langston University in Oklahoma. Moving to New York City in the twenties, she continued working with figures like Will Harion Cook, J. Rosamond Johnson, Hall Johnson and others. In her famous concerts around the world she has used work from Porvj and Bess, John Work 1 s compositions and that of the men listed above. Her published collections include My Spirituals (1927), The Life of Christ in Negro Spirituals (1931), Paradise Lost and Re gained (Milton 1 s work adapted to Black songs, 1934), and The Chronicle of Job (a folk drama, 1936). I mportant for t~e same reaso ns noted in our discussion of Alex Rogers, Hiss Jessye successfully combined the poetic and the musical lan 0uage (though they are so similar to start with!). Her poem, 11 Tbe Sinc;er" recalls the work of Corrothers, Dunbar, Johnson (James), and numerous other poets who h..a ve bridged the gap between t b e two art forms. One is reminded of Johnson 1 s 11 0 Black and Unknown Bards" in Miss Jessye 1 s statement t b at the singer's "speech was blunt and manner plain. 11 Like the "unknown bards, song was "but the essence of the heart." 11 his unlettered Her poems, published in newspapers during t h e twenties, s h ow a li gh theartedness but a sincerity and sense of conviction. "spring" and the 11 She writes about Rosebud 11 and while she is not singularly distinguished as a poet, her life 1 s work is an indispensable float in the grand parade of the AEro-American creativity in 290 �the arts. In choral work, Hiss Jessye is especially noted for her direction of the Original Dixie Jubilee Singers, later named the Eva Jessye Choir. For a thoroue;h ·discussion of Miss Jessye 's life and works ( alone; with that of her contemporaries) see Eileen Southern' s The Music of Black Americans. For poetry selectio ns , see Kerlin. Durine the period of the Renaissance, poets such as Georgia Johnson, Jessie Fauset, Anne Spencer, Alice DunbarNelson, I-Iill, 1'-foKay, James Weldon Johnson, Dandridge and Cotter (sho had achieved recognition before 1923), continued their output either through ma 6 azines or book-publication. i Much of this work is recCrded in Johnson's The Book of American t l r Negro Poetry (1922, 1931); Kerlin's ~egro Poets and Their Poems (1923, 1935) and Contemporary Poetry of the_ Negro (1921), and in other sue~ coLlpilutions and periodicals. Anne Spencer was born in West Virginia and studied at the Virginia Seminary in Lynchburg where sbe has spent most of her life. She recently relocated in California; but was for a long time librarian at Dunbar Hi c~h School in Lynchburg. This poet's work hardly ever reflects racial or political concerns but she is one of the most technically-sure of all Blnck poets. Sb e writes about wor.1en, love, carnivals and the workings of the mind. In its brevity and conciseness, her poetry anti- cipates the work of' Gwendolyn B1.,ooks and is loosely akin to Angelina Gri mk~ 's ( thou gh the latter 1 s work is racially-flavored). Her poetry also bears some kinship to t he 291 11 Imagist II school of �poets writing in the early years of t be century. Elements of this particular technique and style can be seen in Hayden: ( "The Diver," "Nigbt-Bloomine Cereus, 11 and oth ers). "At The Carnival II we smell sausage and c;arlic t :1at Sent unh oly incense skyward and are told ( in an echo of the ro .nantics) that Whatever is good is God. "Dunbar" laments 11 b ow poets sine; and die! 11 and places -the eulogized Black poet in t b e same class with Ch atterton, Shelley and Keats. Niss Spencer's most mov ing poem, it seems, is "Translation" wh erein two lovers nover speak But each knew all t h e other said. Calling her the "most ori ginal of all Ne gro women poets," ,, Sterline Brown adv ised, in 1937, t h nt ~rnr "sensitive, and keenlJ .~:;. , observant" work sh ould be "collected for a wider audience." But as of sumrr.er, 1974, no one h ad undertaken Brown's Considering her span of years, Mrs •. Spe ncer (somewhat has not been prolific. Her work can b e found in se,v eral antho-. logies and periodicals of t he twenties. Critical assessments are given by Kerlin, Brown and Joh nson. James Weldon Joh nson, we noted earlier, published Fifty Years and Other Poems in 1917. Tl1e Hork included dialect as well as conventional standard English commemorative pieces. Not high ly original, t b e work was one more step in the long and fruitful development of perh aps t h e most i mportant figure in the history of Black poetry. 292 It seems Johnson was involved �in as many thinc;s as could have been hu~nanly possible. After his work on Broadway (with ligh t operas), h e worked for the re-election of Theodore Roosevelt, served as United States Consul (a reward for bis political work ) in Nicaragua and Venezuela, published (anonymously ) The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man in 1912, wrote editorials (for more than 10 years) for the New York Ac;,e and b ecame t h e NAACP's first s ecretary genera l- - worl:j_nc i n tb at post fo r 14 :rear s . · A deep ly psych oloc i cal wor k , Au tobi ograph~ de alt wi t h s uch a n explosive contemporary topic--th e t h eme of passing--th at Johnson would not affix h is own name to it until it was reissued during the Renaissance (1 927) with an introduction by Carl Van Vechten. The conventional poetry of Fiftv Years shows Johnson to be politically at the t hresbh old of t h e "a.wakening ." Sterling Brown stated, incorrectly, t h at Joh nson's "Broth ers II was the most "vigorous poe:'1 of protest fro r,i a ny Ne gro poet up to h is time." We know t h at Whitfield, Wbitman, DuBois, Hawkins and others were just as strong and forceful. Fifty Years was highly praised by Braithwaite ("intellectual substance"), Brander Mathews ( sbould be grouped with t be noblest American commemorative poems), and other influential critics. This first book shows a strength, "v irility " a.nd robustness t hat would mark Johnson's future wri tings--especially God's Trombones (1927). The poems are patriotic ("Fifty Yea.rs" wh j_cb commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of t he Emancipation Proclamation}, nostalgic ( 11 0 Southland!"), descriptively amorous ( "The Glory of the Day was in Her Face"), strong and verile ("Th e Young Warier"), 293 �race-proud (angry) and didactic ("Brothersn) and fundamental and reli gious ( no Blac k and Unknown Bard 11 ) . The last poem, more important for what it records t h an b ow it is assembled, is an artistic tribute of t h e makers of t h e Spirituals. Using actual words and names from Spirituals, Johnson weaves in the strength and artistry ch aracteristic of t h ese songs he loved-and to wh ich he devoted s o much research and listening time. Great are, he says, is produc ed b y These simple ch ildren of t h e sun and soil. Joh nson knew, too, t h at t ~es e makers would not be O black slave s incers , gone , for got, unfamed, if work of t h e sort be wa s doins continued in t he h ands of those to -wh om h e pass ed the torch . Alth ough Fifty Yea.rs is strong , solid wor k , it is lat e r that Jo~nson ' s c ome s into h is own as ex per imonta15.s t a nd ra ce-s e t ter. Go or 3 ia J obncon a lso wrote ra c e -c on~i cious l~rrics. J o11nson's t hemes are sn c;r_i;cs t ed 5. n h e r titles: The He art of A Woman (191 8 ), Bro nze (1922) and An Aut umn Lo ~e Cy cle. .. '· f and fluent, 11 Hrs. "Skillful h er poe try deals primaril~r witb lo neliness, sorrow, seasons , u nrequit ed lov e and is intellectual ly- b ased. The first Dlack woman after Frances Harp er to acl1 ieve reco gnition as a poet, she is explicitly r acial in Bronze alth ough allusions to Blackness s ometime appear in h er other work. Yet Mrs. Johnson seems to know something ab out the heart of all women (and men) when she says t h e singer's s ongs Are tones t h at repeat 294 • �The cry of the heart Till it ceases to beat. "The Octaroon" deals with a woman who is tainted because she is the victim of One drop of midnight in the dawn of life's pulsating stream but who finds hospitality in the Black community. 11 humble fold"--presumably the Tbis poem recalls Cotter's "The Mulatto to His Critics" which depicts t h e multi-racial predicament of one (probably Cotter himself) made up Of Red Han, Black Ma.n, Briton, Celt, and Scot, but who loves the dark-skinned, curly haired race that "puts sweet music in my soul." tension in "To Hy Son. 11 I'1rs. Johnson develops a similar She tosses and turns between advising her son that the "dusky pall or she.dews screen the highway of sky" and encouraging him to "storm the sullen fortress" founded on racism. In addition to writing such powerful and lasting poetry, Mrs. Joh nson was of service to young writers f'or several decades. A f'emale counter-part to Langston Huehes, she hosted regular and spontaneous writers meetings in her h ome in Washington, D.C., where she moved after receivine academic and musical training at Atlanta University and Oberlin College. A native of Georgia, she was employed in government service most of her adult life. For critically introduced selections of her work, see Barksdale and Kinnamon, Johnson and Kerlin. 1' 295 Brown also supplies a good �assessment. We should note, in passin~ and by way of introduction to Fenton Johnson, H. Binga Dismond (1891-1956) who did not publish a. volume of poetry until 1943 (We ·who Would Die). Dismond, like Johnson and Frank Ears~ all Davis was one of the man:r writers of t'!rn period who ·was not pbysically present in ITarlem durinc t~c Renaissance. Di smond was born in Virginia and, a track star ( as was Frank Horne), studied pb:rsical t h erapy a.t Rush He dical Collcc;e after attendinc Howard Universit:r Academy and tbe Unive rsi t:r of Ch icac;o . (The Hic1west's parti- cipation in the ~onaissance has been dramatically underplayed.) Dismond, Hbo Hrote some crisp and poi~~1ant poetr:r of love and protest, is more importa nt to us durins this period for his journalistic wor1:. :Ti t11 .To1: ns on, ~-ic edited Tlle Champion Ma r;azine 1 (startine; in 1916) for several ·,:re ars. Tl'"cey also co-edited The Favorite Na2;azino ( nThe World's Greatest 11ont1:'1 ly") where they both published poems and articles. Johnson bac: several of l1 j_s pla:rs performed 'l.n Chicago's Pekin Theatre wben 1rn ~ras ni.neteen a nd is generally seen as tbe most creati ve J_ink 1-)eh.reen t 1,e poets of Dunhar's era and the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Chicaco of economically stable parents, b e attend ed tbe city's na me sake university and taugh t school for n. :reo.r in the South. Ee privately pub- lished three volumes of poetry, o ne (A Little Dreaming, 1917) in Chicag o, anc, tuo (V:tsions of the Dusk, 1915; and Songs of the Soil, 1916) in new York uhero be liv0d for a sbort time. Harriet I·'i:onroc and ( "The Hew Poetryn group) bad established 296 �Poetry ( 1912) i n ' : is 1 '0iilO tow n o. nd .Jol,ns on 1;1ade c ont ac t wit": I n 1 92 0 , ,Jo1 , 1::i on r' 1 '-,lls 17 cd Tal e s of Dar ke s t Amer ica, b er . A part i c i pa nt in t 11e " poet r y re v ival" in sb or t storie s . Amer ica, ,Jo11 nso n '·, nd ~1is -:rnr k accepted for P oetr:r, and t:rn "'t1,._h ol o,.,. -: e,....., 0.1.L, 1,cr,., ( i l., G .-L "' J • .., 0 ~ ·- ·- , 6 ' ' n.,.L 7 , ,!.. j An Ant bolocy of An10ri c an P oetr:r: 1 0 9 n J.. , C. ·• ) , T1, e l'~ eu Poet r :r and L:rric America, 163 0 -1 9) 0 . I n sayi ns Jo 0, ns on wo.s u lt i 1:1 2t c l :r t h e p oet of "desp air 11 a nd t bat he wa s t 1rn 0 111:, po e t Hritins i n snch ~.· ein (ns Brown, Reddin c; , .Jolrnson, "'. :n ..::;ner , a :1c. oti-,e rs •, a·:c do n e ), cr iti. cs pre sent ed par t of t l·.c ,·, ia n . new i n El ac k po c t r :r r,' 1:1 · j _l 0 1;1:r :.!e did 1,orrow f ro ;:i Iin. st ers, Li nds ay e pr o-,· :i.d 5- '1,:::- a n a ':e nue for exp e r i mcn - tation t o en t er i nt o t1"Je works of }J is Bla c k c ont emp orar i es. But in poems s u ch a s "Tired, "Th e Ban j o Play er, tt 11 "The Scarlet Woman" and "Rulers II b e displays much more t ll a n "d espair." Reflecting , as Brown n ot ed , t h e "tw o ext remes of Ne gr o poetry after 1914,tr Job nson can d eal with eith er t h e b rawling urban b lues or t h e down- h ome, "we s h a l l ove rcome " motifs. Because his work doe s not contain n co nsist e nt spirit of h ope, James Weldon Joh nson s aid h i s mes s a ge mirror ed idea.s 11 forei t:; n to any ph ilosoph y of l i fe t he Ne c;r o in Ame r l ca. h a d ever preach ed or practiced. the 11 11 Joh nso n t h ou r;h t t h is wns 11 startling 11 despite birth 11 , about the same time as F enton Jol·, nson' s work, of t h e blues era--and t b e wor k of W.C. Handy (l -S 73-1958 ) wh o is sometimes called i t s 11 fat h er. 11 F ent on Jobnso n is •"Tired" of a ci v ilization wh i ch b as gi v en h i m "t oo many tr ch ildren and 297 �no ch ance for t h em to sh are i n t h e American dr e am. He proposes to his wife t h at t h ey Throw t b e cb j_ldren into t h e ri v er: and observes t h at ••• It i s be ttor to di e t h an it is to grow up and f i nd out t h at you are colored. Joh nson writes ab out roustab outs, prost i tutes, vagrarits, laborers and strong will and is, as Jay Wri gb t said of Henry Dumas, "the poet of t h e dispos s ess ed." He is also t h e poet of t h e blues; and Sam Greenlee b as noted t hat "th e bl ues are a freedo m song ." In breaking away fro m trad itional Blac k poetic diction and form, Johnson not only received influence fro m t h e wh ite experimenters of free verse; be borrowed h eav ily from t h e b lues and, at t h is level, must s h nro some of t h e accolades usually reserved almost solely for Langston Hugh es. It is now wid el y accepted t hat t h e b lues d o not simply preach resi g nation. To the contrary , t he b lues, t~lling about heart-ache and perso nal failures, carry h ope in the singing and the going on. Har garet Wal ker i s only one of t h e many poets whose work seems to reflect t h e influence of Joh nson. Do we really believe t h at Joh nson meant for t he ch ildren to be t hrown in the river? Anymore t h an we take the bl~es singer literally wh en be promises to "lay my h ead down on some railroad track"? Johnson ts "note of despa i r rr is one more brilliant and artistic distillation of t be strange phy sical web wh ich produced tbe sorrow songs, t h e Spirituals, t h e ditties, jokes, rhymes and 29 8 �blues. At the time Johnson wrote his poetry Handy was com- posing some of his most famous blues songs ("St. Louis Blues," "The Memphis Blues, 11 'Yellow Dog Blues") and arranging traditional blues pieces like "Train's A-Comin.," "Let Us C:beer t h e Weary Traveller," "Come on., Epb, 11 and 11 Juba. 11 And in this list alone is locked partial answers to much of t h e work of several Afro-American writers: Hughes, Walker, Tolson, 1-vrieht, Brown, Jayne Cortez, Gil Scott-Heron and numberless others. -It is quite possible t hnt critics loo ki ng at Johnson were not pre~ pared for his irony and poetic assimilation of t h emes and feelings wbich had been glossed over by Chr istianity and other anesthetics. In 11 Rulers II Johns on discusses a "monarch II on "Lombard Street in Philadelphia.," who "was seated on o. throne of flour bags. 11 Near the 11 r.1onarcb 11 two young boys with guitars played "ragtime tunes of the day. Black 11 11 Clearly this "monarch" ( a laborer 11 in reality) is being serennded and saluted just as any oth er 11 ruler 11 would be. of the blues ( 11 ragtime 11 )! He presides as a prince Johnson's work is in mos.t anthologies of Afro-American poetry and critical assessments of him have already been noted. For more thorou g11 discussions of the poetry-blues concept see Stephen Henderson's Understanding the New Black Poetry., 111:r bibJ. iocrap1':y and Chapter VII. At t he dawn of the Harlem Renaissan c e t h ere appeared a. slim-vol ume of poetry Seamo n Cotter, Jr. (1 395-1919 ), the precocious son of t'~e Cotter alroad:r cUscussed. YounG Cotter died an early dcat'1 Hbicl: cnt short tlie work of one of the 299 �most promising figures in Afro-American poetry. Born in Kentucky and frail fro m childhood like Dunbar, Cotter had to end his college career at Fisk University when he developed tuberculis. An innovator, as was h is father, Cotter s h ows a sharp awareness (in The Bend of Gideon, 1910) of the plight of Blacks and an even sharper ability to express that plight along with other sentiments and feelings. Black poetry's concerns in 11 He echoes much of And What Sball I Say 11 ; "Rain Misictt anticipates amny of Hughes's pieces--thin gs in The Weary Blues, "Jazzonia, 11 and so on--whe n be recalls tbe "dusty earth-drum" which hammers fallin g rain Now a wh ispered murmur, Now u louder strain. Bearing the import of mucb of the "exotic" Black literature of the renaissance, Cotter never t h eless sees in the beat of· the Slender, silvery drumsticks a rejuvenation of life as ordered b~r God, "the Great Musician." Cotter began writing poems wh ile a teenac;er. His technique, as is .Johnson's, comb ines t he best of traditional Western poetry with the ncu wave of free verse. His poe ms . are a.bout love, "Ne gro Soldiers," reliGion, Blackness, justice and his own illness. 