https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/63d7077aaa8e029be4617eddda10b479.pdf 3f17f4269d9a8d5f28cabec659ed24c2 PDF Text Text CHAPTER IV JUBILEES, JUJU'S AND JUSTICES: 1865 - 1910 We have .fashioned laughter Out or tears and pain, But the moment a.fter-Pain and tears again. --Charles Bertram Johnson I Overview This "transitional" period is normally viewed by critics as the gestation o.f pre-revolutionary Black writing. We have seen, however, that some o.f the most politically-conscious activists, thinkers and poets wrote be.fore the Civil War. Frantz Fanon (1924-1961), the Martinique-born psychiatrist, for established three phases the,\1-iterature of oppressed peoples: (1) assimilationist, (2) pre-revolutionary and (3) Critics generally agree with Fanon. revolutionary. So, following his reasoning, the period of 1865-1910 (and the previous era) would fall under number one. Number two coincides roughly with the Harlem Renais- sance (1920-1930). number three . And the 1960'-'s (Black Arts era) comes under One should exercise caution, however, in placing categories and labels on any artists--especially ones so diverse and complex as Black poets. For while it is true that there are general trends in the evolution of the poetry, little said �by the so-called "armageddon" writers of the l96if's and 1970'-'s can be a nymore "revolutionary" than Walker, Whitfield or ":) Albery Whitman who favored the murder of Black traitors ( ''Uncle Toms II and "Topsies ") to the cause of freedom. On the other hand, as in the past, some contemporary Black writers avoid politics like the plague (see Introduction). Also the alternatives and options facing Blacks nowadays--resignation, emigration, assimilation, despair, segregation, desecration and so on--have always been there. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Black poets and activists vigorously pursued these choices, som~times participating (Whitfield-Douglass) in fiery debates. A ••dn 1.i111 16 the& 'Fx,eceding chapters dation for • e\"tiblhhe~ : foun- Black poetry that, only recently, has become popular and accessible. Therefore, critical comments and background materials will be less extensive from this point on. Certainly, as Robinson suggests, more careful study of the poets of the Harlem Renaissance is needed. His observation that "Afro-American •soul' bas never received the elaborate philosophical, poetic, and even political explication that }lesri t1:,~ has II - ~ . -~ is also well taken S5 (although there is some attempt to ai~ess "soul" in The Hilitant Black vriter in Africa and the United States, Cook and Henderson). Understanda le, too/ is a comment by Sterling Stucke (Ideological Origins of Black Nationalism) that "Had a nationalist of antebellum America real zed t e enormous importance of 9lack l3f �culture••• that awareness, articulated into theory, would have been as revolutionary a development as calling for a massive slave-uprising." Of course we know, looking back at the last hundred years, that Stuckey's assessment does not take in all the facts. Early Black Americans identified with their cul- tural roots more blatantly than do even some Blacks of today. But the undermining inf'luences of lynchings and the practice of stereotyping corroded much initial race pride and sell-interest. Again we note that chronological boundaries are arbitrary ~...llf"\Ce S and that we could just as well have studied ....,_,.parper in the 1865-1910 period (since her Sketches of Southern Life was published in 1873 and her Poems ran through several editions until 1874) just as we could have placed Benjamin Clark ("What is A Slave?n) and James Madison Bell in the last chapter . It is not always easy to determine where a poet who writes early or late in life fits in the chronology; but if pursuit of the poetry becomes a labor of love, boundaries and categories cease to exist . ,,,,,.,,..- II / ' Forgive thine erring people, Lord, Who lynch at home and love abroad -....... ----...... """"'· ,. -~, ~----~;:. ..,-Qharles R. Dinkins Literary and Social Landscape ' -------------.,.,-.......~...~.,,,•If" ) Between 1865 and 1961 America played out a dra.mE\. of contradictions, swelling and receding expectations, continued progress and experimentation in science and the arts, and �important beginnings. It was a period of painful adjustment that has continued to echo. -.,P lt .a. On the white literary scene 'Whitman ( the "American poet"), Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, .James Russell Lowell, Henry .James, Stephen Crane, .Jack London, Emily Dickinson, .Joel Cha~dler Harris and Irwi~ Russetwere the writers of importance. Harris gained popularity for himself and Black folklore when he published the Uncle Remus tales in 1879. Eut while romanticism and local color dominated the last two decades of the 19th century, both began to fade with the approach of the new century--whose early years saw experimentation, especially in verse, and the beginnings of naturalistic writings. On the political and economic fronts the efforts at solidifying gains, and retrieving losses, were stepped up among Blacks. The NAACP was founded in 1909; but,ajor vehicles for protest and change were those used during the earlier years: the church, seli'-help societies, free schools, scholarly research and writing on.., Blacks, and debates over courses and choices. Important new names in literature, art, science and politics came to the forefront. However, many of the writers, activists and educators from the previous period continued their various programs. • Of the new ~Ot"C.e'J , several should be noted: Booker T. Washington (Up From Slavery, 1900), v .E.B. DuBois (The Suppression of the African Slave Trade, 1896; The Philadelphia Negro, 1899; The Souls of Black Folk, 1903), Charles Chestnutt (writer of fiction), Dunbar, .James leldon .Johnson, �~Lo:,r1 loe,t:e, > Fenton Johnson, James D. Corrothers,AWilliam Grant Still (The Underground Railroad, 1872), Alexamder Crummell (founder of American Negro Academy), Albert!,. Whitman, Benjamin Brawley . \Y (The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States, 1910), Kelley Miller (Race Adjustment, 1909), William Stanley Braithwaite and Alice Dunbar-Nelson (Violets and other Tales, 1895). Black America witnessed a major step in the development of its stage ·productions (many designed to destroy "stereotypes n fostered by white minstrels and dialect writers) with Bob Cole's A Trip to Coonto~~the first musical produced and managed by Blacks, Will Marion Cook and Dunbar followed with Clorindy;Yn 1898; and Cole returnedJthis time with James veldon Johnson, to write and play i~ed Mo~~The maturation of essays, journalism and autobiography also continued. Elizabeth Keckley, friend to presidents and statesmen, wrote Behind the Scenes in 1868; Douglass founded the New National Era (1869-1872) and published his Life and Times in 1881. at Hampton Institute in 1872. Southern Workmen was established T. Thomas Fortune founded The Rumor in 1879 and edited the New York Age in 1887. year The Washington Bee came into being. In the same Others included Penn's The Afro-American Press (1891), John H. Murphy's Baltimore Afro-American (1892), The Chicago Defender (1900) and Monroe Trotter's Boston Guardian (1901). vnsrtsnt BJ acir ?ft usau rswes fer , Pi from tbs r t1 @s: sa at tm 11su1aa I B ssk&S ± J �Dunbar, 1fhitman, Fenton Johnson, Corrothers and Braithwaite, are the poets of interestl during this period. James Weldon Johnson wrote "Lift Every Voice and Sing" in 1900 but is usually identified with the Harlem Renaissance writers. (llo.it1 And~Locke, intellectual and scholar, was one of the important chroniclers and interpreters of tb•era. DuBois, sociologist and editor, is chiefly known as a poet for bis "Song of the Smoke" and "Litany at Atlanta," written after the 1906 cJ!