11 Is It Because I Am Black 11 seems to have been looking forward to a 1<)60 1 s "soul" sonc of a similar title wherein t1~e sincer says Sometbinc is holding me ha ck! Lawd, is :i.t ~:ie cul'!se I'm D~.a ck ? In tbe poem Cott or o.sks 1-111:r ·whi tcs are so o.1;1azed t b a.t he can 300 �"stand II in t~ v) i r i n port ant 1,1e 0tl nc;s, Joo),: t110n1 str a i ch t ln t 11e f c.c c , a nd 11 spe a !r ti.101r Cot ters 1rnrk appe ars L1 The 'R ool~ of Ame rican lJe.::.;ro Poe try , 1Jec;ro Car n.van., ICe rli n ' s study ( 11 T11e stamp of the African mind is upo n " Cotter ), and The Poetry of Blac k Amer lc a . Al t bour;b I:c r lin su'0mi t s brief critical comments, a study of t h :i. s y oune poe t's wor k is sorely needed. He left, also seve ral plays and unpub lish ed sonnets. B. POETS AS PTI OPBJ~TS : The Har l em Renaissance A Ha ve of lonc:;i nc t h rough my bod:sr suept . -- Claud e IfoKa.y The Harlem Renai s sance (see section I of t h is c h apter) is normally see n as a decade-lengt h (1920-193 0 ) out-pouring of cultural and artistic activity in wh at Jame s Weldon Joh nson called t h e Ne gro cultural capitol. Tllere is h armless dis- agreement as to wbe n t b e renaissance act ually b e ga,n and how long it lasted. 1935. S ome say it started in 1925 and ran until Others gi ve t'.1e first ti me sp a~1 me nt i oned ab ove. Still ' others (includinc Wa gner, Black Poets of t h e United States) des i c;na te tllc period ' ,ct•·rc·cn tl'e tu o Hor1.d wars (1913-1 939). T11e poets of tbe renaissance--whi cb included dance., painting., sculpture, music., t h eater, literature, science and scholarsh ip--knew a nd read each oth er's works. Ironically , however, only one of t h e lea.din,~ f' i gures is said to have been b orn in New Yor k City : Countee Cullen (1903-1946) a.nd 301 �I I I. he w~s raised in the "conservative atmosphere of a Methodist parsonage," the adopted son of a minister. Langston Hughes (1902-1967) spent much of t h e decade of the twenties traveling: so did Claude Ifo Kay ( 1890-194 8 ) who wandered over "Europe and North Africa. 11 --in many instances, 11 a lone; way from home. 11 Jean Toomer (1 894-1967), disturbed and haunted by his complex ethnic background, was a my sterious fi gure who died the same year as Hu ghes in the anonymity of a Q.u aker . commune in Philadelphia (obscure after having years before). given up writing several Often called "minor" writers of the Renaissance, neither sterling Brown (1 901was born in New York. ) nor Arna Bontemps (1902-1973) And neither pub lish ed books during the twenties but they did have poems accepted by such magazines as The Crisis and Opportunity. McKay , lah e led the r e na i ssance ' s poe t of ancer and: rebellion, is chiefly for his famom:; sonnet ( 11 If We Must Die 11 ) which winds down (up?) to the followin g couplet: Like men we 'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to t h e wall, dying , but fi ghting back! Found scribbled on the walls after the Attica uprising of 1972, the national American press attributed the poem to some promising inmate! McKay wrote it in 1919 sh ortly after a series of riots that took hundreds of Black lives. Many critics use the date as the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. 302 But McKay had made �his entry into the Harlem world of letters two years earlier (1917) with the publication of two poems ("Harlem Dancer" and "Invocationn) in Seven Arts Magazine. He came to America. in 1912 from his native Jamaica, where he read much European literature and philosophy, to study agriculture. Enrolling first at Tuskegee and lat0r at Kansas state College, he finally went on to Harlem where he worked as a porter, waiter and restaurant propietor. Before leaving Jamaica, McKay had established bis reputation as a poet of dialect poetry with his Songs of .Tamaica (1912) and Cons tab Ballads (1912), the latter work reflecting his one-time e mp loyment as a policeman on the island. In New York, he gained quick entrance into literary and political circles, establishing a life-long friendship with Max Eastman (who wrote a biograpbical note for Selected Poems (1953). McKay counted amon g his friends some of the most in- fluential literary and political fi gures of tbe day: John Reed, Floyd Dell (The Masses), Waldo Frank, Frank Harris (Pearson's Magazine), ::a1'ct1 s Garvc:r (l'~sc;ro Ho:rld ) 1 and others. Fiery and forceful, McKay was the subject of much attention and discussion. Although he never joined the Communist Party, he defended its stand in most of the publications he wrote for. 11 If We Must Die" was read into the Congressional Record as an example of Black unrest and resentment. In the furry, McKay left the United States in 1919, returned for a brief period the following year, and left a gain to travel all over Europe and Northe Africa for 15 l ears. 303 He returned to America in 1934 �where ho wou ld ro r,:at n unt i l b i s d e atl.:-1 in l()L~ 2 . Hc Kay ' s o t bc r vo lLrne D of p o e tr:' i nc l ude Spr i ng i n New • e n amps l1ir , ... __ ; TT f ., " ' " ", • 1-l w 1. \ ,. 1 a pr 01r, ac e 1., y ~1~ •no f a rn ous c 1•i t i c I.A. ,.., :-;,· ;'._' of J a ma tcn wa s re i s s u e d in 1969 -~, ,_,, - -·... --- -----~ ·-- - C:l a ude rfoKay (1 97 2). and a new v olun e of prose a nd p o e try ( '.l' li e Passio n of Claude McKay) was pub lis b0d i n pu b lish ed writ in Gs , 1973 . 1<)12-194 ° . It co n t a ins p l~!, li s 11ed and unr-Ic Ka:r d ied ohs c u re and poor in Chicag o wh ere he h a d g one to t e ach in Ca t h olic Sch ools. Hi s life, like t h at of so many Blac k artis ts (D unb ar, Ch arlie 1 'Yardb ird II Par k e r , S a r.1 Co oke , Le roy (;ar r , Bli.ncl Lemon Jefferson) wa s li ved wi th cons Uli1a te spee d, f e ar a nd tr a g e dy . Th ough b e las h ed ou t at wh ites , h is c l o ses t fri ends were wb ite; wb ile he wrote def 5.ant , a ngr y a nc7 mil i t an t ver se , was i nsp ir e d b:r t h e t .ri eat mcnt of Blac k s. tradictio ns and eni::;mas in b i s lH'o. to unr av el t h e m bo re . Kc:r:J t o mu c h of 1:10 d enied t h at it Th ere are oth er con- Bu t we mako n o atte mpt Nc Ka y ' s complexit y , h owever, can he g ained by re a d i nB h is aut oh io s r aph y (A Long Home t o Uarle m (1928), Ban j o (1 929) and Ba n ana Bottom (1933), and h is many articles and s h ort storie s , Gi n g ert ow ~ entitled Harle m: (1 932). Negro Eet rop o l i s He also wr ote a study (1 9L~0 ). 'I' 1"0 ', e st source for Mc Ka y 's po e t ry is h i s Se lec ted Poems . J c Lio.n:· ways it i s iro n ic t hnt Mc Kay i s called t h e poet of ang er. lfatb an I-I n gc i n s "b lack Prm;1etheu:s , n (!Iarl em Re n a is sance) calls h i m t h e s i n e e most of h i s poe ms deal with quiet �topics such as moth er, nature, nostal gi a, loneliness, mental - -- - refle-etion, r-eli 13:i.on, world- tra vel, and descriptions - of -city - -life. Of literally do ze ns of poems he pub l ished, only 8b out ten can be called I angr:r. 11 Of c ourse t bo r e is often seeth ing unrest, And I am sh arp as steel wit h dis co nt e nt ••• , in much of t h e poetry tbat is not overt l y violent. true of everyday Black life. Such is And in this sense most Black Americans could be l a beled rrmilitant" or "viole nt "--h arb oring, as it were, polarizing tensions ("Ba ptism ") t b at make one defy all: I will come bac k to y our world of tears, A str onger soul within a finer fra me . Th ou gh one of t he create:::it influen c es on Blac k t h ou c;b t and art of h is day, Nc!Cay perb aps d id not know tllat h is writings inspired various srokesmen for African nationalism: Sedar Scngh or, Ou sman0 S oc e and Ai me Cesaire . Leopold And he is today seen as t he major lj_ nk between t b e re naissance and, t he mili ta.nt writings of th e 19 60 's. J us t a~ his clirtlect poems (such as "Two-an '-Six 11 ) h ad charned and enterta:1.ne d bi s fellow Jamaica cs, the discipline d ant:;e r of hi s popular American poems incited and inspired Blacks , and tit illated and fas cinated wh ites. For durin g t b is period , wh ites around t ho world were indicating a new interest s i n Blacks; and Blacks, inspired b:r t b e crowing nationalist f ee l lncs in sorae Euro pean countrie s , found ready fuel and propa ga nd a in their brot hers of co l or returnins h ome 3c,5 �from t he war. Yet .for all !;he anc;0r , i:'fo I(a ~r nover swervecl from .1is use of conventional Enr:;U.sh verse . Witl-. Cullen--tl10ucb not so 'l'l1c folk mater i als r o li g iously--bo a v oid8d. cxrori r;ientat5.o n . of llmerican Blac k~~ , e.xrnp le n of' Penton Jo11nson and oth ers, t ~·10 b is Englisl1 i.s cJ.c si.,s;;.-ioc1 to cac c f u r:r o.~d passion :i.n trac;ed:i..cs II a s Jame::, Weld on Johnson called t b e m. is a poet of po. ss ion, d:i.:::,trnst, an 1.:;cr end 1:rn tr cd . 11 sonnet- Ah ove all he We b a ve seen some ll atred before in Dla c 1.: poetr:· (DuBois, Gwendol:rn Bennett) bu t not q uite 1 i ke ive says 11 lt 8 00 :i..s par ex c ellence tho po,st of After ' '' 11 0 1V\·Torlr I. . - ·r.ri •re ...., ._, ' to , ur-, _..L ng, ' is not alw ays t 110 ' ~n.t c 1'.'. ~~ c 11 . . , nr~ u. i. n IIc ifo.;,r w1"1 0,n Wac;ncr l-1at0 . 11 11 Su c h feclin ,s is T>o ,.L ar~,..• t ~r ~ ~· • n Bu t i'IcKA.y e xe.n i ncs l·,nte ir tl: e 1--i ands of whitos--or as a prod~ct of ~estern sicknes s a nl decadenc e , v0 nted a 1hoit on t : e ::Jlac!'.".s . of the ear t h rr e nta'J. i s t Tl1 0 n oh :Llit~- of trrn Blac 1{ soul ( anc. t1 - 3 c ountr:n:lide) , d hd J. lu s l on':".1ent ( s Ge Du ~m.s) , 1, c c1 ic} mal~e 1:or etof or e unnoticed mod if i cations in �for i!e ol, 8or7c<.1 t}1at Luc:i.an B . Uatkins opened his rncc :,rido. ~-To,\.,r 1·'T.u<... ·~r o 11 ·. -1 i•· J. i t·t·, .I, But in no ot~cr quart e r, ~cfore or since ~ cKay, does a Black p ost perd.s t-- i nfus i n 6 blues and tra :.:;ic irony-•-wi tb t1-ie sonnet. Gwendolyn Drooler~ w-U. J. later inve nt l1c r ner:1ora ble 11 s onnet-ballad. 11 And Cn~.len's sonnets cortainl:r must 'Jo taken into account. :i:IcKay, however, endures with an ironic j_nconclusiveness that verges on the 11 dc:J;:)air ll critics see::n to se0 in Fenton Johnson. Por ~lcEa~r tlrn s onnc t is a for~ of t he rapy--allowing him to loose contro lled anccr. __,;:,,., is t~e anser of a nati v e Jamaican Ir; ( "home; 110:,.n) cau,:).: t up in t11e strait-jacket of wl~tte literary amenities. Ee Ha nts to be freed. poe try--principully t h e sonnet. seen in "The Nec;ro 's Trac;ed:;,r, and nThe Lynch in 0 • of Western poetry , 11 11 And freedo m comes t b rou 0 h This open-endedness can be 11 The I:Jcc;ro's Friend, 11 "In Bondage, As a correct a nd carefully nurtured darling tl10 sonnet l1ad been in the annals of English Contain:i.ng literature for centuries when i·IcKn:r ti.sed it. 14 lines (in various atanzaic patt erns), it is desi 5 ned to pose a probler~1 , squirm in it fo:-: n wl.1 ile, and close in a neat answer which begins with lino nine, or the sextet. Pres to! a olvins a problem in mathemati cs or calculus. :irace pro Jler1 , n b owevcr, cannot 11 is not qni te so easy. solve 11 a lynchi 11g . Just like "Solving II tho Hence HcKay But ho places it in the most awesome, 307 11 �gruesome contexts by equating t h e lynch ing to the crucifixion of Christ (see Cullen's The Black Christ and "Colors"), and failing to resolve the white-man's moral and religious cris i s. The blue-eyed women come to view tbe body, but show no sorrow And little lads, lynchers that were to be, Danced round the dreadful t h ing in fiendish glee. Clearly this is not how Petrarch, Sh akespeare., Spener, Milton., Wordsworth, Arnold or Santyana would have wanted the problem "solved." There was no answer--except for Blacks "fi ghting back" here and there--so McKay modified the concept of the sonnet in order to deal with a real "prob lem. 11 Most of the critics of Black literature and culture have discussed McKayfs work. His Selected Poems is available and he· is now being 11 represented even in white prestige" anthologies (Norto'n·; -Brooks- Lewis-Warren, The United States in Literature and others)~ most a mbitious s tudy of l'icKay to da t e is Poets). by The J"ean Wa gner _(Black Another recent study (which includes prose wr~ tings) I I i' is Arthur P. Davis's From the Dark Tower: 1900 to i 960 (1974). Afro-American Writers, Also see appendixes to most anthologies, biblio graphy section of this work., and especially the listings in Black Writers of America (Barksdale and Kinnamon). Unlike that of t h e 11 pure blooded" HcKay , .Jean Toomer's body r,ioused seven racial strains and he looked white. · Evidence , ·_ to support the fact that Toomer rejected his Black blood and "passed" cannot be found in bis major work--Cane (~923). I _; 300 �Neither is it i n "Th e Blue Meridian," written in 1936 and sadly overlooked, in which he tries to unite the disparate elements of the American personality into one person. Apparently unbe.ppy in childhood, Toomer never knew his father who abandoned the boy's mother shortly after he was born in Washington, D. C. Toomer's possible claim to name and money had been thwarted earlier when his mother, the daugh ter of P.B.S. Pinchback, an importa~t Louisiana Reconstruction politician, had to reduce her social status and re-locate in the upper-class Black area of Washington. robustness: gaiety." It was here that Toomer found spirit and "more emotion, more rhythm, more color, more After attending local public schools (including Dunbar High) he enrolled in one colle ge after another, never becoming a serious degree candidate. From this latter type of life, he went tbrou gb a series of jobs, finally gettine; into serious writing and putting poems and stories in several avant-garde little ma gazines. Toome r also formed close asso- ciations with Net·r York intellectuals: Hart Crane, Waldo Frank ( to whom he dedicated a section of Cane), Gor1rnm P. Muns.on, Alfred Stier;litz, Paul Rosenfeld, Kennetb Burke and others. Later, while working as superintendent (for four months) of a small Black school in 8parta, Geor gia, h e gained much of the material for the first and t h ird sections of Cane. After pub- lication of Cane, Toomer' s life returned to "psychological disarray" and he turned to other sources in search of a selfunifying methodology . Wi t b other intellectuals-associates, he 309 �delved into the philosoph ies of F. Mattl1ias Alexander, P.D. Ouspensky, and, most importantly, GoorGe J. Gurdjieff--whose disciple he later became. Gurdjieff, a Russian, assimilated aspects of Yoga, reli8ious mysticism and Freud, to produce what he called Unitism. won over converts. Toomer later expoused the theory and For a short while be also lived in a heterosexual experimental commune. married two white women. In quick succession Toomer After his second marriage in the thirties, he quipped: "I do not know wh ether colored blood flows through my veins. 11 Earlier, however, he bad noted in a biographical sketch accompanying work he submitted to The Liberator, t hat I have lived equall:y among the two race 3roups. Now white, now colored. From my own point of view I am naturally an American. I have strived for a spiritual fusion analagous to the fact of racial intermingling . Without denying a single element in me, with no desire to subdue one to the other, I have sought to let them live in harmony. Within the last two or three years, however, my growing need for artistic expression has pulled me deeper and deeper into the Negro group. And as powers of receptivity increased, I found myself loving it in a way that I could never love the other. Although James Weldon Johnson complained that Toomer refused 310 �(allegedly out of contempt for racial cate gorizing ) to be included in the second edition of The Book of American Negro Poetry, it was later brought out (conversation between Sterling Brown arrl Jean 1-'Jagner) t h at ill-feelings existed between the two men. At any rate, Toomer's poetry and prose appear in practically every subsequent anthology of Afro-American literature. In terms of influence, Toomer exerted more than any other renaissance fi gure on t h e Black intellectuals of the era. No other writer experimented wi tl1 literature or depicted Blacks quite the way he did. Mutual influence seems to have occured between h im and Hart Crane. And Robert Bone ( Negro Novel in America) places Cane on par with t h e writings of some of the best American contemporaries: Hemingway, Stein, Pound, Eliot. This is all surprising since Ca~~ sold less than 500 copies. As a work of art, however, it reflects Toomer's efforts to achieve unity of both self and purpose. Called variously a novel, a collection of s h ort stories/v i gnettes, a ' poetic drama, Cane defies labels. In my classrooms I often refer to it as a Blues-Epic--conceptually, similar to the great nationalistic sagas of the world: Beauwulf, Siegfried, The Song of Roland, . Chaka, a.nd others, only welded by Black spirituality and the rhythms of Afro-American ritual. Cane h as three basic movements-- Toomer had been interested in b oth music composition and painting--which involve (1) Geor gia and the .South, (2) Chicago, Washington., D.C. and the North, and (3) Georgia again where 311 �Toomer waxes autobiography. In the first part of Cane there are numerous pictures of women, many of them who, like will be ripened "too soon. 11 In the second section, Toomer views northern urban decadence and corruption and their influence on Blacks. In the third movement, a naive northern Black educator goes South (Georgia) to find his African roots. He rather clumsily passes t hrough a series of rites during which Toomer uses brilliant symbolism to heighten the man's fear and complex nature. Many of the stories are introduced by and interspersed with poetic sketches. The third, and final section, "Kabnis", is similar to a play. Karintha's skin "is like dusk on the ea.stern" horizon and immediately, at the opening of Can~, we find significant symbols in the words Hduskn and "ea.stern." Through out the book, Toomer essays the plight and joys of Blacks through tigth and sometimes enigmatic poetr:r. Word meanings are given double, triple, n.nd even more levels, as in the "Reapers" sharpening their scythes for far m chores but s.lso, perhaps, for a massacre. Black b eauty is someti mes surprising in the context of white barrenness and brutality: Flower.n TIITovember Cotton "Face" is an old, tired Black woman in Georgia. "Cotton Song" celebrates the worksonc, unity among field workers, and encodes revolutionary messaces: 11 v-le a.int a v -1ine t wait untll th Jud G;ment Day!" The "Beehive 11 is a rao tap!1or for t h e 2:bc tto, conpressed, cardoned off, i mpoveris 1 ' c d. The narrator wish es ' , e could rest 312 �"forever" in a flow er on 80!'1C farm (ac;ain rural v s cit:r life). I n t1:,o post r :r Too,·:c ::' 11r•i t::__r· about sun a nd eveninr, "songs," 11 Conversion 11 and "Portrait :tn Geor g ia," t he electricit~r of a woman's lips, needles. 11 Har vcs t Song," and t he cane scents and pine From tbe pen of t:10 poe t spill the liv es-- b roken, mended, some never 1x.l 0 ~n--of tbe severely damaged men and Homen who, "witb vesti c;es of pomp," carry t be ir Race memories of king and caravan, and go sing ing t h rough t b e "G0or g ia. Dust. n Ori esinal, awesome and sustained in craftsmanship , Cane as poetry is a classic of Afro-American literature. the book, "Son of the Son, n In t be most i mp ortant poem ln Toomer encases b oth 11 is superior techniques and the concept for Cane. T1'le son sin i:;s: Pour O pour t h at parting s oul in sonc; , because be knows the tradition is in tact. Just "pour II the song, be asks, And let t h e valley carry it a.lone; . And let the valley carry it along . The songs of "slav ery 11 will be transformed into brilliant dirges compositions and epics (like Cane). And Toomer's was a fitting observation in tbe years preceding t he b irth of big Black jazz bands (Basie, Ellincton) and followin g t h e b lues (Handy and others). The plaintive soul will soon be g one, but it will leave An everlastinc son, a sing inG tree •••• Likened by some to a series of artistic sketches, by others 313 ,. �to a symphonic composition, still by oth ers to t h e syncopation and vocal blendings of Afro-American folk mus i c, Cane--according to one critic--was at least two decades ah ead of the era in wh ich it was written. Less impressive as Black material, but brilliant as a general work of art, is 11 Th e Blue Meridian . 11 Heav ily influenced by the modernist school of poetry ( P ound, Crane, Eliot, etc.), "Heridian II was o verlooked for years and is finally anth ologized in Black Writers of America (Barksdale and ICi nnamon). Upwards of 700 lines, t h e poe m ma kes use of various r hyme schemes, 3tress formulas, linguistic and stylistic marriages. a lot to Walt vn.1itma.n in its swee p a.nd intent. 11 muted sh ades of Sand b ur g . Meridian, n It owes And there are s e ems to be Toomer's •'I! '\ ~;,Jt 'J!i' near-final effort to pur s uade t h e different elements of himseU' ;,r·. to nlive in harmony . tt T.S. Eliot b ad k nelled t h e doom. of Western civilization in 1922 (The Wasteland) and other poets had echoed him. Fenton Joh nson, of course, had preceded Elio with this proclamation. Toomer had intimated t h e •same thing in Cane (c.F. !!Nove mber r.otton Flower"). But it is in "Mer1d1 t11at he warns of t h e impending downfall of t lle West--noting tha\ ).'.· <.~ such fate might not be undeserved. Th e world is full of "cryinJJ ,1 men and hard women II and We're all ni ggers now-- get me? Black ni ggers, white ni ggers,--take y our choice. These omens of doom come in the first section of the poem. 314 �But the second section heralds t he co ming of t be new man (for Toomer, perhaps, an admixture of races and colors) wbo is spiritually and psychically elevated above race and other immaterial problems . Tb e new man is a "b lue" man, possibly a cross between a Black and a wh ite man, and even sexual crosses are suggested. For we k now all t b ese t h ings troubled Toomer. He was concerned as a teenaGer a ~out h is "nascent sexuality." And he declared t hat he was above b oth sex and race if they set up obstacles and defeat. It is a ch allenr e to t h e more curious student, however, to unravel the life and 1-rnrks of one of the most complex geniuses in American letters. i,.n1atever the outcome, Toomer' s is an achievement to be reckoned with . His work can be found in most antholoc ies of Afro-A merican literature. He also pub- lished Essentials-- 11defini tions and aph orisms n--in 1931. Toomer wrote more things but most are uncollected and remain at Fisk University. An unpublis h ed se gment of h is autob io graphy, Earth-Being , appeared in tbe January , 1971, is.sue of The Black Scb olar. tvl1ile Hae ner' s tr0at ment of ,'.f'..9.9mer does not equal his discussion of oth er poets of t h e renaissance, it is good. Brown, Redding , and numerous other critics discuss Toomer's work in various places. 11 Jean Toomer: Of special aid is John M. Reilly's An Annotated nl1ec klist of Criticis m, for American Literary Study, Vol. IV, No. I (1974). 11 Resources See also Toomer listinGs in ICinna.mon and Barksdale and my h iblior;rapl1y. Countee Cullen, anotb or brilliant-trag ic fi gure in Black 315 �poetry, spent most of his life tryinc to bridce the gap between a "Christian upbrinc;i n3; 11 and a npa c;an ur c;e. 11 How can the educated Afro-American, Cullen seems to ask, re main true to bis native instincts and fe elings wl1ile he WBars the mantle of European "Respectahilit::r"? This particular aspect of Cullen's life and work is often taken too li ::h tly by critics wbo view his highly stylized poetry as intellectual ( and he nce not .real) journeys into the aweso me world of death , reli c ion and color. Yet Cullen knew, as h e said it in 11 'J.1l~e Shroud of Color, being Black in wbi te America requires have. 11 11 11 that courage more than angels History, of course, sbows t b at so far Cullen's name has withstood heat fro m the furnace of others before and after. 11 Baptism" just like many And such fi gures as Gwendolyn Brooks, Carl Van Vech ten and Eleanor Roosevelt, lauded bis passionately searchinG and skillful effort to aroid being devoured by the dragon of racism he tried to slay . However, Cullen did not consciously seek after t he unity so desperately thirsted after by Toomer. On the one hand, Toomer felt free to explore all facets of the religious and mystical world; on the other be was committed to an intellectual and spiritual search of his African origins. Cullen embraced Christianity and developed the first major Black tragedy fi gure by reincarnating Christ into a Black ma.n. The "pure" and nobel Black becomes the new "only bee;otten son" on a several-hundred march up Calvary. Here, of course, Cullen was close to McKay; but in sustaioing such efforts, in rr..aking them alle gorical, he surpassed McKay. Cullen's already complicated personal situation was • 316 �aggravated b y b is reluctance to deal truthfully with t h e details of his early life. It is still unclear as to wh ether h e was born in Baltimore, Naryland or Louis v ille, Kentucky, though he makes references to b oth ( !!Incident" and !!Th e Ballad of A Brown Girl!!); or i f h e was raised by h is moth er or h is grandmother (up until t h e ti me of b is adoption by t h e Rev. Frederick Asbury Cullen). Joh nson (T:Je Book of American Ne gro Poetry ) says Cullen was born in New York City (as do t h e editors of The Negro Ca.ravan)--probab l y b ecau s e t h is is wh at Cullen wanted readers to t h ink . Pos s ib l y , Wa gner not es, h e was an "illegiti- mate II ch ild a.nd, out of fear of e mb arrass ment, purposely confused the .faces. Th is myst ery , coupled with Cullen 1 s "different" sexual inclinations , h is desire to nssume t h e perso na of an English romantic poet, h aunt t b is precocious poet t hrough out his lifeti me. Cullen's i nitiation into poetics came, as with Dunbar and Ilue;h es, in h i gh sch ool where h e won poetr:r contests and published pieces inn student publ i cation wb icb h e h elped edit. By the time h e h ad finis h ed New York University (Ph i Beta Kappa.) he had won several awards ( includ ing t h e Witter B~rnner award for excellence) for his poetry and recei v ed a contract from Harper's and Broth ers for public a tio n of b is first book (Color, 1925). This mar ked t b e first ti me, since Dunb ar's deatb , that a major publish er h ad brou ght out t h e work of a Black poet. It also marked t b e first time in al most 20 years that such a. book b ad b een publ ish ed for a liv e Black poet. 317 The most skillful �Black user of English verse for ms , Cullen ac hieved almost instant success. Color sold ove r 2,000 copies during the first two years of pub lication. A.nd he recei ved bi s Tl.A. from He generally sided with McKay Howard durinc; tbe same period. in not breaking away from traditional Englisl1 poetry. expecially admired t he poetry of Keats and Shelley. He Johnson, noting that "he mic;ht b e called a :rounger brotb er of Housman," said some critics arc;ued t b at Cullen was not a.n Negro poet. 11 11 autb entic And Cullen, re minis cent of Toomer's position, straddled the fence on the questio n of inspiration and t hemes for Black poets. On one occasion he acknowledged his debt to the Black tradition; but on another, compla ined that the Black poet ouc;ht to be abl e to :rchant II poetry spiritual or blues appears. 11 11 i n whi ch no IIi s esthet ics were stated more concisely in 1927, h owever, in the form of a forward to Caroline Dus k ( 1!;27 ), an anth oloc-1 of A.fr o-A mer ican poetry wl1i ch be compiled. His conm1ent was startlinc, especially at t h e bei .::;h t of the Harlem Renaissance and com.inc, as it were, fro m a. New Negro: As heretical as it may sound, t here is t h e probability t b at Hecr o poets, dependent as t b ey Rre on the Engli s h lancuace, rnay b a.·. , e rr.ore to e;a in from t h e ricb backcround of Enclish and American poetry than from any nebulous atavistic y earninc s towards a.n African inheritance. Cons equently, Cull en caJ_letl Carolins Dusk e.n a nt11 olog:7 of 31 3 11 verse �by Negro poets rather tban an antboJ.osy of lrec;ro verse. 11 But Cullen could not ahra:rs subscribe to t hi s particular est11etic; 11 for much of h is own poetry can h e labeled towards a.n African inheritance. 11 ata,: istic yearnings Examination w:i.11 s h ow t11at such poetry is fo und i ~ t is enrly volu~ e (Color) in his later works: Girl; as well as Cop per Sun (1927), Il1c Ballad of the Brown a :.1 OJ.d Ballad ;'."{9to ld ( 1927), 1I1~ 1e :Gln ck C1, rist and Other Poems (1929), Tb0 1-Iedea and S or11e Po~ns (1935) a nd J-1is selected poems, On Thes e I Stand (1947). C<'- ~_c :·1 a.lso wrote b ooks for children (Th e Lost Zo o, 194 0; nnd Hy Lives and How I Lost Them, He translated Gree k literature (The Hedea), wrote 1942). numerous lyrics for mus ic and -i-r orked on a draraatic adaptation ( 11 S aint Louis Woman 11 ) of an Arna Bontemps novel: Sunday. God Sends In 1932, s ee kinG to re new h is siminish ing creative powers, h e published his only novel, One Way to Heaven. Most of Cullen's poetry represents the vnst influence of Christianity. He wrestles with tbe Lord or nsks God wby this event or that event occurs. Especially is this seen in his poetry of racial conflict wbere t he contradictions of white 11 Christianity are expo sed over and over. For a Lady I Know 11 11 depicts a white woman in h eaven who t h inks servants) will do her "celestial chores. Is w~rth Its Song" chides 11 1 ¼merican poets, black cherubs 11 ( or 11 Scottsboro, too, 11 outraged by the plights of Sacco and Vanzetti, for not defending Black boys kangaroo'd for 11 ra.pe 11 in an Alabama Court. says, is also "dev inely spun." 319 In 11 Theri cause, Cullen Colors 11 t h e 11 swart 11 (Le., �Black) man is lJ anged on a "newer Cal v a.r::r. n Cullen's loncest po0m and treat ment of t h is tl: e me is The Black Christ (puhlished in France). It deals alle c orically with a lynch ing . A Black man, Jim, attacks and kills a wb ite man wh o insults a. wb ite woman. Jim is lynch ed, as southern law requires. His state- ments leading up to t b e lynch ing , a nd t b e action of the poem, suggest the crucifixion. mysticism of a bad dream. Redding called the poem "The ch ildish 11 Indeed, despite t h e poem'.s evasive- ness and "mysticism,1: l y nch ing is much worse t b an a. "bad dream." Finally (thouc;h t h e t h e me continues in countless other poems), there is the famous ''Yet Do I Harvel. 11 Here Cullen applies the sonnet to the riddle of the Afro-American poet, concluding, after high praise of God, that: Yet do I marvel at t h is curious t h ine -To make a poet b lack and b id h im sing . Curious, indeed, was t h e Blac k poet--curious b oth for Cullen and the whites who lavish ed praise and Gifts upon t b ese Kew and Unusual Ne groes. was also "curious.'' And Cullen's fa me (recallinc. Dunb ar's) Here was a poet makin c; wa ves witb old, outdated forms of English verse. 11 fresh beauty. 11 Joh nson said h e gave them Tb is is true hut Cullen's wb ite audience seems to have gotten special pleasure out of b is a b ility to handle Black anc;er, Black e;rief and Black path os in such amusingly antiquated poetic cloth inc . Prevalent t h emes in Cullen's poetry, then, are race pride, endurance, lynch ings, cynicism and pessimism ("can death be worse?"), 320 �a primitive or romantic v iew of A:frica ("Heritage" and many others), religious and psycbolo gical conflict, love and death, spiritual freedom, personal or racial inferiority, doubt and fear, the tensions created by bein 0 Black among whites, and Christ as a symbol of conflict and contradiction. Cullen saw the plight of the Afro-Americans a.s true tra gedy in a Christian land. This comes t ll rouc;11 in many of bi s poems, but poignantly in "Heri tae;e 11 : Fatber, Son, and Holy-Ghost, So I make a.n idle hoo.st; Jesus of the twice-turned ch eek, Lamb of God, al t h ou gh I speak Wi t b my moutb t hus, in my he art Do I play a. double part. For the Black American, trapped in Christian attire but longing deep inside for wb at Zack Gilbert calls '1t 11nt all-Black Saturday night," it is inde ed a tragedy . Cullen tried a.11 of his life to reconcile a "Chri8tian 11 education with a. Toomer wanted to to find a 11 11 unite" h is several parts. 