•l"leS race riot. "-Chestnutt was the first important Black writer of fiction. Both he and Dunbar were endorsed by Howells, who •;<- presided as { czar over American literary criticism 1 during the last quarter of the 19th century. Howells also helped laund\ the careers of Henry James .t\ went ss · z s i JtiGOLHCS 5&05 J LBEL 33$6 _££3. and Walt Whitman. Generally, with the exception of Braithwaite, Fenton Johnson, M~1 11g Whitman and a few others, Black poets followed the dialect tradition of the day. Robinson (Early Black American Poets) notes that The vogue was established among white southern writers (who failed to appreciate their own amusing dialects) with Irwin Russell (185379) whose popular pieces were collected and published posthumously as Poems by Irwin Russell (1888) with a loving preface by Joel �Chandler Harris, also popular for bis Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit prose tales in Negro dialect. The major Black dialect poets "'e~ --~Dunbar, Daniel Webster Davis, .James Edwin Campbell, Elliot B. Henderson a nd .J. Mord Allen;· \.u..;t·· ~ pI I I 211 .James Weldon .Johnson Awrote LAU ,, &!! 6ii@ dlai@CS I J■ BI 1'hc. l J in •• oW.~ '1i idiom. ta Dunbar surpassed alli\writers--Black and white, including Russell after whom he patterned his efforts. ~ 9JM.b ,1 or P"-~ct~yme"f, His ability to empathizei\rather than simply "report'/\'] Id & C.ou,-1..e.A Ii] s:•...,with his "perfect" ear for speech, make him more authentic. uAit s-t.nJ~~t:•· VerSe.Pofor.vh' wota~ I I iii • Dunbar also wrot w o be rernemberer3 t 7 was his dialect poetry ("a jingle in a broken tongue") that gained him notoriety. The biggest contradiction of the era was that "Reconstruction" occurred in name only. The growth of white hate and intimidation groups (2,500 Blacks were lynched between . 1885 and 1900), the development of a nee-slavery, the paradoxical plight of the "freedman" (see Washington's Up From Slavery), the general disappointments in social "paper" programs and the disillusionment on the parts of Blacks who fought in the Civil War--all influenced and helped direct the contemporary Black mood. Coupled with this was the eginnings of the Great Migration of southern Blacks to northern urban centers. While dialect poetry emerged as the most popular form in poetry and prose, .James Weldon .Johnson later observed (American Negro Poetry)t at it would not encase the manifold 13h �nature of the lack Experience; white writers had initiated it a nd Blacks could only "caricature the caricatures." Caught up for a while in the potentials of the Emancipation Proclamation and "Reconstruction", many Black poets also couched their lines in patriotism and sentimentalit r (see .Johnson's "Fifty Years"). During this period, t e first of a series of Black manual arts colleges was established. Hampton Institute, Fisk Uni- versity, Howard University, Horehouse College and .Johnson Smith College were among the early ones. c. In 1871, the year of .James ' Oldon .Johnson's birth, the Fisk .Jubilee Singers made tkt their first concert tour with~pirituals. The tour was epoch- making for it marked the f rst time a Black indigenous American art form had been given such worldwide exposure. e period was crucial, too, for all Black folk art because the burgeoning new Black I n t e l l i ~ anxi: ~ of slavery, 4!:111! 1 ... ~to of their ante-bellum past. d\'91 to remove the ln itter taste themselves of all relics The Spirituals, the rich cadences of folk sreech and the freedom n dance, among other aspects, were given back seat in an attempt to Westernize or "civilize" newly emancipated Blacks The Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation and the stationing of occupation troops in the south, had also left a bitter taste on the tongues o:rrsoutt~;~:~::e.~~~~~~~ whites. The attempt to "colonize" the south, as some saw it, was dramatized by the �arrival of "carpetbaggersn--white northerners preaching Black freedom or exploiting southern industry. The results were the elaborate and ruthless rise of white secret societies and the ridicule of Blacks in newspapers and magazines. Many • Black poets unwittingly participated in this ridtcule through their own dialect and sentimental verse. Others went to the extreme to prove their "goodness" and "Godliness~ as : g HJ ?Ci &sltsat. In the shadows of all thes: ~radoxes, Black minstrels and musicians gained prominence.~Ragtimen heralded an era ultimately to be called the Jazz Age. Meanwhile more serious debate over the fate of Blacks was taking place among men such as Douglass, Washington and DuBois. In 1895, at the International Atlanta Exposition, Washington delivered his famous "Compromise" speech which encouraged Blacks and whites to work as close as the fingers of the hand in matters needing mutual concern; but advised that, in all social respects, the fingers of the hand should be separate • . This was seen as a conciliatory and unprogressive posture by many integration-minded leaders. Washington, who founded Tuskegee Institute in 1881, played down civil concerns and integration, and urged Blacks to seek practical skills. DuBois encouraged Blacks to seek knowledge of the arts and sciences and predicted that a "Talented Tenth" would emerge to lead them. In The Souls of Black Folks, DuBois critiqued Washington's position. The controversy between the two men is now famous as is Dudley Randall's poem ''Booker T. and W.E.B." in which the ideologies of both men are placed against �the mood of the times. In an incremental development of both dialogue and rhyme-refrain, Randall frames his important statements in iambic tetrameter. The use of an imaginary conversation between "\WO "opponents" also allowed the poet to comment on two significant 11 poles 11 in the continuing BJack push for freedom and self-detenni- nation. The DuBois-Washington controversy created reverberations that are still being heard around the Black world. DuBois was, ultimately, to rise as the towering and defiant figure of the period(especi,a lly among Afro-American intelligentsia) while Washington was reduced to a negative and sometimes obscene symbol. A recent book -which deals ~some'What indirectly ' with ' th~se matters is Booker T 1 s Child(l974) by poet Roy L. Hill,see Hill' bibliography). See also Up From Slavery(Washington, 1901), From Slave to College President Godfrey Pike, 1902), The Life and Times of Booker T. Washington Benjamin Riley, 1916) and Booker T. Washington and His Critics tHugh Hawkins, ed., 1962). For a recent informative biography of DuBois see His Day is Marching 0n(Shirley Graham DuBois, 1971). J I �SIBJi&b cl (£01 mo1 e ca 1311:1!6; s so iii.Is fN 1.tFJ I Ho; !s: H!Ol:l) • ];;lespit,o the '•"i@~ii' OllS ;1 ih Kill J 1'00Lst • debates t :i..a sGloia J e6l1Eililg,,of.a0e iLn: M.16 poet::13 (teehn:!:calls mia t iuuallj I hifr ti/ ii I II u see Q§ 1'!i0fli# AP€!X Ufitii Che socoael dcudh w£ , :fi:la e C©bh e onl:·wy u • III ~Cunja man, de Cunja man, \. O chillen, run, de Cunjah mans ~.............