11 pago.n ur ge." And HcKay tried bome II in tbe desolate and some times contemptuous place Elijah Huh a rimad calls "the wD.derness of Horth America." McKay went all t he way to Europe and Horth Africa. made annual treks to France for several years. Cullen Black literature abounds with t h e tragedies incurred wh en Black intellectuals relinquish their 11 dance II for a "b ook. 11 Earlier in Heri tage 11 11 Cullen admits this deep need, felt b::- Blacks cau rrh t in white · 321 �worlds everywhere, to "Strip!" and 'Doff this new exhiberance. Come and do the Lover's dance! McKay's "lynchinc ' rer.m.ins unsolved 1-.,y t he sonnet and is unable to make bis "heart and head" know that Tbey and I a!'e civil ized despite the meters. 11 unre mi ttant be at II of b is impressive iambic tetr A classic state nent on the inner-workings of the o:f a Black genius wbo must ntwist and squirmn in an a.lien ' ~ 11 Heri tac;e II h as yet to b e seen on the many psycbolocical · ·~,., world. l' dimensions that it operates. This and related t h e mes also per vade other poems by "From t h e Dark Tower a is inspired by b is column of a similar name in Opportunit:r. 1 AlthouGl1 Black artists and thinkers "wer~ -~ not made eternall:r to weep," t h ey must eitl1er face destruction of their potential or wear the mask and "tend our agonizing seeds . " Cullen also writes about timid lo ve rs and Black pro- stitutes, about man:r, many ub rown tr c;il.. ls ( anoth er ..favorite theme) and the acb e of t h e human h eart. He writes in tbe shadow of Keats and Sbelley and pens epitaphs to them. His employment of traditional Enelish verse forms is not as :startling" as McKay's. But he does bring a Black force and intellectual veracity to these devices and techniques which had long housed rrw11 i te II hopes and feelings. He took the bes of Keats and Edna. St. Vincent l'Iilla.y and made it work in a 11 marked technical skill. 11 Sterling Brown identifies his · 322 ; 1 �aD "fluency and brilliant i magery. 11 But h e is likened by many, critics to the standard En 6 lish work of Braithwaite and Dunbar. Cullen consciously developed misery --apparently in ·an effort to llsuffer II like t h e romantics, so h e could know what real inner-strife was all a b out. He b ad not seen the underside of Black life in t h e way t h at lfoKay (Banjo, Banana Bottom), Hughes (The Weary Blues), Fenton Joh nson, and oth ers had come to know and understand it. into a pristine verse. He subdued h is anger and violence Most critlcd allude to the woman-like or "prissy II nature of Cullen's work. 11 e viewed 11 lif e t h rou c;b the eyes of a woman wh o is at once shrinking and b old, sweet and b itter. or 11 Redding complained t hat 11 In Cullen's 11 atav1stio" primitive 11 pieces one feels t h at h e is not really there himself--much like one feels in reading white poet Va.c}1el Lindsay's poems on Af'rica and t b e 11 Cone;o. " · But Cullen remains one of the brilliant meteorites of Blac k poetry. His passion has yet to be surpassed, e ven among conte mporary Afro-American. poets. Thou gh h e does not conv ince t h e reader t h at he would actually !Tstrip! 11 and do tbe !!Lov er's dance! 11 b e does distill an intellectual fury wh ich ch ronicles t h e death -during-life v ortex (Davis calls it "alion-and-exile ll) that so many Africans in America struggle a gainst. Wagner's Black Poets contains t h e most up to date and incisive critical assess ment of Cullen. See., also, critic ism by Redding , Brown., Johnson, Huggins (Harlem Renaissance), Bontemps (including Harlem Renaissance Remembered), t h e listings in t h e Cullen section of Black Writer• . 323 �::any of C11.llen 's unpublis h ed of America and n ~.: m-r:1 >i 1, lio:.:;rap1°:r. works are deposited in t~e library at Atlanta Universit7 . James Weldon ,To11nso:1 , 1-11-:i. on we 1 , ave cause to menti on a c ain, ranks today as o ne of "chc n ost distin c uis 1-:i.e d men of Black American letters. ~fo h a ·Je alreac.:'" no ted 1, is work wi.tl1 li 0 l~t operas, bis service as u United States consul in Latin Ar,1erica, t be years he spent as secretar:r ceneral of tho HAACP , 1-,is first v olume of poetry ( Fift:r Years and Otber Poe:ns) and tbe 1912 publication of bis novel, '.I'he Auto'!., ioc;rapl:i:r of an Ex-Colored 1".an . Autcbiograpby was rc-isc.:ued in 1927, tl,e earli e:ir pseudonym dropped, and carried Johnson 'n na me. Durin: tho twenties Johnson continued to co :.;1::-i :t no ~, is l:co n social o> sor vat:ton s of Black America with h is poetic develop ment a n d output. Of 1(.)..r of Ay•c·•-,-i noo TT::.,-.ro Poe•l-r~~ ...... ..:..J .l. ·- en t.4 ··L1 .. d3 V ..· Tne L,..., 0 .... t he ldc;h poi nt:c; of t 1.1 e renaissance. just the poets inclt1ded, t~10 (1 \ ,,_ Cl22 ,,. , His editorship 1_ O".l]) .... .,.s 0118 of ..,, _.1 .. vva. Importa n t for more tban ant 1-: olo 0 :r represe n ted t'.1 0 first sustained effort on tbc p art of a 3lack critic to identify 11 Ifogro 11 olo:.;1ents L : roo tr:" wrl tten s inc c Dnn 1 'nr. It ·was also t1rn first antholo ;:_;:r of Af'ro-A:·1e rica n po etr:t to '-,e pu 1·1 5.sbed On e can safely sa:r t'rnt a ~:' serio us =::tt1.d~~ of Blo.ck critic ism h as to 1Je.si ~1 wit~~ ,Tanes Uoldo n J ohn so n . IIis sn>titlo (uith a nd Essay on t he JTocro rs Crcnt i vo Gen in::;) su c;_:::;este c1 t}:rn h n gh the vari ous L 1flu e ,.1 ccs ot1 t 10 c po0t s, :rnted cFs ·ci n ctions ', etween differe n t ki n{Ll or dialects, Qnd c a ~e a ss es s ~ e : ts of t he �\\That the colored poet in tl1c Uni tod States needs to do is sometl~i n:~ like what S ync.; c did for t b e I1.,lsl1; ·r: o ncods to fi nd a for r:1 t;11 a.t will express t:1e racial sp:I.ri t l)y s:nu1·) 0ls i'ro::n wi t1~in rather t!1an h:r s:,~·:'-,o:..s fro 1:1 1,-dtbout, s n c~ 1 as V -ie ';ere tautilatio n of I~n:-_;l is'-:. s p c )_li nr._; n. n d p:ro rw:1 ci- e.tion. Eo : -wed s ,'.". fo r --1 t 1.-i at is :::'r"cor a n d lar c er than d:laloc t, b n t H\ 5.c:.'J :c-J:i.~.l st i J. :. '-:i o Y.d t :.:: o racia 1 fla vor; a f o~.~1·:; ox press :t n :3 t1..,e i iiia. :::;0 r :', the idion s, t ~ e ,e culinr tur n s of t b ou~,t , a nd tll e distincti,: e bur,1 or and pa.tl10s, too, of t > e t h e deepest n nd 11i ~;}1est emotio ns and o.sp5.rations, and alloH t h e uidest range of s t~1, jects nnd the widest scop e of treat ment. It was a g igantlc cl1allonc c. it? Did an~, :Slack poet rise to meet Has any succeeded? With bis brother, J. Ilosamond, Jobnson also co-edited The Book of American 1Jecro Spirituals (1925) and The Second Book of A ri'10r> :T. c a :1. ~:'o ::_;ro <"'! :'.) 5.r 1.~; " a ~_ : ( :.. '; 26). cal arranGements b:r J. nosamnod. Botl"1 v olu mes carried musi- Jo _inson himself tried to meet • 325 �the challenge with God's Trom\:lones: Seven lJe r,-ro Sermons in Verse (1927), a rendering of t h e works of t he "old time" Black preachers. His pamph let, Native African Races and Culture, was published in 1927. A study of Harl8 m, Black i:1anhattan, ca.me out in 1930. His autohiobrap'!.-: y, Alo ne T)1is Ua:r , a ppeared 5. n 1933. And a social/political commentar::,r, Negro Americans, What Now?, was published the same year. His selected poems (St. Peter Relates an Incident of the 2esurrection Day) came out in 1930. Johnson established hinwclf o.s prol:ific and exe mpl ary 1-:-ian, a co(111, ination of formidab le talents, by t he time b e was killed in an automobile accident in 1938. Aside from their literary and social value, the sermons in God •s Trombones l1a.ve , in the years since their publication, brought delight and instruction to many from t h e various stages from which they have been s taged or oth erwise dramatically presented. In my own classes we assi r;n a sermon per-student and, allowing days for researcb and preparation, stage t h e works for a lar ger campus or community audience. Just h ow much of his own ch allenge ( see ab ove ) was ntte mpted in God's Trombones is indicated by Johns on's Preface in which h e briefly gives the history of Black preachers and explains why he chose the trombone as the central s ymb ol in t he work: He (the preac~er) strode t he pulpit up and down in what was actually a very r hyt hmic dance, and he brought into play t he full go.mut of hi s wonderful voice, n v oic e--wh a.t sba.11 I sa::,r?--not of an organ or a trumpe t, but rather of a 326 �trombone, t h e instrument possessing ab ov e all others the power to express t h o wide and varied range of emotions encompassed b~r t h e human voice-and with greater a mplitude. He intoned, h e moaned, he pleaded--h e blared, h e crash ed, h e t h undered. I sat fascinated; and more, I was, perhaps a gainst my will, deeply moved; t h e e motional effect upon me was irresistible. This scene occured at a ch urch Joh nson attended in Kansas City. While t h e preach er was struttin g and deli verin.c; , Jolmson recalled that h e n jotted II 11 down note s for The Creation. n God's Trombones contains so v e L s ermon s a:1d one pr ayer -- "Listen, Lord. 11 Th e sermons, ea.ch taken fro m a t ext in t he Bib le, include "Th e Creation., 11 rrThe Prodi gal Son.," 11 Go Down Dea.tb --A Funeral Sermon," "Noah Built the Ark," nTbe Crucifixio n," nLet Hy People Go" and nThe Judgment Day. 11 Coming as it did at t he h i gh point of t h e Renaissance-1927--God' s Tromb ones was rath er odd in t h at a les,s t h an ostensibly reli giou s v ers e was b eing written by oth er poets. There were reli r;ious t hemes in much of t h e poetry --but none of the poets dipped into t h e same reservoir in t h e same manner as Johnson. Joh nson was, bowever., a ble to fuse some of the jazz a.nd blues patterns of t h e day into h is work--th ough it is not t h at noticeab l e . Th e s ermons a.re not in Black dialect since Joh nson said t h at t he Afro-Anerican poet must transcend that for m. Tb e lo.n t;ua.ge is generally t h at of a ny wh ite 327 �American or F.nglis bman. Wh at Jo11nson does is instill racinl feeling and dram:i.tic (eth nic) touches by allowing for spontaneity, bui l dinc; i n repetition, and e mployine; free verse forms. Mar garet Wal ker, La.nzs ton Huc;h es, and Sterling Brown would place all t b cse ite ms i n a more secular context--although Brown will interpolate b latantly r eli ;:i:ious expletives and exclamations into some of b is work. Tb e double ne gativ e, wb ich Johnson makes use of, is not a n exclusivel y Blac k product. But we do find him inters per s ing Black s ay ings, usa ces and other idiomatic spices into t he t ext of t he s ermons. It was t h e first time t hat a Black poe t b ad undertaken suc h a ta sk sol ely for literary r e asons . So t h i s alone ma ke s t h e work i mportant-- not to me ntion its antbr opoli c;ical a nd sociol oc; ica.l value. The over-riding achi ever.1ent of t h e se r mons i s t h e i r graph ic, full-blown 1 images and t h eir i nf erential Toomer and oth ers). ~ lacke ni ng " of God (see Cullen, Tb e analogy is more obviou s i n "Th e Creation" where God Like a ma mmy b ending over h er b aby, Kne e led dow n in t h e dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till ~e sh aped it in h is own i ma Be. It seems only natural t h at Job nso n would pay t h is tribute to the Black mother-- most Blac k poets writing since, say , 1880, had done so. And b e b ad earlier complaine d of Joh n Wesley Holloway rs "Black Mam.mies" in dialect, say ing : for better poetry t h an t h is. u uThe b lack mammy is material From Joh nson's 328 1 'tnilk-wh i te horse," �through pbrases l ike "O-- Hary 's Baby--, long plunge, 11 11 11 sinners in t h eir bead- and "Bl ack er t han a hundred midni gb ts, of t he dramatic Black sermon can b e seen. 11 the power There are t hreats and warnings, adminishments and pl eas, fire and brimstones, force and even worse fury. 11 Th e Prodigal Son II is warned: Youn 6 man-Young man-Your arm's too short to b ox with God. The incremental lines, t h e spontaneity , t b e witty turns of phrases, t he colorful and sone ti mes b ombastic langua ge--a.11 give God's Trombones it auth enticity . Joh nson does use s ymb ols t h at express fro m "with i n " rath er t b an fro m 11 with out" t h e Black experience. For as h e noted in h is Preface "The Ne gro today is, perhaps, the mo s t priest- governed group in t h e country. 11 The old time preach er knew t b e "secretsn of ancestral oral and gestural power, Joh ns on says; t h ey knew t h e nsecret of oratory, that at b ottom of it is a pro gress ion of r hyt 11mic words more than it is any t h ing else. n The preach ers h ad inh erited an "innate grandiloquenc e of t h eir old African ton cues." the pulpit, the minist e r f used t h ese 11 Once in ton gues" and Biblical language because this "gratified a h i gb ly developed sense of sound and rhythm in hi mself and bis h earers." These were the concepts and ideas under wh ich Joh nson la.b ored in God's Trombones. Doubtlessly, the volume is one of t he most precious in the annals of Afro-American writine; . 11 There is h ardly a person wh o cannot feel 11 t h ese sermons--and yet their power and t h eir intuitive 329 ' ; •.-:~',\: . 1",,..,~ �embracing of a world of emotions and temperaments make them lasting as classical literature of whatever definition and hue. Jobnson' s Saint Peter, followine; a. tradition of Dunbar's "The Haunted Oak, Lynching, 11 11 Hu g~es' 11 S o ng for A Dark Girl, 11 i'foKa;_r' s "The and Cull e n's The Black Cl:1 rist and "Scottsboro, Too, is Worth Its Son o.; 11 , 11 atte mpts to lace t he desecrat5_on of Black humanity within its proper contradictory Christian context. In each of the poe L,s, tbe lyncll ing is connected up to a higher order--usnally t h e Ch ristian God. imagination, 11 Usine; a 11 visionar~r type of Jol"ns on a p!:)l:i.es satire to the se c re g ation of Black and white mothers of Gold S tar-Hinning soldiers. Sending the parents to visit P ' e ir so ns' g ra v es, tb e War Department put Black mothers on a foul, crm~ed boat (reniniscent of a slave ship) and wbite raotl1ors on a moder n liner. Job nson, in tJ1e poems, imag:i.nes t11at tbe Unknm-m Soldier arrives in heaven and is discovered to he Black. Various patriotic and terriorist organizations (t he G.A.n., t h e D.A.R., the Le g ion, the Klan, and others) want b i u buried a g ain. For more cri t icis li1 of Jobn son sec Dav is, Ua[;ner, Arna Bontemps (includi ng note in American Ne c;ro Poetry), Brown, Redding, Hugg ins and otlrnrs. Lan.c;ston Hughes Has at the oppos1-te end of the poetic spectrum from Cullen 1vhen ~~e wrote i n 11 Hother to Son": Well, son I'll tell you: Life for me ain't b een n o crystal stair. For while both men acbieved reco g nition oJ,out the same t:tme, 330 �Hughes was a fol k trol, 1Jador Hi th 17is f i nc;cr on tbe "pnlse of Eo was also free fro Ll ~he rostrnints of conventional Englis~ verse t~at do ~ i n atc~ practicall? all of Cullen's poetry. a dozen hoo~s of roet r~, se ve ral volumes of prose and plays, and soon bj_s oHn dra1:m s st o.. ge d all o·\ •cr the country, b:r trie time of ~18 d e at½. Of t',e q'..1c.rtct of f5.r0·c -li 11 c ~-T arlern Rennis- wbosc maternal .:.;r:incLno'chcr ' - '.J.d 1"co:~ _.:::.rr:i_ecl tc one of tl-,e Canary Io lands, t1, e ;,_zor c s a nC t1, e :fost Coast of Africa. 22nd bj_rtl1c. ay ttn r1 11G:1t Re- to rarls , a.::;ai n wor1dn ::_: odd johs, on 331 �to Italy and Genoa , and af tei-• a nu mb 0r of v aried experienc e s ( s ee The B5. 0 S e a : and I Wond e r as I Ha nd e r), ret n1" ned to. Amer i c a • . Ile then spent ti me in Washine ton, D.C., wh ere h is mother had moved, workinc i n t h e office of Dr. Ca rt er G. Woodso n , editor of the Journal of Ne gro History and later, as a b usboy (see "!?rass Spitt o o i12 " ) o.t t 1• ·:: rr~u·c1man Pa r ~: !' ot e l . At the latter place, h e had a c h anc e to s h ow some of l1is poe ms to Vachel Lindsay--thus launchi ng Hu 6b es "career II t b rou gh t h e newspapers. His v olurr.cs of p oe try include T11e 1 fo ar:r Blues (l ':12 6), l" :t ne Clot~cs Ne gro Moth er and Oth er Dramatic Re citations (1 931), Scottsboro Limited (1932), The Dream Keeper a nd Oth er P oems (1932), Shakeape in Harlem (1942), Freedom' s Plow (a long poe m, 1943), Jim Crowt ~ Last Stand (1943), Fields of Wo nder (191~7), One-Way Tic ket (1949) Hontag e of a Dream Def e rred ( 1 951), As k Your Homa: for Jazz (1961) and The Panth er and t h e La.s h : Times (1967). 12 Hoods Poe ms of Our Fu .;1.1es r,'2-so 1·r rot0 s;·_1ort sto 1 ies ancJ. n ov el s 1 ( in c ludin g collec t ed stories fro ~ t t e Jesse 3 . S i mpl e series Hl1ich h e ori gi nat e d ). Pro s e uorks a r e Not l H t1, out Laur-11t e r (1930) The Ways of Wh i te Folks (1934 ), S i mple S pe a k s His Mind (1950 ), Lau gh i ng to Keep fro m Cryi r1,z (:..952), S i mple Takes A Wife (1953), Si mple S ta kes a Clai n (1957 ), Ta mb ourine s to Gl ory (1 95 e ), S ometh i ng l n Common (1963) a nd S i mple 1 s Uncle Sam (1965). Play s by La n gs to n Eu c;;·: c:z. was pub 1 :ts~, cd in 1963. Fi ve Th e poet al s o e ith er wrot e ( or co lla~or ated with oth ers ; usu a l l y Bonte mps) many b ooks for you n 6 r eade rs a s well a s wor ks of g eneral and zpocific· inter es t o n Blac k c ult u re . 