____, The Vo\ c.es b Y1 -th e --..Tames Edwin Camp ell ~~:_~_...) Although poets of the previous period placed their verses and polemics in various political and news organs, it was d ring the 1856-1910 era that such a practice reached new levels of importance . Poets had acce ss to numerous regional and national publications, contests, political platforms and educational programs through which they could either read or publish their poems. Robert Thomas Kerlin, for example (Negro Poets and Their Poems, 1923), collected literally dozens of poems from newspapers, church bulletins, privately printed pamphlets and magazines--many of them no longer available. Some indication of the politica l nature of both the people and the poetry of the post-Civil War era is seen in this stanza from "The Song of the Black Republicans" (which appeared in The Black Republican of New Orleans, April 29, 1856): �I Now rally, Black Republicans, Wherever you may be, ...-:.... Brave soldier__!y on the battlefield, And sailors on the sea. Now rally, Black Republicans-Aye, rally% we are ~reel We've waited long long To sing the song-The song of liberty. Continuing for six stanzas, th~• poem is obviously aimed at a public listening and reading audience. It praises "colortt which comes "from the Lord" and reminds Black voters that Abraham Lincoln ( "beneath the Flag of all 11) ''flung us Freedom through its stars. '' Somewhat of a different vein is the work of Benjamin Cutler Clark (1805? - ?) of whom we know very little. A fugitive slave, he attended the 1835 Annual Convention .o f Free People of Color (held in Philadelphia) from his adopted hometown of York, Pennsylvania, where he had moved af'ter leaving the slave state in which he was born. Mostly self-taught, Clark married in Yor~ and raised a large family--writing poetry and prose in his spare moments .. He was politically active and opposed colonization of' Blacks, believing that it was viduals II who emigrated and "not nations. . 11 .,.. 11 indi- The Past, The - Present and the Future (Toronto, 1867) includes prose reflections on the state of race relations and 65 poems. He is primarily �concerned, in poetry and prose, with the issues of slavery and racial injustice, although much of his work deals with domestic life. Infsentiment,) language,J style and influence, Clark bears resemblence to the poets af the period just covered. And although his work was not published until 1867, he wrote poems earlier as indicated, for example, in his 1'What Is a Slave 11 and rrRequiescat in Pace,'' an elegy on the 1857 death of' a woman associate. Clark is quite ef'fective as a poet and, sometimes, even gripping in his ability to make the poem assume the dimensions of the event it relates. in detailing details of' slavery. Like Mrs. Harper, he is graphic And, like Frederick Douglass, (see Narrative) he is tragic-comic in suggesting that those nat home" (in slavery, that is) may Me? 11 miss me." "Do They Miss A Parody" opens each of its four-lined stanzas with Do they miss me at home--do they miss me? and alternates a iambic pentameter and • • (with an ab c b rhyme scheme). tetrameter HU Clark describes an unusual kind of nh ome 11 : "Do they miss me at home--do they miss me? By light, as the horn echoes loud, And the slaves are marched off to the corn f'ield, I'm missed from the half-naked crowd. Using a break (or caesura) reminiscent of the blues, at the third f'oot (the bl!ues breaks at the second), Clark dramatizes slavery and pokes fun at those men who run the · "peculiar I �institution. n He makes similar use of the dash in "What Is a Slave" where he achieves incremental power through repetition and syntactical variance: A slave is--what? A thing that's got Nothing, and that aloneJ His time--his wife-And e'en his life, He dare not call bis own. Employing expletives, spontaneity and suspense, Clark shows himself to be a skilled craftsman (all things considered) for his time and training. His rhyme scheme is a ab cc b with an off-rhyme in the first couplet of each six-line stanza. Under the persistent question 'twhat Is a Slave?" we feel not only t he indictment against slave-owners and racist policies-but some key to the early realizations of Black thinkers that the race was being disrobed physically and psychologically. As with Vassa, Reason and others, the hurt is hidden and defies both definition and visual contact: A slave is--what? I pray do not Insist; I cannot know, To words i m art, Or, pai nt er' s art, Describ e a slave--a, noS Though trapped in the forms of European model-builders, Clark shows bis own ingenuity and or i ginality. By varyi n bis r :1e �sc emes and meter, and using dashes and expletives, be rings emotional power interlaced with an ironically detached n- tellectual assessment of the slave's plight. He is similarly powerf:tl in a poem like "The Seminole 11 where be (continuing a. long-line of Black salutory verse) praises Oceoll, Seminole chief arrl hero of Seminole wars in Florida in the earl century. In this, of Florida). 19t e also anticipates 'Jbitman's work (Rape For selections of Clark's works and brief criti- cism see Robinson's antbolo . See also Joan R.. berms.n's Invisi le Poets If Clark's strength lay in bis assault against racial injustices, James Madison Bell's (1826-1902) lay in bis npleas 11 and "hope. fl 11 Fortunate n enough to w tness tbe Civil far, Emancipation and Reconstruction, Bell railed against injustices but primarily expressed hope in bis 40 years of observing the Black struggle. Bell spent most of bis adult life delivering eloquent and weighty poetic elocutions on freedom, hope and liberty. He was born in Gallipolis, Ohio, wbic be left at age 16 to pursue the trade of plasterer and the avocation of orator-poet. A wanderer, Bell played his part in the over- throw of slavery--soliciting funds and recruiting Blacks for John Brown's a orted 1859 raid at Harper's Ferry. Before the raid, Bell had moved to Canada where he continued his friendship with Brown and :fathered a large family. He later traveled to California, back to Canada, to various cities in Ohio and Michigan, and, finally, spent time in Toledo. During this �odyssey Bell appeared at concert halls, churches and various public gatherings to read his poetry in some political or commemorative event. He also took advantage of books and gained considerable understanding of history and literature. His major themes are devotion, inspiration, love, unity, collective strength and political change. Achieving "something of Byronic power in the roll of his verse," (Kerlin) Bell's 0 poems are often too long, too ted:t,ps am lacking in interest. Robinson notes that Not to mitigate his obvious technical flaws, it is helpful to remember that Bell is best appreciated as something of an actor, his poems regarded as scripts. Unashamedly chronicling his journeys, Bell included the following as a full title of Triumph of Liberty (1870): A Poem,/ Entitled the/ Triumph of Liberty./ Delivered April 7, 1870,/ Detroit Opera House,/ On the Occasion of/ The Grand Celebration of the f inal Ratification/ of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Con-/ stitution of the United States. Consisting of 902 lines, the poem erupts through the use of all the nflourishes and vocal modulations at his experienced command." According to Redding (To Make A Poet Black), Bell "unblushingly" claimed the titles of "Bard of Maumee" and nPoet of Hope." Typical of Bell's style is bis tribute to his friend John Brown (from The Triumph of Liberty): Although like Samson he was ta'en, �And by the base Philistines slain, Yet 1e in death accomplished more Than e 1 er he had in life before. His noble heart, which ne'er had failed, Proved firm, and e 1 en in death prevailed; And many a teardrop dimmed the eye Of e 1 en his foes who saw him die-And none who witnessed that foul act ill e'er in life forget the fact. ' Approaching something of the stature of Vashon' s "Vincent Oge 11 and Whitfield's "Cinque," Bell's tribute has all the ring of indebtedness to Scott, Byron, Pope, Tennyson and other English popular masters with whom he was familiar- However imitative and derivative, though, Bell seemed never to be at a loss for exalting, exhortatory poetical flourishes. In "Song for the first of August" he sings a song for "proud Freedom's dayn: Of every clime, of every hue, Of every tongue, of every race, 1 Neath heaven's broad ethereal blue; Ohl let thy radiant smiles embrace, Till neither slave nor one oppressed Remain tbro~ghout creation's span, By thee unpitied and unblest, Of all the progen of man. One of Bell's most ambitious works is h is "Hodern Hoses , or 1 Hy Policy' fa.n II in whic --in scaliing satire--he assesses the �administration of president Andrew Jonson. Johnson (l 05- 1875), who succeeded the assassinated Lincoln in l 65, was born poor and learned to write and figure from his wife. His ~a ·,ti. he,~""' presidency {iA J Ai n a showdown between a progressive Republican Congress and Johnson, a reactionary Democrat. Once in office Johnson began reversing his harsh criticisms of the South, giving former rebels a rat er free hand at things and vetoing several bills aimed at giving Blacks a better share of things. Upset by the whole thing, Bell iirOte a blistering satire--which w'h ~r-e.t~ often collapses as such--• nrhao~, with couplet-fury, he observes that: And crowns there are, and not a few, And royal robes and sceptres, too, That have, in every age and land, Been at the option and command Of men as much unfit to rule, As apes and monkeys are for school. Following poets like Clark and Whitfield, and anticipating 11 signifying 11 poets of the 196Ofs and 7O's (such as Baraka, Crouch, Toure, Ec,iels: "Western Syphillization, n and others) Bell com- pares Johnson to all manner of evils. Johnson is also contrasted to "good 11 or liberal whites such as Congressmen Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens and abolitionist Wendell Phillips. Cyn- ically calling Johnson "Modern Moses", Bell also uses the derisive "Mose 11 --which appears to be a way of reducing him to the level of the stereotype whites reserve for Blacks (see, L· for example, such statements as the one by Don r,.Lee: • 11 styron/ �& bis momma toon). One must chuckle somewhat at Bell's claim that Johnson cursed in the "'1ii tehouse: :: But choose we rather to discant, On one whose swaggish boast and rant, And vulgar jest, and pot-house slang, Has grown the pest of every gang Of debauchees wherever found, From Baffin's Bay to Puget Sound. Only recently have we heard echoes of Bell from journalists, congressmen and old ladies astonished at "Wh itehouse tapes ~ showing that ex-president Richard Nixon cursed in the gval §oom. We have observed, then, tbat Bell, though a ted*s and harfuing poet, is important as a continuing chronicle of the mind and creative development of tbe Afro-American poet. Bell's works also include The Day and The War (1864), dedicated to the memory of Brown; The Progress of Liberty (1870), a recollection of the war , praise for Lincoln and Black troops, and a jubilant greeting of enfranchisement; and The Poetical Works of James Madison Bell (1901), including a preface by his personal friend, Bishop B.W. Arnett. Even though Bishop Arnett claimed that Bell's nlogic was irresistible, like a legion of cavalry led by Sheridan,n the poet recognized his own limitations when he said (Progress of Liberty): 11 The poet laments the discord of his harp, and its disuse, until answering Freedom's call he again essays it harmony." �For other samples and appraisals of Bell's work see Robinson, • • $hewnOJt Brawley, Kerlin, Redding, Brow~~nd Mays (The Negro's God, 1938). Anticipating Melvin B. Tolson of the 20th century (who wrote a book-length answer--Harlem Gallery, 1965-- to Gertrude Stein's statement that nThe Negro suffers from nothingness), Francis A. Boyd (1844-?) penned his only volume in partial response to Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's concern for nthe injured and oppressed sons am. daughters of Africa." Boyd's volume, published in 1870, is entitled Columbiana;/or,/The North Star,/ Complete in one Volume. Boyd explains in the preface that he was born free to Samuel and Nancy Boyd in Lexington, Kentucky, and met hardships trying to acquire an education. Columbiana, the author notes in the preface, comes from nr, a scion of that ancient racen who takes "pleasure in dedicating the following lines" to the Rev. Beecher. Hade up of five cantos (major breaks in a long poem), Columbiana is a poetic narrative on the plight of the Black man in slave-founded America. The cantos contain various structurol.and rhyme schemes--most of which reflect Boyd's knowledge of the classics, neoclassical and romantic traditions in poetry, and the history of events leading up to the Civil War. In the poem, Freedom (personified) travels., like some classical deity, on a winged chariot from Egypt, across Israel, Greece and America. In America, Freedom meets all sorts of evils, like t e protagonist in John Boyd's "vision," among them Secessia, the arch-enemy of Blacks and freedom. Secessia, outherners who seceeded from the union, �is assessed from all sides during -.. assault. In "def ance oyd s iam c tetrametric ade to Union laws,n tbe out "Ignored" truth and rightness And To o_dly drew her litt•ring ampcr down tbe shudd ' r ng slave. ut t e sons and da ghters of A:frica, must have a sa ... so in w at • • • on thy soi ... t Blacks rll) o o •m a part of Secessia, Freedom (cont·nuin tells nsecessia II tl at e Et½"or dwells =' fo l slave-cellsj . .. , lorious triumph o ' or t l"'y ave t .eir eye on t e Nort pa.per) su •1 appens to '1-:Jer .. "The Soliloquy" :from "Canto I In laive tar (also name of Do g:assr ests the narrator in "The Dream" from Canto V" and Be:fore we quench t e 1allowed fire, Once more we strike t e sacred lyre. The Tortb Star lingers int e sky, Enc rcled y a snovry dove. Sun, moon and stars confo nded lie, The ~orth Star outshines all a ove, 'Ts s ning here, ands nin t ere, Forever ruling ever -~here .. The forth Star as remained until this very day i nporta.nt in Black literature. I Robert Hayden is only one contemporary poet ( "Runagate R nagato n) making use or it. bis meter and Confusing bot is rhyme pattern without hints that e is in- tentional or experimenting, Boyd sometimes loses the reader n is la yrinth ne deluge. B t, considering b s station in l.50 �life and the obstacles be worked against, his work is one more notable step in the development of Afro-American poetry. For selections from and assessments of Boyd, see Robinson. Henrietta Cordelia Ray (1850-1916) was among the handfull of Black poets of the 19th century (including Daniel Payne and Ann Plato) who avoided racial themes. Miss Ray, however, seems to be one of the first to try a wide variety of forms. In sonnets such as "To My Father.," rrRobert G. Shaw.," "Milton" and others, she shows skill at writing this difficult form. And in works like "Antigone and Oedipus.," "The Dawn of Love, rr ''Noontide 11 and "The Months n she proves her linguist.i c de:x:terity and poetic virtuosity. Even though 1l1i - Sn~ ifll:&JAavoided outright racial themes.,in her