332 �In his early years, Hu~h es was i ~fluenced by Walt ~fuitman and Dunbar. In h :i. ~11 scbool, a teach er introduced 11im to the poetr:r of An1y Lm-rcll, Lindsa:r, :rasters and Se.ndbur c; . He was especially indebted to Sand1YL1rG, of wT, orn h e would speak, in The Big Sea, as 1:5_ ::; :rguldinc; star. 11 Fenton ,Johns o n bad been the only poet up until Hughes to sustaln suc h an ener g etic poetry of Blacl:: fol k life. Hu g11es i mprov ed on w11at Johnson b e g an, addinc; fros;1 portraits--t110u.::;:1 n ot the ridicule sometimes a ppearinc in Du:10ar--and actually using music to inspire bls wri ti nc; or accompan:r h is live re8.tli ncs. with Charlie ltlngus , a mon ~ other jezz Greats. He r,iade recordings And he is g iven credit for ori ginating t~e practice of readinG poetry to jazz. Interestin c;ly enou gh , t l1 is i n teri,reavin:: _; of mus:i. c and poetry (discussed in Chapter IV) be co me s a ve rtual b acW1one of Black architectonics. Baldwin, for example, speaks of listening repeatedly to t lle records of B0ssj_e Snitb to cain rhyt11m in bis prose. Certainl:.,. t~·i e sar;1e fusio n of st~rle a nd spirit can be found in Elliso n , 1frj_c;'1t, Tolson) B:iraka and Croucb . Novelist - poet Greenlee, quot ed earlier, noted in a h io c;raphical note to bis Blues for an Afri can Princess, F iat Ny chief literary influences are Ch arlie Parker, Lester Younc , Ililes Davis and Billie Il oliday . As a writer, I cons :i .dor m:rself a ja.zz musi cian whose instrument is a typewriter. Hichael S . Harper , a Black poet ·wh o ca '.i1o to mat nration in t 11e , sixties, also attri:)Utes ::1u cb of C: lS style and poetic philoso- . pby to jazz musicians w!·rn belped hi:.n u nderstand pain and make 333 �it "archetypal. rart of Hn :::;l1es 's L·,1pact on t1°is area of Black Tl poetry is documented~~ Ba nard Dell in The Folk Roots of Conter.1porar:r Afro-A merj_ can Poetr:r. Das ical 1:~ Hug1!es' s poetry falls into three stylistic cate g ories: dialect (pri marily of an urban sort), "t~:.nes and traditional-free verse. His use of dialect is seen in practica.11:: e•1er:r ' , ook 1rn 1wr1 lisl, ed. His blues and free-verso forms arc cspeciall~ evident in The Weary Blues. One of b is most fm1ons free-verse poe ms is T1T11e ITec;ro Speaks of Rivers, ir written ri c;h t after ;~e finis}1ed b igh scbool and publisbed in T1~e Criois j_n l<J21. T1,;_s for ;;1 , accordinc to J. Saunders Redd:~;1c, :Ls mu c'.J :·,wI'e eff e ctive a v e 1·dcle for !.:rug:1es than dialect or blues . :rn c:;'-ieri co me:J t 1, ro1..1..=1-, , in tbc "purer verse for ;-1s . 11 In 11 Reddlnc feels, Ri vers 11 :1:ncl,es reacb es into tbe deep deep well of Black ', istor:r and strt' cc;le , unitinc in spirit tbe global Africe.n: I' ve :rno1-1n ri vcrs : The use of worci.s :i::e ns on~. 11 ant: art 0 , crs ,i __ p', ic 1·• rnn li 1rn spines thronGb Black folkJ.orc anf J_itcrntnrc, n-:'..J.ows TT11:::;·~es to tonch · �In "vci ns, !I 11 r1CC '• ,._,., L"~ , :J TTfiQT -T • •• . ' T: !: Q" t.A.,.,,1,..,.r ,.__, Llt.. ,_, , IT ll,:, l) Cle ,_., t!I •,;.l ._ - l...i ,, .) (1 V. l. •l loging of actual p lace-names important to Blac1rn, strength and loncc v it:- :ls put :i.nto irPoe ;:.1s !I 11 t1.1e Catal 1e establishes T'··o He c ro, 11 and numerous otbors. Et1[):1 os 's dia:1..oct and ,Jlt1.es-orie n ted poe n s ·Here not "sweet" to tbe cars of some ;-!arlc;::;. Blacl: iDt0llectualc of the tuenties_. '•, Just as amny of ti-:0:1. ,-:i ad son.:;,1t to censure Ct~J.J.e ,1 for n ot writing more blatantl::r n'Jol,t nlac 1 : strti:_;c;lo (5.n Black :i.cHoms), the::r cri ticizod Hng!~es for deo.l:i_ n.; 1ri t 11 t},e "lower s tra tD. 11 or under- of Black life were hecinninc to co;ne to t1--ie fore in the works of Black::; (licKa:.· ) and 1-1'.~itc ( 1!ar, vec 1·ten) 1-- :rriters. And Hug1 1es joined tbis growt ns te:-!c.onc:r in spoa\::ln.s frankly a h out "Suicide, "Hard Dadd:r, 11 n~u'J::r Brm-rn, ir and more s~, c 1 1 experiences or svb j ects. Tho blues form ca11D for t},rcc-1.ined stanzas: the , seco i.'i d line repeats t11e first, and t}rn t' ird end-line r11:rmes 11itb the two 0 pro cedinc; ones. FuGt os 1-rorked t 1-iis mecHun for much of what it ua~ worth durinc h is life time. These vari ous forms also helped establish Hu~1es's tte mes ~nd subjects. traged~, vi ble nce or co ~passio n . Lin5uistic freedom I n many of h is poems, Hughes is able to develop a d5.o.:.o::; 1)etwecn t~.~o Black t1:1derdo c ancl tbe wbi te ruler. 11 Tbis occurc :ln 11 Brass 3pi ttoonc n ·wbere tbe busb o~r 335 �interlace:: a portro.:r_t of u. co :m~10n Blac:{ Horl:e r w:i. t 1 , dazzlj_n c: r1Jyt'h r;13 of c1·1 u rc 1: , H1 "' 5- te :;1c~ ' 3 orders, nlnc 1: part:r and n i ::;1.~t life and t h e s b i ri y sr,1.ttoons Blacks must keep polis h ed. see it tech nica11:r, t 1 1ot\~;,,., no t racj_nll~ 0 i. n , 11 He ..Tazzonia" i~ the call-a~1d-rc sr on n e pat t e r n conpl e6. ,75_t 1, car ef nll~r rearrang ed chordal structures: 011, s i l v er tre e ! rn1, s~ininc rivers of t ~e so u l! T11ree stanzas lat e r, t 1-1 e Ob ::1 1.·fn:tn ~ o a ;,10 i d ea "p pc ars i n tl·lis for m: r:i. vcrs of ti..,e s onl! And fi vc stanzas lat or, it a pp enrs tl, ns 1:,.: This b rilliant use of t 11 csa.:;1e L1trlcc.te p a tt e r n of dialo c· a.nd call-and-response co:1t:t nno s 5_n 11 ::nJ. a t t o. 11 T,.,., e 11 Bastard b o:"" ls rejected first b :- t1,e 1:b ite fat :1er n nd later ' J:r t ?-le w1.1 ite broth er, ')Otb rorrcsenti 11;_: ( t l:: ro uc;l-\ t11e inter jectipn of dtalo g ) different types a nd _::;enornt5.ons of ~-J})tte me n --o ne o}:, ject:tnc to t b e existei1ce of an 11 :i_2-l e~ it:i.mato 11 so:-1 .9. i1c1 t h e other (tbe farmer's off-spri nc;) r ef'n3i n:3 to ex t e nd a ~-1and of h rot 11erl:r concern. Hugh en tlrn mos, H~1:tc11 re ,;:a :i.n o<l wit½ 1-1hl t 1'1 rou~):: most of 11 is life are: ro.c ism, prote:n t, rac 5-a1 u n i t 2'", i-·nc c pr ide ( t l10u c1, 11e did not indul .::;c t b e pa e an Africa:1 fa :] tas-_- as muc1' as Cullen or EcKay), Black ·wo man (t11e :tr > ea.ut:r anc::. t 11eir stro nctl ~s), jazz a:1d b lues and reJ_j_ c :i.ons r.1t, s :l c, v :i_ol e nc e a c ninst T3 lacks and lnte c nation. 336 �Hughes, especially , Has t 110 spolrnsr,10.n of t11e e v cr~rday Black man. And b e oft e n relis 1 ~cd t h e coJ'.mo n profunc it:r of Blacks at dance, play, wors h ip or wor:{. J. Mord Allen f s 11 L 1 n}Te c;ro Da ncers,'! h e recalls '.:1~1e Sqnoa ':: of the Fi c:dle Tr a nu James Edwin Campb ell's TrHob i le :S u e k. 11 Allen b i n t s t b a t ·wb j_ tes cannot dance. And Campbell reproduces in poe tr:r the r 11:;th ms of contemporary dance knoun as t 1 e 11 1..,uc k . Hu [.f.1 es s b owi ng off Black i mprovi- n sation, claims t ~ at l,o a nd , . L~lS Two mo ' -:-ra:~s t o do d e C> o.r les to n ! --also a popular c ont omr,o r ar:r d ance. and 11 Eve n if w,, ites 11 lau c;11 11 prn:;:r 11 Blacks c2. n ta l:e r.: a tj_sf n c t :i.o n in tl,e k nowled c e t~1at the~r can top thei::: own re ser v oir of spo ntanei t:r a nd cren.ti v i ty when tho:~ Hant to siclc-st ep or a n n o:r t ·h e me c11a ,1 :1.cal wh ite 11 nigbt II and afrai d . 1:1:rn r e i s c:rn ic is m a nc. sai-·cas :i1 and tra ,::;edy in this poot iho o1Jsor v oc: 1-Jl s p e o pl e t :". ron 01· a deep ancl creative affectio n . Fuc: :os 1 s perso nal lif e , of cours e , wa.s }n st a.s fasci- ~r8.nts, l:i n-c was ofte n :L 1troc:u c e c?.. to c. 1.1c.:T.cnces as "tbe poet Laureate of IIarlc u . 11 I n )-, 5.s a u tob io :::;r o. p 115-es (Tl~ e Ri g Sea and ranld n3 1-rr itor s a.nr'l 5.n tc 1 l s. c t1'ul s of ' - ~s 11 __,_., '7 I a.o.~- ,.__n t r c mal n ecl :i.n �- ' C : .(:(; : t ,.. r-- -1- .:.. ' t.A L• _._, _,.... l• , "T, _C :::0:1.rce of ,, is i:.-rords. �anthologies: An African Treasury: Articles, Essays, Stories, Poems By Black Africans (1060) ; Poems from Black Africa (1963); New Negro Poets: U.S. A. (1964); and Voi ces: Poetry (Ne gro poets isstlo, winter, 1950). 339 (a) A Quarterly of �::rnems t o :)o a•J out a flDr0a:,1 Deferred. in t h at po.rtic uJ. a r ~'10C ti1 11 '::'rn dream, e.:a i n , l i ke ~-!'-ere i.., e asked , 1-.r ftho t~t nns·weri nc , th e ques tio n: 1'D.1 a t 1w.ppens to a dreRm def erred ? lrnr .f arnous pl a::,,r, 7-Iuc,~os also d ispJ_a~rs · ·is n as ter:· ov er tec11 - Or does it explode ? And l-:'. c liv ed t o s o c t 1.1 e a nd oth er places. exp1.os:i.on 5-n ~To.tts , 1';eH8.rk , De t roi t ::-ru cl ic s ' :~ Nri ti nc;s are anth oloc i er.: of Afro - Aw::ri c an l i t orat nr e . j_ n a 'J.1 2 0th c ent ur :r Detailed cri tical s tudics of l'lis wor\ : a ppe a r in Ha ener ' s Blac k P oe ts a nd Da vis's From t he Dar k TuHer . rrc :'.s aJ s o assessed in 1rnrks 1-:'y Br ow n, Kerlin, RodcUn~ , Jolmson a t:,d nm;1or ous o t 1.1 er s tudie s and com- was p"uh lis I-w d i n 11; 6 7 . Oth er i mportant source ite ms . on Hughes are Francois Dodat' s Langston Hugh es (Paris, 1964 ), Raymond Quinot's Langston Hugh es (Brussels, 196!+), Milton Meltzer's Langston Hughes: Hughes: A Bio graphy (1 968 ), Elizabe t h P. Meyers' Langston Poet of His Peopl e (1970 ) and Charle mae Rollins' Troubador: Langston Hugh es (1970). B~~£~ Of t be pleth ora of material steadily pourin g out of Hugh es, a most valuable book is Langston Hughes: Blac k Genius: Therman B. O'Dani el. A Cr itical Eva l uatio n (1 971), edited by O'Daniel includ e s a selected classified bibliography detailing Hughes's len gt hy career as writer in all genres, anthologist and critic. ,-: ,, t '', Hugh es inspired generations of ...,_, . Black Africans and Americans and also edited the followin g --;, - 0 ,j 5 I �C. Minor or Second Echelon Poets of the Renaissance Dozens -of poets helpe d to make up the varie gated atmosphere of the New Negro Eovement. And just as the New Black Poetry of the 1960•s cannot he characterized in terms of four or five individuals, so _the Renai s sance cannot b e understood unless the general poetry s cene is exami ned. Man:l of the so-cal led minor or second echelon po e t s writin g durin r; t h e peak of tr:ie Renaissance had already estab lished reputations b efore 1923. Principal amon g these were Arna Bontemp s (19 02-1973), Angelina Grimke, Gwendolyn Bennett (1902- ), Anne Spencer, Clarissa Scott Delaney (1901-1927), Frank Horne (1 899- ), Geor gia Dougla s Joh nson, Geor ge Leona.rd Allen (1905-1935), Donald Jeffrey Hay es (1904- ), Jdnathan Henderson Brooks (1904-1945), Helene Johnson (19 07- ), Waring Cuney (1906- ), Lewis Alexander (1900-1945), and Lucy Ariel Williams Holloway {1905- ). Other poets, to be mentioned at the end of this unit, can be dispersed rather widely alon g a spectrum of relative si gnificance. Many of tbem won prizes and places for t ,heir poems among the pages of Tbe Crisis and Opportunity and then disappeared from t he s c e ne . Others me t unt i mel~ dc aths --~fu il e yet others ch ose differen t c areers or le a ped i nto t :10 fre e d om fi gh t. Cullen's Caroling Dusk (1 92 7) co nta i ns t h e best re prese nt ation of AfroAmerican poetr~,. wri t t e n 1-:i etween 1910 a nd 1925 . Joh nson's The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922) pre sents poets between Dunbar and t h e time of its l as t edi t ion (1931). Ha_jor and minor poets are also to b e found i n Kerl in's Ne gro Poets and Their Poems (1923, 1935). �Hughes and Bontemps made many of thes e lyricists availabl e to u s in The Poetry of the 1-!egro ( 1949 , 19 70 ). At least hl3.lf a. dozen of the les ser know n poe ts are included in Alain Locke's The New Negro (1 925 ). Rand all (The Black Poets, 1971) displays work by Horne and Bont emps; b ut only Bont emps is included in Randall ' s Black Poetry (1969). He nd ers on does not list one of these transitional figures in Understanding the New Black Poetry (1973). And only Cuney and Bont e mps are included in Rosey Pool' s Beyond the Blues (19 62). TTere, we are simply randomly sampling t he anthologies for co ntent. detailed listin1::;s. See the hih liograph y for more The 1iest co nt emp orary anthology of 20th Century Black poetry is Ar no l d Adoff 's The Poetry of Black America , which list s mor e t han 14 0 poets and practically all of the minor one s of tbe renaissance, although the omission of Cuney and Edward Silvera hangs li ke a pall ove r the hook. Unfortunately, no Black a ntholo ey of the magnitude of the Norton series has appeared . The Necr o Cara ,ran (Sterli ng Brown, et al), a comprehensive anth olog~ puhl i shed i n 1941 and re~issucd (unrevised} in 1970, contains nearly a do zen of the mi nor v oices. In "Frank Horne and th e Second Eche lo n Poets of the Har leLl Rena is s ance" (The Harlem Re naissanc e ~emem1., ered, Bontemps, ed., 1972), Ronald Primeau launche s an i mpressi ve and i ~p ortant discussion of these lesser known f i gPrcs . W11i le 1fa 6 ne r (Black Poets of th,e United States , 1973) makes a partial effort to dis cu ss these poets, he seems generally to di s mi ss them a s clic k i s1J seekers after an African pas t. So at this wri ti ng , Sterling Brown 's "Contemporary ,. �Negro Poetr~ (:~14-1 936)," in h i s TTc;ro Poetry and Drama (1937), remain s tl-1e 11es.t critical ovcrvic,,r of t'l--icse poets . Bonto rrps 5~ OD~ of thr ee i mportant renaissance fi gures (alone; Hlth I-In c;h cs and Br own ) t o snrvtvc 1, od11:r and craativel:r up until the l !) h0 ' s . Hac~1er c all:: T? ontemp s 11 onc of t b e most brillia nt min or roots of th s TTar ~_c u Rl nc issa nc e II and Brown also ha s 11i g:1 praL::e of 'Jis poctr:- and fictio : -1 . Arthur P. Davis (From the Dark Tower) sees an "a.lien-and-exile" theme continuine; from the major trunk of renaissance poetry into the work of Bontemps. With the notable exception of Geor e ia Douglas Johnson, the important minor renaissanc e fi e urcs did not puhlish books of poetry until the 1960's. This fact alone tells us much about Bontemps' seeming poe tic obscurity hetw c on 1930 and 1960. But more important, for th e record, is the fact t h at Bontemps' efforts were direc.t ed toward fiction, drama, cl1ildren' s li ternture, history, chroniclinG the developmen t of other Black poets and ground-br e aking lihrary work. Born in Alexandria, Louisiana, Bontemps family move d to California when he was still a child. He attended Pacific Union Colle ge and the University of Chicago. His dive!'s e Hriting output, almost as prodi g ious as Hughes', includes numerous books, pamphlets and articles. His novels are God Sends Sunday (1931; dramatized as St. Louis Homan, 1946), Black Thunder (1936, about t h e Nat Turner-led revolt) and Drum·s at Dusk (1939). Bontemps also co-edited with Langston Hughes the very influential anthology The Poetry of tbe Negro (1949, 1970), and he brought out American Negro Poetry in 1963. 342 Other anthologies • I �are Golden Slippers: An Anth olo gy of Tiecro Poetry for Young ---=-------"'-- - - - ~ - - - - ~ Readers (1941), Th e I3 ook of Hec;ro Folklore (1 95f., with Hn gh es), Great Slave Narratives (1969 ), Eold Fa st to Dreams: Po~ms Old and New (1969) a nd Tbe Harlem Renaissance Rer.1em1; cred (19 72, a collection of artic les ). Additionally Bontemps publ i shed more than 20 odd works of h i bl io c raphy (usu a lly on Black heroes), juvenilia, cult ur e and his tor~. He sor¥ed as university li~rarian at Fis k for more t b a n 20 :rears and was a mem1) er of t h e faculties of t he Uni ve rsity of Illi nois a nd Yalc --whe re be was i ~ ch arg e of Afro-America n S t udios at t he ti me of h is death. 1924 and 1931 I3onto rup □ ' Between poems were r1~Jl is bed widely in v arious magazines and per i od ical s at1e1 ~e Cri s is a nd Oppo rtiini t :r . :10 Hon 1.-:ioe try pr:i.zes from b oth HLJ o nly pub lis ~1cd vol ume of poetry , Personals, did not co:,10 01:t until 1.')6~. (from t~1e Englis11 rnan Paul Bre1~1an). Perso n al s a s an idea-position suras up mu ch of Bontemps' poctr:r • . F or throuc;hout t1-:i o book th,:_,ro is the nse of A comf orta1, lencss also att ends P o ::i ten:p s' poet1,.,:·-- ·1cy':; a s nrn:~ co r,ifort , , u t a co:11.fort of 1 ye o.r n:i.nc; for L 1stant rcc o:_> l:i.t:i.o n or t 1, 0 frc:1z~.- tl-w. t .) •I!. nr •·1"' 11 ) C,J,, '-' U , t ' ·· c' Bethe s da 11 ) , t '-1 c . .; ' .L·" -.l ~. . C'"' "'l L 1 J.