poetry she implicitly commits herself in a poem like "Robert G. Shaw" dedicated to the white Colonel Shaw (1837-1863) of Boston who led the 54th Massachusetts volunteers (all Black) into the Civil War. Killed leading his troops on an assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, Shaw is eulogized: O Friendl O heroJ thou who yielded breath That others might share Freedom's priceless gains, In rev'rent love we guard thy memory. Co~ e.L., (). Dunbar., a younger contemporary of i811BARay's, would also prai.se Shaw who, like Lincoln, became one of the important white heroes to post--.war Black Americans. t,Klello. ~"-Ray, however, was not un- aware of the plight of her brothers and sisters of color in her everyday life. Born one of two daughters to the Rev. 151 �Charles B. Ray (of Falmouth, Massachusetts) distinguished minister and "tireless abolitionist, 11 (JJ I she_ l a./\was very early made aware of slavery and racial injustices. After a rather protected upbringing, which included good traditional training, she went on to New York University where she finished in Pedagogy and to Sauveuer School of Languages 'Mi:t az w ■b~master• Greek, Latin, French, German and the English classics. For a while she taught school, but, finding it boring, preferred to attend her invalid sister Florence (with whom she maintained a life-long friendship), traveling throughout New England and giving moral support to the antislavery work of her father. Her poem~ deal primarily with love, scholarship, intellectual theme8; praise of great literary/ iiii~political figures and seasons. She loved to do settings, descriptions, impressions and cycles in her poetry. For example there is a cycle ("Idyl") which goes through "Sunrise," "Noontide," "Sunset," and "Midnight." Another cycle, "The Months," consists of 12 poems, five of them in eigbt-linef stanzas, five in six-line' stanzas and two in seven-linef stanzas. She generally varies her meter and rhyme schemes; but the ballad form predominates in "The Months" while a two-stanza, six-linef form (rhyme scheme: a ab cc b) heralds the four major segments of the day in "Idyl. II ~eo . .cltL.ia.. Ray, as we have noted, is not an original or innovative poet. But her work does mark a new level of sophistication--despite her imitation of the models followed by most Black poets of her time. Her published poems included Sonnets ( ew York, 1893), and Poems ( ew York, 1887). She also published Commemoration �Ode or Lincoln/ written for the occasion of the/ unveiling of the Freedman ' s monument/ in Memory of Abraham Lincoln/ j.pril- ,1k., ~ - She co-authored., wit her sister., Sketch of the Life of the Rev . Charles B. Ray (New York., 1887). all•I -•• ■ IQ! ,,/dVtR7 0r k For selections of see Robi nson ' s Ear 1y Bl ac k Amer i can Poe t s and and Kerlin's Negro Poets and The r Poems. Ro inson includes . tlA-'. ~ ~fa. ,~ cri tica.1 comments ,, 0 a,t • it Sherman 1111\:Invisible Poets. Declar ng that "I was born in bondage,--I was never a I:) slave.,--" Albe'ty Allson Wh i tman (l 51-1902) thus introduced himself' and his poetry to the 1orld. A complex and rilliant poet (Wagner refers to him as a "brilliant" imitator)., he must have been anticipated by his contemporary Cordelia Ray in the experiments with various verse forms. Whitman was born a slave in or near Munfordsville., Hart County., Kentucky (in Green River country). wdirtilll•:-•a•u•ue~&Pll@~a~1~2~1~1g~p!!ll"'t~h~@•t•n■z■ t"'J••V•1ii•••i•t•s---•-li■ t1~••"L~ muLt:1.Tto) AJ/e was orphaned at an early age and received only bits and pieces of formal training--a glaring 1l'l"Ti'l~Cen1u'"ty irony against his achievement., the most important ~until Dunbar. Though it is widely believed that Whitman wrote the longest poem (over 5,000 lines) by a Black American., we now know that at least two other Black poets wrote longer poems: the Rev. Robert E. Ford's Brown Chapel., a Story in Verse (n.d • ., n.p. ; Preface dated 1903) contained at least 8.,600 lines in 307 pages; Maurice Corbett's Harp of Ethiopia (Hashville., 1914) contained over 7,500 lines in 273 pages. Rev. Ford's work is broken up into ca ntos utilizing ten-linef stanzas while Corbett ' s �epic is divided up into eight-lined stanzas. Wh tman utilized a half dozen or so metrical and stanzaic forms and numerous other rhyme schemes. ottava rima, dialect verse, the His forms include the penserian stanza, blank verse, iambic trochaic and anapest lines in three to five feet f (including stress unrhymed lines), and the various stanzaic and metrical fusions he developed from imitating such writers as Byron, Pope, Whittier, Longfellow, Milton and Scott. The poet developed his technical facilities while he worked, primarily as a pastor of an African Methodist Episcopal Church in Springfield, Ohio, and financial agent for Wilberforce University (where he had studied under Daniel Payne), to support himself and promote race progress. A fiery speaker, lecturer one. e and reader of his poetry, Whitman was f 11 not Ato bitl\ his tongue. In declaring that he "was never a slave" he went on to say--at 40 years of age--"The time has come when all 1 Uncle Toms' and 'Topsies 1 ought to die" The tii 1e of Whitman's first work, Not a Man and Yet a Man (1877) is important both literally and implicitly. For one only has to go a few more steps to place it alongside similar contemporary titles: Soul on Ice, Nobody Knows My Name, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Manchild in the Promise& ~ , Invisible Man, and scores of other volumes of essays, novels, poems and autobiographies. The titles are slightly different but the cry and the passion and aim are the same. Not a Man and Yet a Man, for Whitman, ensconces the dilemma �of the Black man. A mulatto slave, Rodney, saves the life of the daughter of his master during an Indian raid, and afterwards falls in love with her. Going against bis promise to offer his daughter in marriage to the man who saves her, the master instead sells Rodney to a Deep South planter. In his new habitat, Rodney falls in love with a slave girl, Leona and, after being separated from her for a while, spends a beautiful life with her in Canada. The over-simplified theme of the "tragic mulatton comes through in much of Whitman's work which never features the problems or lives of dark-skinned Blacks. Whitman possesses a brilliant gift of descriptive prosaic poetry as in these lines from Not a Man: The tall forests swim in a crimson sea, Out of whose bright depths rising silently, Great golden spires shoot into the skies, Among the isles of cloudland high, that rise, Float, scatter, burst, drift off, and slowly fade, Deep in the twilight, shade succeeding shade. Somewhat reminiscent of the brilliant and anonymous John Boyd, Whitman is competent and relentless when placed against any other romantics of his day. where in Echoing Poe and Lopgfellow, else- ot a ¥.ta.n, Whitman reacts to the t emporary separation of Rodney and Leeona: A true heroine of the cypress gloom, �Now there to lie, the Creole saw her doom-In The Rape of Florida (St. Louis, 1884), revised and repu lished the folloNing year as T~asinta's Seminoles, or Rape of Florida), Whitman engages bis readers in another romantic tale. Under truce, eminole Indians, w o have fought bravely, are fired on, captured, and taken off to Texas where they are re-located. Here, in another antici ation, of "relocation" (see Etheridge Knight rs see presages 1e elly Song) that will come in the works of contemporary writers 1·ke Baraka, ·illiams (The IT.an Who Cried I Am), Baldwin (_ obody Knows !Ty Name) , Greenlee The Spook ,Jho Sat by the Door), Crouch (Ain't Yo A~bulances for no Niggubs Tonite), the Last Poets, Gil Scof Heron (Fre e Will, Sma numerous others. Talk at 125t Street and Lenox) and v itman, at any rate, laments the treatment of the Indians w o extended a brotherly hand to slaves. In a note to the ~ork, •!bitman ment ions tat 1e met relatives of one eminole chief. Atlassa., 11 Rape contains 257 Spenserian stanzas. an eminent Seminole chieftan," was hero-born" ~ 11 Free as the air within bis palr,1y shade, The nobler traits that dote man adorn, In him were native: fot the music made In t ampa's forests or t e everglade ·Jas fitter than in this young Seminole Was the proud spirit which did life pervade, And glow and tremble in bis ardent soul-- �fuich, l this nmost-sel:f, and spurned all mean control. 11 itman's last volume was An Idyl of the South, An Epic Poem n Two Parts { ew York, 1901). 11 Again { 11 The Octoroon" and The Sout land's Charm and Freedom's Magnitude"), ·v hi tman explores the problems of mulattoes. Here, in chronology and subject matter, he parallels Charles Chestnutt, the Black fiction wr ter who also exploited the theme of the mulatto and npassing. 11 A new edition of Rape (1890) also included Drifted Leaves.. vJhi tman rs l orld 's Fair Poem: The Freedman's Triumphant Song, along w th "The Veteran" {Atlanta, l 93), were read imself and Mrs . itman respectively at the Chicago World's Fair, attended by Dunbar and t e venerable Douglass. but Like Dun ar, vJhitman became addicted to alcohol, e managed to maintain his popularity as a bard church- worker, freedom-fighter atrl poet in Drifted Leaves . He also published sermons An edition of "Whitman's complete works, long overdue, is currently being prepared. For selections of his writings see Negro Caravan, Robinson's anthology, Kerlin's book and other anthologies. Sometimes grouped with Phill s 'Wheatl~y in the umocking-bird school of poets, 11 'Whitman is assessed by Wagner, Brown, Brawley, Robinson, Kerlin, Jahn {Neo-African Literature, 1968), Loggins and Sherman. Making only oblique references to racial pressures, George Marion McClellan (1860-1934) is reminiscent of Francis Boyd, and calls to mind Tolson, in his effort to prove Blacks �capable of intellectual and literary competence. However, McClellan still does not deserv~ the abrupt dismissal given ( ~o~otlt"r,_y ~ • him by Sterling Brown~ McClellan writes harmlessly of flowers, trees, birds and love (things Baraka and others have, of late, claimed a Black poet should not waste his time on). But he s competent and technically dexterous so as not to bore. Happily, some of the longer pieces are interpolated with shorter ones and this makes McClellan more readable. After his birth in Belfast, Tennessee, McClellan lived in an economically stable family and later had a good, solid education at Fisk (B.A., 1885, and M.A ., 1890) and the Hartford (Connecticut) Theological Seminary (B.D., 1886). Con- stantly on the go, like Bell, and a f'und-raiser, like Whitman, f'or Fisk University, he spent much of' his time on the eastern seaboard executing his important duties. and taught in several cities: McClellan pastored Normal (Alabama), Memphis, Louisville (Kentucky) and Los Angeles, where he finally went in hopes of finding a cure for his tubercular son. His last years were devoted to soliciting funds for an anti-tubercular sanitorium for Blacks. Among McClellan's published works are Poems (Nashville, 1895), Book of Poems and Short Stories (Nashville, 1895), Old Greenbottom Inn (1896), Songs of a Southerner (Boston, 1896) and Path of Dreams (Louisville, 1916). As a poet, McClellan is sharp, crisp and musical in his use of language and images. 11 The Color Bane" pulls us somewhat forward to Fenton Johnson's 11 The Scarlet Woman" since the �nproblem" of having a beautiful but Black face in the theme of both. Even though HcClellan's woman possesses "inex- pressible grace n For all her wealth and gifts of grace Could not appease the sham Of justice that discriminates Against the blood of Ham. And there is more than a hint in the title of his final volume, Path of Dreams; for, as many observers of Black writing have noted, the "dream II is a central theme ( see Hughes, a den, Nat Turner , Cor;ot er~, Dunbar) • • • • • • • • • • • Yet on t e surface, J,: cClella n i s deli cate and unoffensive . ~1rt.ted11\ verse sonnets, sing-song quasi-ballads, ¥ He ·writes rem niscent of Byron, Scott and H lton, and formal ballads and praises as in "The Feet of .Judas." ymn-inspired Varying meter, stanza and rhyme scheme, HcClellan nevertheless refused to write in d alect--t e vogue or h s day. time, 11 Iviaking it analagous to 11 rag- he coiplained that it was "considered quite the proper dressin for Negro distinction int e poetic art." For ample se ect ions or HcClellan's writings see Kerlints critical antholo w, Robinson's book and .Jo. nson's American Fegro Poetry. Ro ins on., I erlin and Brown also give critical views of licClellan's work. See also Sherman's Invisible Poets. "Rag-picker, to acco steamer, brickyard hand, distiller, teamster and p~ize-f'ighter, 11 J"osep ihiske Seamon Cotter .t~. (1 61-19:,i9) was also one oft e most gifted and prolific �writers of his era. Cotter was born to a Black mother and mite father in Nelson County, Kentucky. The kinds of work cited above characterized h s life when he was forced, at an early age, to interrupt his schooling. school at age Re-entering night 24, he studied to become a teacher and admin- istrator, chores w ich e eventually assumed at the Colored fa.rd School in Louisville. Cotter also taught English lit- erature and composition and contributed poems, stories and L,11/H·,Lt.e articles to local newspapers including tbeACourier-Journal (one of America's outstanding newspapers). In his life and work., Cotter looks for "1ard to Blacks like DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Mar McLeod Bethune and Langston Hughes. In his writings, he anticipates the variety and virtuosity of a Dunbar. For, in the ords of one critic of the period, "he makes poems and invents and discovers stories, and bardlike, recites them to whatever audience may caJ.l for them-(_ker-Lt n ). n schools, in churches, at firesides," i\Brilliant, precocious and enduring, Cotter pursued the complex side of l fe, dar ng to examine the often over-simplified phenomenon of race relations in America. Kerlin said of his work: "Some are tragedies and some are comedies and some are tragi-comedies of everyday life among the Negroes." Cotter (Brown says he has "both point and pi th"), it must be said, was among the first Black poets to represent, without shame and minstrelsy, authentic Black folk life. He wrote in formal--academic, bookish--forms; but he also wrote ' �explicitly in dialect and standard English, of common life and common problems. He achieves "rushing rhythms and ingenious rhymes 11 when he is at bis best; and a quiet, reflective perserverence, when he writes introspectively. A disciple of Dunbar, Cotter is able to capture vividly the tbeme of traveling and weariness that pervades so much Black literature and song (see "The Way-Side Well" and . . repetitions ;J 7 1 that es- tablish the drudgery and the momentum to carry on). He can be satirical and admonishing in dialect as in nThe Don't-Care Negro": Neber min' your manhood's risin' So you babe a way to stay it. Neber min' folks' good opinion So you have a way to slay