~ ;-<, ou t 1.., (._.J. ( 11 pr,c-• t I. l 1~1o ,.J (llrr,i.,,,., .J or . Count ee Culle n 1 s nncl Frank I'orne ' s . ',ro~•"'1 11 I 11 '-.~ ~c,'--iirt11! ,.. .,.i. l..,.:iJ. ~-,. V • -. C.A [ tl:;e anti- 111\Toc.J...U.,,.,rl"' ..._ l, .L" - V at 8 01-,tl-:: l")r~ ::ans io n 11 ) , a ~-,e d ef:ta n co a nd . 343 �s tr c ngt~7 tradition of B~.ack lahor and concludes that tho laborers' children "food on bitter fruit. 11 Billie Holiday would later witness a hanging in the S out11 and wrlte "Strange Fruit. 11 And we recall that since James Wb itfield, Black po e ts have pointed to the contradictions in American Christianity and tr,e harren versus bearing theme. Bontemps also followed the renaissance pattern of romanticizing a pagnn-likc Afro-American or African. With the taste · of slavery and the dialect tradition still bitter on their tongues, these poets leaped backwards over slaver:r to another place and another clime. 11 Bontemps does just this in The Return" ~ 1ich closely resembles Cullen's "Heritage" and some of the atavistic pieces of Langston Hughes and Claude I-IcKa.y. 11 of "remembered rain, "dance of rain, n II "the .friendly ch ost, 11 jungle sky, 11 Bontemps speaks "lost nights, "muffled drums, 11 Let us go back into the dusk again, 11 and then suggests: • 1 • • Dusk, ebony, jet, nir,bt, evenings, purple, blue, raven and other such synonyms for Blacks are frequentl:r employed to great eff'ect and power by Afro-American poets. Likewise, symbols or images of' invisibility and blindness are also prevalent in Black writing. Bontemps employs and implies such states in several poems where he achieves a surreal quality--a dream-like longing for another time and another place (a1::s ain, a pattern in the poetry of the period). If you "Close Your Eyes," Bontemps says, you can go 344 \ ,,, ., . I • \ ' ' �back to what you were, and maybe the sonc, as with Toomer, will 11 in time return to thee. 11 Closing the eyes will also allow one to "walk bravely enough. fl _A.way from the daily limelight and without the constant pressure (c.f., Cullen) to succeed and hold up the light of the race, Bontemps developed strong statements using convention poetic patterns with occasi6nal free-verse experimentation. Personal and powerful, Bontemps' poetry looks ahead to a similar stamina (this ti me in a new dialect) exclaimed by Sterlinc; Brown in Southepn Road. For even though Bontemps tells us in "Golgotha is A Mountain 11 , that One day I will crumble we know that the dust will fossilize and "make a mountain": I think it will be Golgotha. There has been very little critical assessment of Bontemps' poetry. But brief reactions to his work can be found in The·_ Harlem Renaissance Remembered ('which b e edited), Sterling Brown's study, Barksdale a.nd Ka.nnamon's anthology, Robert Kerlin's critical-anthology, Arthur P. Davis's From the Dark Tower, and The Ne gro Caravan. For a near complete listinc of Bontemps' published works see Black Horld, XX (September 1971), 78-79. Alon~ with Angelina Grim.lee, Lewis Alexander, Anne Spencer, Arna Bontemps, Geor gia Douglas Joh nso n, and Helene .Jobnson, GwendoJ:~,rn Bennett helped to .fill out t 11 e list of lesser known renaissance poets wh o appeared in _'!'_Ee New Ne gro (see 1968 edition with a preface b y Rob ert Hayden). Unfortunatel~r, bowever, Miss Bennett's best foot was not put forward in the "Song" which �Ala.in Locke accepted for pub lication i n t h e a.1.) ove nan,ed antholo gy. 11 S onr, 11 is not rcpresentati ve of :I-Iiss Bennett's generally hi gh craftmansh ip; it is flawed by imb alance e.nd an attempt to say many things in one poem. poetry of the period, 11 Characteristic of t~e Sonc " reaches back to 11 for gotten banjo songs II and Clinkine chains and minstrelsy but Miss Bennett's interpolation of dialect lines does not come of'f with the ease and power of Sterlin.c Brown's similar efforts. On the other hand, h er s h arp crisp ana precise i ma gery employed in poems which appeared in ma gazines and oth er a.nth olo c;ies show her as a poet witb many gifts and resources. Gwendolyn Be nnett was b orn in Giddine s, Texas, to professional parents. After graduation fro m t h e Girls' Hi gh School in Brooklyn, New York, s h e attended Teach ers Colle ge, ·columbia University, for two :rears and studied i n tlie Fine Arts Depa.rtment--tbereafter estab lish ing a dual career as poet and artist. She later attended Pratt Institute, tan gh t in the rine Arts Department at Howard Uni versity, and t h en recei ved t h e Thousand Dollar Foreign Sch olarsh ip of t h e Delta Sigma Th eta Sorority, which enabled ber to go to Europe w11ere she studied for a. year f , f in Paris at the Academi c Julian and t h e Ecole Panth eon. She returned to New York at t h e bei c;bt of t h e renaissance and for a while was a member of t h e editorial staff of Opportunity where several of her poems appeared . In reading her finest poems, one recalls depth of Black wot;mnlJ ood revealed in t h e poetry of . - l 346 ~ . ;· •· �Frances Harper, Geor gia Joh nson and Angelina Gri mke. "To A Dark Girl" is a meditation on the sisterh ood w11 ich retains aspects of "old for gotten queens. 11 We recall the word "for- gotten" from "Song "; but it ab ounds i n t h e poetr•y of this period. Miss Bennett's "brown girl" ( c. f., Cullen!) is "sorrow's maten but if she forgets her slave background she can still "laugh at Fate!" The yearning , t h e pleading , the thirsting for another time and anoth er place--for natural Africa--recurs t hrouchout these poems and poets. distills "dista nt laugh ter II and huming melodies." 11 Miss Bennett's S onnet--2 11 11 "Nocturne" recalls "Ne groes · Heritar;e 11 is almost ideri;.. tical, in t h eme and tone, to Countee Cullen's poem of t h e same name. Just as Cullen laments t h e d isparity b etween his "heart and head, 11 this poet sees t h e same dua.li ty in her "sad people's soul" Hidden by a minstrel-smile. Finally, "Hatred II is s h arp and stingine; Like a dart of singing steel and we are reminded of t h e poems of t h e same t h eme: DuBois' "The Riddle of t h e Sph inx," and McKay 's "To t h e White Fiends" and "The "White House. 11 For Clarissa Scott Delaney, "Joy n seems to contain the . emotional intensity t h at "Hatred II b olds for Gwendolyn Bennett. The dau ghter of Emmett J. Scott, t h e "distinguished secretary. to Booker T. Washington, 11 J\.a,s. Delaney lived a tragically short life and died at the peak of the Harlem Renaissance. 347 ,· . ~ .. ;:~;'- · "Joy" is �what she vows to "aba ndo n1t herself to j_n an effort to avoid the troubling 1tmazen of life. Her poetry is quietly power- ful and seems to compliment t h at of Arna Bontemps since it is deep and flows from tradit i on, stamina and endurance. Born in Tuske cee Institute, Alabama, s h e attended Bradford Academy in New England and t h en Wellesley Colle ge, af'ter which sl1e taught three years at t be famous Dunb ar High School in Washington, D.C. According to Robert Kerlin, Hrs. Delaney o.lso "Studied delinquency and ne c;lect a mong Ne gro chi ldren in New York City." Her poetry reflects a percepti ve and analyt ical mind. Initially, she appears detach ed and metallic--deceptively, like Gwendolyn Brooks, hut the poem usually winds down to a c;rippin g messa.e_;e on pretense, loneliness, joy or despair. is a 11 The ni gh t in "Interim" gracious cloak" used to conceal the defeat of t h e soul. "The Mask" imr.iediately brings to mind Dunbar's "We Wenr t h e Mask." Except for t b e differences in persona and drama.tic affects, the two poems are quite similar. Re -read ine "The Mask," one is ' reminded of Smoke:;r Bill Rob inson's recentl::,r popular "Tbe Tears of A ClOi·m"--wb ich carri es t b e t b eme of duality a nd scb izoph renia so often found in Black t h ougb t and wri tine; . Wh ile a.11 Black artists do not display t h is "twoness" with the intensity of a Countee Cullen or nalph Ellison, it is almost always present in t b e:i.r works. Especially is t b is true of the Black American irriter, forced to use t he · communication tools of the over-seers to speak ab out t h at wh ich is closest to him. 348 �This particular aspect of Black poetry gives rise to r.mch speculation since poems devoid of racial or eth nic flavor take on added si g nificance when we know their authors are Black. Such is t h e case with Gwendolyn Bennett's "Hatred" (where nyou" could b e whites) and W.E.B. DuBois' "The Riddle of the Sphinx" {wh ere 11 t b e m11 prob ably means wh ites). Frank Horne, who won a poetry contest in Th e Crisis in 1925 but did not publish a book (Haverstraw) until 1963, fits .into this context. Horne was born in New Yo1"k City where he attended public schools. As a. student at t 11e Colle g e of t h e City of New York, he won varsity letters in track and wrote poetry. He later graduated fro ,;1 trie Nortbern Illinois College of Ophthalmolo gy witb a. de gree of Doctor of Optometry. Horne worked in Chicac o, New York, tau r:;h t in Fort Valley Georgia and was for some time e mploy ed by t h e United State Housing ... Authority. Horne, "poss0sses the authentic gift of poetry," s.ccordi.ne to James Weld on Joh nson. "intellectual irony. n And Sterling Brown mcnttons Horne's Indeed Horne is cy nical, skeptical, re- served and almost b are i n h is s h ort lines and econon ic lan8uage. The corpus of h is early poetry re v olves around ·nLetters found near a suicide II for wh ich he won The Crisis award. !•lost of the poems are addressed to indi v i d~ally-named persons and recall some point of co ntact (co nt e ntion?) ~etwe en t he alle ged suicide victim and t be per son acldressed. 1\s not8d earlier, ma ny of . the poems b ave to he pJ.aced 5- n t h e context of "Blac k " poetry if ' 34 9 '·' j·~-, ,fi':.~\• • • I ' ;.. / If-), _: t•I, .i. �the shortness of lifG, co ntr adictio ns :i.n Ch ristinni t:r, 1"' ot r s.:. . al, endurance, love, h atred, surv 5.va:. of t1 e spir5.t over p11~rsical death, music, scientific inquir:r adapted to t b e poet's questioning , racial injustice, and victory as fact or idea. Horne's verse is sanguine but, for t h e most pa.rt, auoids t h e romantic treatment of Africa found in practically all poets of the renaissance. His "Nigger (A Chant for Children)n catalogs I3la.ck beroes: Hannibal, Othello, Crispus Attucks, Toussaint L 'Overture, and adds Jesus near tbe end. A ch oral lteration, anticipating Sterlin~ Brown and complimenting La nc;ston Hu c;hes, includes: 11 Ni c;c;er • • • ni c;c;er • • • ni c;zer II "To the Poets II recalls Cullen rs "Scottsboro, Too, Is Worth Its Song"; both poems chide other poets for sin ginc; sone s over wrong causes. Eorne "yelled h osannas" into t h e emptiness, but (Neither did yellin g move mountains yelling got h im nm.-1h ere. f'or Baldwin who, as a boy-preacb er, quickly saw the contradiction in singing ''You can have all dis world but gi v e me Jesus. 11 ) Horne's knowled ge of science is put to go6d use in' such poems as "To Henry II and 11 Q.E .D. 11 And bis skeptic ism continually surfaces as in "To You 11 wbere he examines t b e road to salvation, which is through ''Your 11 ( or Christ's) body. involved in a worldly experience wi t b 11 But later he is b er II and when he returns to the al tar to eat and drink of ''Your II splendors he can think "only of her. 11 Much of' Horne's poetry employs the symbolism and vocabu- . lary of athletic contests--principally football and track. 350 �He also uses language associated with playing music or singing. "To Caroline" and "To Cataline" merge melody, harmonies, pain and ecstasy. "Caroline" plays his "skin" as well as the piano. that the piano will give joy and hurt. "Catalina" is warned "To Chick" recalls the days of the "Terrible Two" on the football field. The "signal" in football is made analagous to the "signal" called in real life. In both instances the poet crossed the victory line, "fighting and squirming." "To one who called me 'nigger"' is a comment on the white man's ability to do everything but face America's race problems. Continuing his theme of skepticism, Horne presents a "Toast" to eyes, lips, heart and body, even though the person addressed has an "unborn" soul. His poetry is solely in free-verse and, though sparse, his language invariable operates on multiple levels. "To A Persistent Phantom" is an excellent example of Horne "complicating" the meaning of words through the use of repetition, elipses, and the strategic use of words like "tears," "tangled," "deeper," "charms" and "buried." If the language and action of athletic competition influenced Horne, it was melody that captured George Leonard Allen, a poet who lived only 30 years. Allen achieved wide recognition before his death, ho~ever, for his "To Melody" won first prize in a 1927 state-wide poetry contest sponsored by the North Carolina Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. His poems also appeared in Opportunity, American Life, The Southern Christian Advocate, The Lyric West and Caroling Dusk. "Pilate in Modern America" employs what is, by Allen's time, a traditional theme in Black poetry: equating Black suffering to the crucifixion of Christ. The "Pilate" of America pleads with God for redemption, claiming that "one man's voice" 351 , ' �Oof dissent) could not be heard in the din of the lynch mob. But God's voice (the white man's conscience) t ·e lls "Pilate" that his guilt is as great as the crowd's. "To Melody" has no racial import. It simply praises song and is imitative, in language and theme, of early 19th century English poetry. As a sonnet, it only remotely suggests the work of McKay and Cullen. "Pilate" is well handled in iambic pentameter. Allen was born in Lumberton, North Carolina where he attended public schools--later completing his studies at Johnson C. smith University. His book-learning is evident in his poetry which is competent but conventional. A certain formalism also marks the work of Donald Jeffrey Hayes. Hayes was born in Raleigh, North Carolina; his education, which was quite extensive, was gained primarily through private study where he pursued his interests in singing, directing and writing. During the twenties and thirties, Hayes appeared in several Broadway productions as a member of a singing chorus. His poetry, much of which reflects his interest in music, was published in Harper's Bazaar, Good Housekeeping and This Week. "Appoggiatura 11 --a musical term--draws sustained comparisons between a woman's movements and bodies and sounds of water. and watering flow. It is a towering poem full of surreal images and mysticism Ultimately the woman seems to become a mermaid. He heard the "indistinguishable sound of water silence" and then the woman disappeared: "Sea-Woman--slim-fingered-water-thing II ,. This theme of having lost something or someone pervades Hayes' poetry. And while he never mentions Africa or the lost Black purity lamented by other renaissance poets, it is possible that he had similar concerns. 352 "Benediction" �is for the departed rather than a prayer to end a religious service. pursues Horne's theme of life's briefness. the poet's "kiss was sweet." for time before death. "Poet" A eulogy, the poem notes that "Prescience" depicts the poet trying to stall His concern is not for his own physical and emotional well-being, but for the "you" addressed in the poem. The speaker cannot bear the thought of his loved one being alone after his death. "Haven" death haunts all of Hayes' anthologized poetry. and conventional forms. Except for He writes in free-verse "Poet" and "Prescience" make the most of' careful meter and rhyming couplets. Another poet, Jonathan Henderson Brooks, writes with allegorical elequence. His work is deeply religious; but it is not a canned religiousness. He takes Christian symbolism and makes it work for the Black cause. Like Cullen and McKay, he equates Black suffering to the sufferings of Christ. And like Phillis Wheatley, he ensconces his deep and troubled feelings in religious fervor. "The Resurrection" is a poetic narrative--employing dialog where racial concerns can only be inferred. doubt as to its intent. But "My Angel" leaves little Freighted with both hope and doubt, with "Despair and my disgrace", the poem depicts "my angel" attempting to lift the burden from the shoulders of Black Americans. But the angel, who struggled "All night," is unable to lift The heaviest load since Lucifer .••• Carefully and startlingly, Brooks weaves in the relatively new Black poetic theme of indifference towards (and distrust of) Christianity. "Black necessity" is what the angel intervenes on behalf of; but after the all night struggle, he wearily flies off "To angels' resting place. 