it. In "The Negro Cbildn Cotter tells the youth to let nlessons of stern yesterdaysn ••• be your food, your drink your rest, and in the same poem he strikes a pose similar to that of Booker T. Washington's when he advises the child to Go train your head and hands to do, Your head and heart to dare. Cotter's verses also exalt Black and liberal white heroes ( "Frederick Douglass,'' "Emerson," "The Race Welcomes Dr. W.E.B. DuBois as I ts Leader," "Oliver Wendell Holmes") and relish such experiences as reading or listening to Dunbar ( 11Answer to Dunbar's 'After a Visit" and "Answer to Dunbar's 'A Choice'") and Riley ( 11 0n Hearing James Whitcomb Riley Read"). He vigorously searches �the human heart--and the intangibles of lying, hating, and self-denying--in poems like "Contradiction" and "The Poet." nMy Poverty and Wealth" recalls Corrothers' "Compensationtt since the richness and strength of com.mo ~ss, charity and honesty triumph over money and a high social station. A prolific writer, Cotter published several volumes including: A Rhyming (1895); Links of Friendship (1898, with a preface by Courier-Journal editor Thomas Natkins); Negro Tales (1902); a four-act play in blank verse, Caleb, the Degenerate (1903); and A White Song and A Black One (1909). A good biographical- critical study of Cotter is long overdue. For selections and critical appraisals see Robinson and Kerlin. See also Countee Cullen's Caroling Dus1( (1927) and Sherman. Judging from much of the critical reception of Daniel Webster Davis (1862-1913) the prevailing feeling is that he should just disappear. Of all t e critics assessing im (Wagner, Brown..,Redding, Brawley, Sberman, Jonson and others), only two, Redding and S erman, seem to feel that Davis bas any "sincer tyn in h s efforts to portray Blacks in dialect. Reddingts posit on is ironic, indeed, since, in To Make a Poet lack, e does not discuss t~e folk tradition in Black l "tera- ture. Davis (vho operated on t e theory tat t e most effective writer tt • s the one n demand t1) is deri vat ve of t . e white writers of dialect, as --1ere most of the Black dialect -:riters, and seeus only to transcend the m n t e fact of his ein • a Black man and a preacber--w o could deliver the verses with t . e vlliebB!Jf!llet~t'~ �im act irn ossi le of !I'homas .C. Gordon, white 11 ia."'ect writers. scholar of dialect" ~mc.u,.t\ periencos .ai-N3Tac s. 1 edd "n t e also a. serious n first hand ex- In introd ct ons to his hooks et een e dra s -a.ck and J.ite so t1ern im--for is exaggerated estion that plantat on 11 eddin ,e!i~~:::g- of Blac rs darkiesn were content to 11 ve out their liv s eating ' og meat, stea in • 01 'H3.S praises Davis for the same reasons tat ot er criti.cs dismiss and hiss :Javis ho •.-r.rote from bis comparisons and contrasts speech. elson Pao, Irwin Russell and 11 'ttfaderrnill ijs" and believes tat Davis 'f poetr "re resents ighest imag no.t ve power of the plantat on :regro, t e prodi al richness of is imager~r, and . is happy po rer to resolve all difficulties and m.yster es a c ild." Reddin 's comment, not so t a.rs t e reasoning of as t might seem, is nevertheless only partially--if that muc .--true. For how does one account for the ingenu ty of the work songs, t e Spirituals, the d "tties and jingles and t e earl;.r lues? D d not the same "child" create them also? Brown, on the other and, refers to Davis as t e " egro Thomas Nelson Page 11 --quite a nasty "put-do.Jn 11 , to use contemporary parlance .. lacks in And Davis does seem to iving his poems sue Down Souf," ttBakin ant Greens, titles as: tt and "De Bigges' Piece ub Pie." e making f'un of "og Meat," "''e "Is Dar Wadermi lluns on Hi ? 11 But he is bent on meeting the needs of people wbo want to be "instructed and entertained." And it will be observed that in some parts of' the South, the dipt on t. is dropped f'rom its ending position in f'avor off • tb3 �• and one certainly find.Sevidence of Blacks speaking like the characters in v ebster 's poetry. But another answer might e in a comparison between Flip Wilson (Rev. LeRoy) and Rev. Daniel Webster Davis who achieved great popularity wen he turned his pulpit into a stage from which to unload his own brand of "saving souls'' and making the "word" come alive. As Rev. Davis, the dialect poet was not unlike such men as John Jasper ii and "other egro preachers II of his day who •were so well known. g r 1 1 rJ rrl, Black Billy Sunday, Brother Easter, Davis,, two collections, primarily in dialect, are Idle Moments (1895) and Weh Down Sou:t' (1897). 1 lished prose. He also left much unpub- Most of his work deals with joviality, gluttony, flamboyant sermons, happiness, the "contented" slave and mis-:--. chievjousness--the stereotypical behavior which white minstrelsy \:., has fostered on the Blac~~ux rr:,,... Davis is derivative, as we noticed, to the point of copying whole lines and phrases as in "Hog Heat II where he takes the words I men the frost is on the Punkin" from James Whitcomb Riley and changes them thusly: When de fros' is on de pun'kin an' de sno'-flakes in de a'r, ••• The poem also closely resembles Dunbar's ''\men De Co'n Pone's Hot." (Although Wagner and other critics claim that Davis did not borrow from Dunbar but worked ndirectly from the models provided by the minstrels and the southern poets.") < !i4 Davis~v1~e.d i.:3;r first-hand experience of the Black folk predicament., �first as a child in North Carolina and, after the Civil War, in Richmond, Virginia, where he attended school. Finishing high school with good marks, he began to teach in the Black schools of Richmond. His popularity was wide among "the less literate of his own race,n according to James Weldon Johnson, which may be a partial reason for Davis' ' continual production of his particular brand of "poetry. . 11 . Known f'or reading his verses with rrcomical unctuousness before convulsed audiences," his work, when placed beside Dunbar's, is unfinished . In style and workmanship, however, it should be noted that Davis is not unlike some of the bombastic Black poets of taday. For when the complete story is told, many "popular 11 contemporary poets--speaking and writing a 11 dialect 11 and titillating ncon- vulsed" audiences--may very well meet the rate reserved for Davis. (Instead of becoming a "prelude to a kissn they may end up a f'ootnote to a joke~) In his few standard English pieces, Davis also preaches a conciliatory attitude, as in nEmancipation 11 where he claims the Af'rican "roamed the savage wild n Untamed his passions; half' a man and half' a savage child, until God "saw fit 11 to teach the Black man of "Him and Jesus Christ . " It could be that there is more to Davis than has met the eye; at any rate, a complete study of his life and works await some serious student or Black poetry. For assess- ments of and selections from Davis's writings see Brown, Sherman, Wagner, Robinson, Redding and Johnson. �Our study makes no claim that every poet briefly considered is any sort of giant. In fact, except when such a title or label is obviously warranted, there is an effort to steer clear of such qualitative evaluations., This is true in view of our stated goal: to place into the hands of students and lay per- sons a handy ref'erence to) and~verview of)Black poetry. So Jean 1 agner 's claim that "it would have required a great deal of indulgence to welcome" the poetry of John Wesley Holloway (1865-1935) into "the literary domain" can not find credence or reinforcement in this book. I ss I& • Wagner also