353 t ,, j ' \ V ' .,~:it~ �Thus leaving the narrator with his despair and disgrace. It is a chilling poem, one which blatantly carries a doubt more subdued in other Brooks pieces. Alternating between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, and using six-lined stanzas, he presents an exciting technical achievement with an ab c b db rhyme scheme. Brooks was born in Mississippi, on a farm "twelve miles southwest of Lexington." After his parents separated, he stayed with his mother until he was 14 when he went to Jackson College for four months on money his mother had saved. At Jackson he won a prize for a short-story and later completed his high schooling at Lincoln University (Missouri). at Tougaloo, Mississippi. He then went to college Though religion is the outstanding influence on his poetry, he is nevertheless unconventional in his use of it and his poetry is always well-crafted. His over-riding achievement appears to be "She Said ••• " a poem dedicated to the memory of the first Black soldier from Alcorn County, Mississippi, to be "killed in action in the invasion of Normandy." Again using Christian symbolism and terms, he imagines the response of the soldier's mother who wonders if her son screamed when he was shot, if "unhurrying Death" was called, and if he died in sunshine, rain, or night. The mother finally equates herself to "Mary of Galilee" and notes that the two women must have felt the same emotion. This is an irresistible idea and theme in Black poetry. The searchingly skillful contemporary poet, Raymond Patterson, presented a similar situation in his elegy on the death of Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. ("All Things Abide," Black World, September, 1974). Patterson echoes Wheatley, DuBois, McKay, Hughes, Cullen and Dunbar when he asks who in our presence can say how Jesus' mother perished: --Jesus, crucified? 354 �The question mark aids in calling up all the gore and grief and passion and terror that engulf and interlace Black existence as it is infused by Christianity, Africanisms and the Amreican experience of slavery. there again. Was Jesus really crucified? Skepticism and cynicism are In his poem, Brooks achieves a haunting, yet immediate, requiem by tieing the soldier's death to the cosmos-anticipating Owen Dodson's "Lament"--and relating place-names of importance. He establishes other associations: the stars and stripes (of the flag) are connected to the "sun's shining," the sunlight and moonglow are associated with the "stars forever," bullet and death and days and hours and sunshine and night and rain and battleground--all set the stage for Mary and the "Garden" and the suggestion of a rising. Lastly the narration in this free-verse is set off in italics for those sections which occur in the mind. Brooks is certainly worth much more study. Helene Johnson's small output should be collected and published in bookform because she is an important poet. Born in Boston, where she attended local public schools and Boston University, Helene Johnson arrived in New York in 1926 to do additional study at the Extension Division of Columbia University and to become one of the important "younger" figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Her poems were published in Opportunity, Vanity Fair and several other periodicals and anthologies. and language. Her poetry is terse, emphatic and diverse in form, style She is at home with the sonnet, free-verse, conventional rhyme pieces, or with what James Weldon Johnson calls "colloquial style--a style which numberless poets of this new age (1910-1930) have assumed to be easy." (Johnson sounds as if he is talking to some of the poets of the current "new age" (1960-1974!). And Johnson is right about Helene Johnson when he says that she is aware that a poem written in dialect, colloquial or street language 355 �"demands as much work and workmanship as a well-wrought sonnet." Helene Johnson's dominant themes are cultural reclamation (the African heritage), the ludicrous (sometimes peacockish) dress and mannerisms of Black men, Black beauty and love. Almost always she expresses longing, either for personal love or a return to pre-slavery Africa. In "Summer Matures," "Fullfilment" and "Magalu" she invites lovers both literally and metaphorically. "Magalu", like "Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem," "The Road," "Poem," and "Bottled," suggests that the Black American is better than he thinks he is; .that examination of his African past and his innate rhythmic richness will allow him to maintain both his past glory and his present sanity. The hint that whites are crass, immobile and inhibited ( a theme recurring in Black thought and writing) also creeps through these poems. "Magalu" · is told to ignore the teachings of the man in a "white collar" who carries a Bible. Poetry, or ancestral and cultural worship, is better than Christianity, the poet says. Here, of course, she advances an answer to the riddle of Countee Cullen, who appears to have wanted to "dance" but could not throw off the cloak of Western education, sentimentality and respectability. Helene Johnson asks Magalu: Would you sell the colors of your sunset , and the fragrance Of your flowers, and the passionate wonder of your forest For a creed that will not let you dance? Continuing this theme in "Sonnet to A Negro in Harlem" (and recalling McKay's "Harlem Dancer" as well as dozens of poems in this category), she depicts the Harlem Negro as not being psychologically and religiously a part of the 356 '.' �• environment in which he or she lives. Somehow, the Black American has remained untainted by crass, Western ways and inflexible thought. All this is embodied symbolically in the Harlem Black who, in his devine barbarism, stylistic richness and refusal to imitate those "whom you despise," is "too splendid for this city street." Helene Johnson seems to direct her poetry at Cullen and others who are unable to extricate themselves from the clash of the "Christian" training and the "pagan urge." is the answer an easy one. Neither For despite all the renaissance .proposals calling for spiritual or physical return to the essences of the African self, the writers had no concrete suggestion to offer. Except for DuBois, Garvey and a few others, they simply explored romantic declarations and yearnings. This mood is evident also in Helene Johnson's "Poem" where the "Slim, dark, big-eyed" boy becomes a prince like the "monarch" laborer in Fenton Johnson's "Rulers." Yet there is important immediate social commentary in the same type of poem: 1920's. "Bottled," which ridicules a superfly-type character of the Her "Negro dressed fit to kill" refused to dance the Charleston or the Black Bottom since he is too "dignified." Instead of a cane, she says, he should be "carrying a spear with a sharp fine point." , The tip of the spear should be dipped in poison. And the rest, of course, is obvious. Finally, the poem laments the apparent internal turmoil of a Black man who is "all glass" ("plastic" in today's language). "Bottled" is typical of much of the thematic focus of Black writing in all genres of the period. It also anticipated the continuing satire that would be found in the writings of Frank Marshall Davis, George Schyler, Hughes, and others. A young con- temporary woman poet, Barbara McHone (Black World, August, 1974) assesses a character similar to Helene Johnson's in "A Sea of Brown Boys." 357 �Barbara McHone chides the boys for wearing high heel shoes, purses, and patterning their lives after Shaft, Superfly and Sweetback. After stating the urgent needs of the times and implying that Black masculinity is being undermin.ed, she asks: where did our love go? Helene Johnson seems to make her most cogent statement, however, in "The Road" where she links into a theme long-associated with Black struggle: on moving." fight. "Keep "The Road" encourages Blacks to see their beauty as well as their "Trodden beauty," is still "trodden pride." Reminiscent of Johnson's "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and Fenton Johnson's "Children of the Sun," she advises her people to Rise to one brimming golden, spilling cry! Perhaps not coincidentally, Helene Johnson's work is similar, in language and theme, to the poetry of Waring Cuney who (along with Hughes and Edward Silvera) belongs to the group sometimes called the Lincoln University poets. 1 Cuney was born one-half of twins in Washington, D.C. where he attended public schools and later studied music (after Howard and Lincoln Universities) at the Boston Conservatory of Music and in Rome. The twins had similar interests: singing and his brother's the piano. Waring's being After his poem "No Images" won an Opportunity prize, James Weldon Johnson stated that Cuney's work held "exceptional promise." However Cuney never became a prolific writer of literary poetry. Instead he divided his time between writing lyrics for songs and his other numerous chores. His protest lyrics were set to music and sung by Josh White on the album Southern Exposure. And his poetry was not published in book form until 1960 when the 1. See Four Lincoln University Poets (Hughes, 1931) and Lincoln University Poets (Cuney, . Hughes, and Bruce McM. Wright, 1954). Hughes called Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) "a place of beauty and the ideal coll ge for a poet." His ·assessment seems to have been correct. Raymond Patterson, Larry Neal and · . 358 . :-:1);·,;:~;).;;:;' ti ,:-. : i �bibliophile society in the Netherlands brought out Puzzles. free-verse and maintains "great economy of phrase." He usually writes in His poetry surveys the whole of the human experience but most of it carries either a racial or a folksy riote. There is also cynicism and skepticism of the sort found in Fenton Johnson, McKay, Cullen and Hrone. Heavily influenced , by Hughes, Cuney' s early work depicts fi.-ank pictures of Black 'and general life and often uses the plain, direct folk spee~h as a major vehicle. This trend is seen in poems like "Hard Times Blues," "Cruci.:.. fixion," "Troubled Jesus," and "Burial of the Young Love." Though his poems were published in several magazines and anthologies of the era, his "No Images"-...:which won 'the Opportunity prize--ties in with a general poetic theme of the renaissance: that Black beauty and creativity are too good to flourish in the decadence of Western civilization. The Black woman in Cuney's poem is similar to the Harlem Negro of Helene Johnson's poem, the dancer of McKay's "Harlem Dancer," the ravished and tormented narrator in Cullen's "Heritage," and the split personality in Toomer's "Kabnis" (Cane): they all seek to be whole in a world that denies and carica- tures their humanity. Cuney's woman figure -: • thinks her brown body Has no glory. But if she had an opportunity to dance as her natural self--"naked" perhaps--in her natural habitat--Africa--where her "image would be reflected by the river; · then she would "know" how beautiful she is. But civilization corrodes the idea of trees and naturalness and, consequently, deprives Blacks of their own beauty and their healthy self-image: And dishwater gives back no images. ·.•., / Dishwater is :a . kind ·of · death--a spiritual and moral death--for Cuney whose work ·.:,. Gil Scott-Heron are only three of the never poetic talents nurtured at .,,J ,, :: '. ' • Li~~.::.:·,\·:; : . . / ;•:>:✓:\> •·•r·, .~ , .: .. :.- .. · . . ~·~' ~ r .. ;, •.. ;" ,; ~ • '3 ·~~ I, I �shows him to be preoccupied with death. Several of his poems ("Threnody',-'' "The Death Bed," "Crucifixion," "Burial of the Young," "Finis" and "Dust") react to, anticipate or contemplate death. For Cuney, who seems to place a strong trust in the folkways, there is an irony in the fact that the God who protects the oppressors is also expected to protect the oppressed. This particular brand of Black cyni- cism makes it most dramatic debut with Dunbar and remains a dominant theme in Black poetry up until this very day. In "The Death Bed" the dying man sends all the praying "kin-folk" away from his bed. The praying ones, of course, think this is strange and continue praying against his will in a room accross the hall. Failing in an attempt to sing a final song, the dying man lapses back and, knowing death is iminent, wonders What it was they cound be saying. "Hard Times Blues" is a protest song-poem which talks about drought, hunger, depression and general bad times in the South. The refrain contains this paradoxical plea-assertion: Great-God-Amighty Folks feeling bad, Lost all they ever had. The indirect association of God with the misery coupled with an oblique prayer for help is different indeed--though its antecedents can clearly be seen in the coded Spirituals, blues, jokes, and oral epics of the folk. A similar paradox and irony is contained in "My Lord, What a Morning" where the speaker is ecstatic over "black" Jack Johnson's defeat of "white" Jim Jeffries. Admitting to the "Lord" that "Fighting is wrong," the speaker nevertheless exclaims: But what an uppercut. Making God a colloquial person--Black, that is--in several of his poems, Cuney 360 '' �recalls Johnson's feat in God's Trombones where God is likened to a ''mammy." Another important later achievement of Cuney's is "Charles Parker, 1925-1955." The legendary jazz musician is given credit for reshaping the blues idiom in music--and hence revitalizing the Black aesthetic. The poem is made up of lines of one-three words and includes phonetic renderings of saxophone sounds. And . throughout the piece, the reader is advised to "listen." Lewis Alexander apparently also wants us to "listen" to his "Enchantment" which embodies, again, the theme of the exotic and beautiful AfriGan. the "body smiling with black beauty" is wearing "African moonlight." divides his poem into two sections: the "Medicine Dance." This time Alexander "Part I" which is "Night" and "Part II," Part one gives the setting, moonlight in Africa, juice gushing from over-ripe fruit, palm trees, silence. In Part II the medicine dancer is placed in relief against the "grotesque hyena-faced monster" who (seeming to represent whites) is driven back into the "wilderness" by his own fear and the spell cast on him by the medicine dancer. The poem is in free-verse and features several exclamation marks and single-word lines. Typographically, the poem works well with its depiction of dancing, mystery, suspense, fright · and ,. anticipation. There is a quickening here, a stalking there, finally a resolution and the black body now dances with "delight" as Terror reigns like a new crowned queen. Alexander was born in Washington, D.C., educated in public schools, including the celebrated Dunbar High, and attended Howard University. His interests somewhat paralleled those of Cuney and Donald Jeffrey Hayes and he acted in the Ethiopian Art Theatre Company; for a while he was a member of the Playwriters' Circle and the Ira Aldridge Players. Many of the major themes and experimental techniques of the renaissance can be found in Alexander's poetry. 361 Examination of the Black �. anatomy to nature. Hughes says the faces, eyes and souls of "my people" are beautiful like the night, stars and sun. Alexander finds, on the other hand, that the heavy hanging sky, the curved scars of the moon, the twinkly of stars and the trembling earth, all parallel the Negro woman's burdensome hair, wrinkled brow, tears flowing from "an aging hurt," and eye-lids quivering and cupping tears. For Hughes nature is a partner to Black beauty; for Alexander it is a companion to agony, suffering and historical pain. possibilities of color and shade symbolism. when night falls black." Alexander also probes the "Dream Song" advises one to "dream In "Nocturne Varial" shadow (Blacks) becomes light (beautiful, aware) and the deeper the Blackness gets (spreads its influence) the more changes (the greater the impact) will occur among whites. In the deepest core of the night, "Each note is a star" but the light emitted from that darkness is not blinding. Then, after this searching contrast and overlay of what painters call chiaroscuro, we are told that: ·I came as a shadow, To dazzle your night. The idea of transfiguration and change weighs heavily upon Alexander's poetry. ' Significant changes occur in "Negro Woman," "Enchantment," "Nocturne Varial" . and "Transformation." After having arrived as a "shadow" in "Nocturne Varial" the poet (or the persona "I") decides to "return" a bitterness that has gone through the wash of tears. through the years." The bitterness becomes "loveliness" which has been "garnished Announcing that the bitterness has been worn from the taste of the past, Alexander implies here, as he does in other poems, that he is a forgiving person. Indeed he may be saying that Blacks will hold no hatred . (for whites) or desire for retribution. Alexander's poetry is concise and neat, mostly 362 ' ,, �in free-verse and conventional language. Neat also is the only anthologized poem by Lucy Ariel Williams Holloway. Found in Caroling Dusk (Cullen), The Poetry of The Negro (Hughes and Bontemps) and Johnson's The Book of American Negro Poetry, "Northboun'" garnered the coveted Opportunity poetry prize in 1926. We mention it because it shows great talent and feel in the employment of Black southern speech and it embodies not only period but historical concerns of Blacks. The world is neither flat nor round, the poet tells us: H'it's one long strip Hangin' up an' down-and there's only "Souf an' Norf." The foregoing is part of the chorus in this song-poem which comically predicts how people "all 'ud fall" if the world "wuz jes' a ball." For those who brag about the city seen by Saint John, Lucy Holloway challenges them to see Saginaw. Opportunities for Blacks are good in Saginaw (heaven) and pretty women are plentiful. The poem restates the belief (developed during slavery and abolition efforts) that the North is heaven compared to the South (hell). Lucy Holloway emotionally chronicles the feelings, anticipations and oral narratives connected with "moving north." \ Such a preoccupation can be seen throughout the literature of the period, in the stories, the poems, the plays, the novels, the articles and the songs. Finally, Miss Holloway tells us what Hughes, Ellison, Baldwin, Claude Brown and Sterling Plumpp would refute: Since Norf is up, An' Souf is down, An' Hebben is up, I'm upward boun'. 363 �Lucy Holloway's poem is interesting for another reason: coming, as it did, at the thrust of the renaissance, it represented a throwback to the dialect and minstrel traditions which most of the New Negro writers were trying to break. And although Johnson (James) and Hughes worked in dialect, their major efforts were decidedly different from those of the Dunbar school. Reading Miss Holloway's poem, however, one is immediately reminded of Dunbar, Campbell, Corrothers and Daniel Webster Davis. Yet, a final reason for using the example of Lucy Holloway is to lead into at least a partial listing of the poets who published in magazines, regional anthologies and newspapers during the Harlem Renaissance and afterwards. among the dozens of lesser and unknown poets we mention the following: From Gladys May Casely Hayford (born in West Africa), Allison Davis, Esther Popel Shaw, J. Mason Brewer (Negrito), Kenneth W. Porter, Harvey M. Williamson, Otto Leland Bohanon, Eleanor Graham Nichols, Corrinne E. Lewis, Mary Effie Lee, Edward Garnett Riley, Albert Rice (a member of Georgia Douglas Johnson's writing workshop), • Carrie W. Clifford (The Widening Light, 1922), Marcus B. Christian, Winston Allen, Mae V. Cowdery, Tilford Jones, Adeline Carter Watson, Will Sexton and Edward Silvera. Some of these occasional and newspaper poets made temporary "splashes" and moved on. Mae V. Cowdery won a Crisis poetry prize in 1927 and published a volume of her poetry in the thirties. and Silvera are the most important. Of this group of poets, however, Christian Christian (1900-) was born in Houma, Louisiana, and primarily self-educated. For a while he served as supervisor of the Dillard University Negro History Unit of the Federal Writers' Project. He later re ·c ceived a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to complete an historical study begun on the project before going to work in the Dillard Library. His poems --1 ·.r.7•t. : . ' '- f )-, .:: !: .:: ':<' , ; 364 . 1.n~f':1!~i . �appeared in various anthologies and magazines. And his available work has both general and racial flavor and shows him to be a skilled word-handler. Craftsman" is about artistic excellence. The artist--presumably the poet--must work with "consummate care" and be "free of flaws." above everything else. ever. "The This is so because art is The poet knows that if he writes well, he "lives" for- Christian employs a form--the sonnet--that is consistent with his high calling. Another sonnet, "McDonogh Day in New Orleans," is a celebration of the beauty of Blackness. Detailing the difficulty a poor Black girl h~s in trying to get the kind of clothes she needs, Christian finally has her attired "Like some dark princess" wearing "blue larkspur" coupled with "yellow marigold." True, she looks good going to school But few would know--or even guess this fact: How dear comes beauty when a skin is black. Silvera (1906-1937) lived a productive, if tragically short, life. He was born in Jacksonville, Florida, attended local public schools and graduated from Orange High; he then went to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania where he participated in sports and wrote poetry, some of which was included in Four Lincoln Poets (1930). His poetry also appeared in magazines and anthologies. Much of Silvera's poetry is quiet and sparse--reminiscent of Cuney, his friend, Horne, and many of the introspective poets of the period. of renaissance poetry. But his work does carry the prevailing themes "Jungle Taste," for example, celebrates the Africa of old-- Africa before the appearance of the "civilization" Fenton Johnson doncemns. The "Coarseness" in the "songs of black men" does not sound "strange" to Silvera. Neither does the "beauty" in the "faces of black women" seem unusual. men alone can "see" this "dark hidden beauty." Yet Black In "Forgotten Dreams" only a "heap" of entangled thread now lies where once a beautiful dream had been spun. Here, . ii{ .· :,;,,."· ;_:,.> . ·. .',· ;·;.;( '.,: • 365 . . l . 1.-,...-,.,..-~; ·~\4·, .~- �Silvera seems to be lamenting the loss of something--maybe viewing his approaching death. Likewise, in another poem, "On the Death of A Child," he again uses the "spun" image. The child comes without a "voice" to announce its arrival. lark sings, but "shadows" have already "foretold" that death is near. had been "spun" and the end comes. Hughes and Bontemps anthologies. The The "shroud" Silvera's and Christian's works appear in the Silvera's poetry also appears in Kerlin's Negro Poets and Their Poems. The dominant themes in poetry of the Harlem Renaissance--cultural reclamation, stylistic experimentation, romantic engagement with Africa, a presentation of the rawness of Black life--can also be found in the fiction, drama, painting, music, criticism, and belles lettres of the period. is Locke's The New Negro. The best documentation of th~se items But we ought to mention some of the major names in prose (fiction and non-fiction), many of whom also wrote poetry: Jean Toomer, Eric Walrond, Jessie Redmond Fauset, Rudolph Fisher, Nella Larson, Zora Neal Hurston, McKay, Hughes, Cullen, Walter White, W.E.B. DuBois, Charles S. Johnson, Carter G. Woodson, Bruce Nugent, John Matheus, Cecil Blue, Montgomery Gregory, Arthur Huff Fauset, James Weldon Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier and Arthur A. Schomburg. D. Renaissance Fallout: Negritude Poets and Pan-African Writing Claude McKay's influence, as a novelist (Banjo), on leaders of African nationalism has already been noted. kind, nor the last. But McKay's impact was not the first of its During the 18th and 19th centuries, Africans in the Western Hemisphere had exchanged ideas and made pacts with each other and with their fellows of color in Africa. In Chapter III we noted this pervasive influence as seen in documents, the establishment of African societies and the African Methodist Episcopal 366 �Church, the founding of Liberia, and the daring and courageous example of the West African Cinque. We also noted the arrival in the United States of a number of West Indian, Caribbean and South American Blacks--a flow that has remained . I unabated up until this very day. We call immediately to mind such names as John · Russwurm, Marcus Garvey, McKay, and Stokely Carmichael. The poet John Boyd, dis- cussed in Chapter III, was a Bahamian. It was during the 1920's, however, that the Pan-African flavor was most dramatically and . thoroughly demonstrated. Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement .. r • Association which claimed thousands of followers and members, was in full swing by the time of the Harlem Renaissance. DuBois was the driving force behind four Pan-African Congresses which met successively between 1919 and 1927 (in Paris, London and New York). And the predominant themes in renaissance literature were reclamation of the African heritage and celebration of the beauties and talents of African peoples. Consistent with our study, however, is a consideration of one of the most important spin-outs from the Harlem Renaissance: the Negritude school of poets in- eluding Martinique, Capetown, Paris, Dakar and Algiers. As natives of French- controlled colonies, these young Black students and intellectuals were trained in French schools and shared dual citizenships. (This practice represents a throwback to the Creole poets, many of whom were educated in France.) the Negritude poets' activities here. But we only summarize Chief among them are Aim~ C~saire (1913-) I • I I of Martinique, Leon Damas (1912-) of French Guiana, and Leopold Sedar Senghor (1906-) of Senegal. More information, including examples of Negritude poetry, can be found in Jean-Paul Sarte's "Orphee Nair" ("Black Orpheus") which prefaced I I Leopold Sedar Senghor's anthology of African and West Indian poets: I I Anthologie de la nouvelle poesie negre et malgache de lingue francais (Paris, 1948). I . Although , • ;11 ~· .-. · .>:, ·;. :· . '. . ~;.. . u.,~"4i.11~J<r ., ." : ... · . ' • 367 ,l··:, . -....... ,.,;,:: ; . . , ,'· ; • , ;· .,. . +i, ;}(~/::·,)': :,;st•".~ �the important preface has appeared in various hard~to-get translations, it appeared in book form for the first time in C.W.E. Bigsby's The ·-Black American Writer, Volume II: Poetry and Drama (1971). For further study see the works ' ' of Franz Fanon, writings of Senghor (see also, Leopold Sedar Senghor and the.. Politics of Negritude, Irving L. Markovitz, 1969), and the numerous anthologies of African poetry by Langston Hughes, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Wilfred Cartey, Rainer Schulte and Quincy Troupe, and Mercer Cook and Stephen Henderson's The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United States (1969). Negritude has been eloquently and illustratively defined by Satre, Senghor, Cook, Paul Vesey (Samuel Allen) and others. The term (roughly corresponding to • Black American Soul) refers to the mystique of Blackness which pervades the thought, actions, creativity and general life-style of some Africans. Senghor calls it a philosophy of humanism; Vesey finds elements of it in the Afro-American church and in the works of artists such as Baldwin and Ellison; Sartre notes that "From Haiti to Cayenne, there is a single idea: is evangelic, it announces good news: reveal the black soul~ Black poetry Blackness has been rediscovered." The . first creative work to emerge from this French-speaking sector of renaissance influence was L~on Damas' Pigments (1937). Like the other works , that followed~ Pigments extolled Black beauty and lamented Black suffering. The influence of . Langston Hughes is more evident in Damas than in other Negritude poets. Damas, freely admits in conversation that he (and his compatriots) owes much to Hughes who offered prizes to African writers and helped expose African literature to the world. Pigments heralded the arrival of Negritude. Its style, reminiscent of Hughes, is "sharp, slangy, tense and fast-moving" and was revolutionary to French poetry when it appeared. ' ' published Cahier d'un retour au pays natal Cesaire (Return to My Native Land) in 1938. Senghor has published Chants d'ombres (Song ;i:•--:-·, • 368 . ·:}\:;?.;,: {: ' ; :,f) ~-:;_ :r /;/ ':i. '' ' >,.\ -1~·.•· ~~'"·..-·,,it <,·; ,·. . 1,-~ : .:.,~j' \~-~:.:,~fr-~:•' .·. .,,. .J ;t,·t:•~ 1,lt.it~- ·, , ·£1~f;i; •C �of Shadows, 1949), Hosties Noires (Black Victims, 1948), Chants pour Naett (Songs ' Both Cesaire and for Naett, 1949), Ethiopiques (1959) and Nocturnes (1961). Senghor have been heavily influenced by jazz, blues and poetry of Harlem. Ex- posed to these forms in the salons of Madamoiselle Nardal between 1929 and 1934, they found Afro-American expression liberating and "fertilizing." Rene' Maran afforded them similar exposure after 1935.) (The salons of Also contributing to this convergence were the efforts of Mercer Cook who, as statesman and scholar, played an important part in bringing the works of Black Americans to their African and Caribbean contemporaries. Senghor's great poem about New York has immediate ties to both the renaissance and the impact of Harlem on him. As in many of his poems, For "New York" Senghor designates the instrument(s) to accompany the piece. he chooses "Jazz Orchestra: solo trumpet." New York's beauty at first "confused" Senghor, but after a couple of weeks in that city one grows accustomed to buying "artificial hearts." He is ecstatic about Harlem Harlem! I have seen Harlem Harlem! ••• Senghor writes of the African landscape, warriors, love and his admiration for Black women. As president of Senegal, he presided over the First World Festival of Negro ARts, held in Dakar in 1966. Damas deals with problems of color and ·class in his poetry and defines Negritude in a series of rolling, vigorous stanzas in free-verse. I t His other collections of poems include Poemes negres sur des airs africains (1948), Graffiti (1952), Black-Label (1956) and Nevralgies (1965?). Like other Negritude poets, Damas read the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. Critics seem to agree, however, that the Africans and Caribbean poets surpassed their American brothers and sisters. in the following titles: "Almost White." "Enough," Damas' cynicism and irony can be detected "s.o.s.," "Position," "Good Breeding," and Damas satirizes the Black middle-class and the Black habit of 369 �straightening hair and using bleaching creams. Similar themes can be found in . ' . who also employs free-verse and makes great use of irony. the poetry of Cesaire Return to My Native Land catalogs all the scientific things that Blacks have not invented, but later gives them credit for being the backbone of human existence. ' Cesaire has served as mayor of Fort de France and a deputy to the French National Assembly, representing the independent revolutionary party of Martinique. He quit the French Communist Party in the 1950's and has since been active in African nationalism. His other collections of poetry are Les Armes miraculeuses (1946), I Soleil cou coupe (1948), Corps perdu (1950) and Ferrements (1960). I I Cesaire, Damas and Senghor have also written drama (mostly about Black historical figures) and essays on Negritude and Pan-African liberation. I Damas is currently living in Washington, D.C. where he teaches literature at Howard University and Federal City College. The Negritude Movement in poetry--best recorded in Satre's articles and in Norman S. Shapiro's Negritude: Black Poetry from Africa and The Caribbean (1970)--encompassed several other important Black areas and figures: Ernest Alima (Cameroon), Joseph Miezan Bognini and Bernard Dadi~ (Ivory Coast), Jean-Fernand I Brierre and Rene Depestre (Haiti), Siriman Cissoko (Mali), David Diop (Senegal, a ~ I ' great poet killed in an airplane crash in 1956), Jocelyne Etienne and Guy Tirolien (Guadeloupe), Camara Laye (Guinea) and Emile-Desire Ologoudou (Dahomey), to name just a few. The Harlem Renaissance and the subsequent concept of Negritude influenced these poets in various ways and to greater or lesser degrees. But the influence is there. Thematically, emotionally and politically the poets bear greater resemblance to Afro-Americans than in their styles and techniques. This interchange among writers and thinkers of the Black world has continued to its current rich and important tide (more on this in Chapter VI). 370 � 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_06 Title A name given to the resource Copy of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Section III. The Poets and Their Totem, p. 281-370 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.