includes Cotter, Corrothers and lftlll&iii 5 saa3atJlft Braithwaite in his list of poets non grata. Holloway, like his contemporaries Davis and Corrothers, was a "preacher-poet." His poetry is in both standard Englis form and dialect, which, according to Johnson, is his "best work." In The Negro's God, Benjamin Mays classes Holloway with the writers and thinkers who take a conciliatory and compen- satory approach to the deity- despite oppression, slavery or whatever. In one poem, Holloway is 1tWai ting on the Lord"; and even Though hosts of sin may hedge me round, 1'!4 llllliii7 1 he will nevertheless wait 11 j patientlyn for help from God. James Baldwin, and other Black writers of the 20th century (getting a first start from Dunbar), call such advice ndishonest." Baldwin, a child-preacher., saw a contradiction in the preacher's �resignation and tbe rat-infested tenement buildings against whose owners tbe preachers refused to lead a rent strike. Yet, as a preacher, Holloway exhibits a classic devotion and tbe ability (see Preface to Johnson's God's Trombones) to aid in tbe welding of tbe disparate Black masses-• sMU!.Js'Ml!S never 1 - , an easy task. A disciple of Dunbar, Holloway was born in Merriweather County, Georgia. His father, one of tbe first Black teachers in tbe state, bad learned to read and write as a slave and sent bis son to Clark (Atlanta) and Fisk Universities. For a period, young Holloway was a member of tbe famous Fisk Jubilee singers. As a poet of dialect, Holloway is both musi- cal and humorous as in "Miss Merlerlee 11 wbo has Sof' brown cheek, an' smilin' face and Perly teef, an' sbinin' hair An' silky arm so plump an' bareJ Reflecting a growing practice of tbe transitional poets, Holloway makes an honest effort to portray deep Black emotions and feelings. His descriptions of Black women (especially) and men signal a new and vibrant aspect of Black poetry--tbe merger of the sexual/sensual levels with tbe racial flavor of post-bellum Black America. Linguistically, Holloway approaches tbe sounds and idioms of tbe Gullah which will be seen more definitiyely in James Edwin Campbell. in th Since the Gullah dialect is spoken areas off the shores of Georgia and the Carolinas, it is possible that Holloway picked up accents and expressions as �a child. (1919). His books include Bandannas (n.d.) and From the Desert Especially humorous is his "Calling the Doctor" which is an important cataloging of folk medicinal remedies including Blue-mass, laud-num, liver pills, "Sixty-six, i'o' i'ever an 1 chills," Ready Relief, an' A. B. c. , An' half a bottle of X. Y. Z Holloway ~ialect poet•) · joined Dunbar., Corr others., J. Mord Allen and Ray Dandridge, in being published for the first time (during the first two decades of the 20th century) in previously "off-limits" white periodicals. For selections from and criticism of Holloway's work see Johnson's American Negro Poetry and Mays' The Negro's God. See also, for criticism, Brown's Negro Poetry and Drama. Yet another dialect 'Writer., Elliot Baine Henderson., on whom we have little information, was another disciple of Dunbar. A "prolific writer,n he published some eight volumes of' verse., all in dialect. In much of his writings., as with Holloway and Campbell, be utilizes the phonetics and idioms of the Gullah--akin to the West Indian brand of folk English. Henderson is sometimes concerned with folk beliefs and the supernatural and Black religious themes and songs ("Git on Board., Chillen'.'). His dialect is inconsistent, a problem with most dialect writers (including Dunbar), and while he tries to achieve a phonetic transcription of what he hears, he spells (in the same title) "Board" :tn a standard English way and attempts to place words �like uGitn and "Chillun" in dialect. His volumes include Plantation Ee oes (Columbus, Ohio, 1904), Darky Meditations (Springfield, Ohio, 1910), Uneddykated Folks (Aut1or, 1911) and Darky Ditties (Columbus, 1915). James Edwin Campbell (1867-1895), unlike his contemporary DunbQ;r, "owes almost nothing to the plantation oets." Camp ell seems to have listened car fully to and applied t e Black folk speech around him whereas Dunbar took is initial cues from the plantation school, c ief proponent of which was Ir i n Russell. Born in Pomeroy, Ohio, Campbell graduated from the Pomeroy Academy and for a while taught school near Gallipol s. He gained more teaching and administrative experience at the Langston School in Virginia. and the West Virgin a Colored Instit te (now West V rginia State College) were opposition to h · s administrative policies forced T e re, Campbell i m to leave for C1ica o. as a member of the staff of the C icago Times lieralc;l for t e rest of bis life. Li e is contemporar ies, Cotter and Dunbar (and others), Camp ell's early verses were publish ed in various newspapers. His first vol me of po ms (Driftings and Gleanings, 1887) contains poems in standard En lish and two essa s. His second volume, solely poetry, was pu lished in 1 95 under the title of Echoes from t e Cabin and Elsew ere. • Campbell is quite competent in dialect; and wile some of oth standard En l sh and s sentiments are well-handled in the standard En lish poems, it is int e dialect pieces tat • �sho s his power, complexit and or important t emes are intorrac al lov ina i t . Amon is (one of the first Black writers--see , itman and others--to deal wit this "touchyn ject), the mulatto, satire (see, especially, "01 1 Doc' s Hyarn) Black pride (though muffled), and realistic presentat ons of Black "social realities, religious formalism, and folk values." although a It is important to mention ore in-depth study is still to Dunbar, who seemed to striv is brand of dialect, e done. Unlike for a univ rsal an licized po- rwnd netic, Campbell (traces are also~n Holloway and Henderson) recorded the speech patterns closely related to Gullah,•• f Pl I P u tlal Such usage is seen in em- t ploying the subjective an:l objective prone ns in the nominative position ("Me see, n "Him hab, 11 etc). !: as in "Uncle Eph's Banjo Songn: the ~ 11 ( as in "bawnjer") for the .£• There is use of the road awnjer" and ndawnce" and The ver al copula to e eY\ is usually omitted (assumed?) and there is a normal lengt~ng of an e or 1 sound in words like "Beeg ", "j eeg 11 , The v often becomes band t sometimes becomes k. of course, other great differences. "La igs. " There are, For more on such lin- guistic aspects see works by Lorenzo Dow Turner, Herman Blake, ·Robert D. T1:Viggs am others. Campbell has a more authentic ring than Dunbar and one gets the impression that he is seriously involved in feeling as well as representing what Hughes called "the pulse of the people." But Campbell and Dunbar are also similar in many ways. 170 �In "Negro Serenade" (compare to Dunbar's "A Negro Love Song") Campbell captures a sharp human-social need. In ''De Cunjab .Man" he achieves a strong musical ring (with the help of a ring-a-round-the-circle sort of chant) and dabbles in the supernatural--suggesting, as Chestnutt {fdd, that perhaps the Black folk tradition holds keys to the "ultimate mysteries of the universe." The recurring refrain of De Cunjah man, de Cunjah man, 0 chillen run, de Cunjab manJ will be ramified and made more dexterous by Hughes, Toomer and Hayden, as they experiment with these exciting oral folk forms. Campbell attempted to capture the cadences and gestural complexities of a contemporary dance, the "buck", in bis poem "Mobile Buck. n He stated that he sought the "shuffling, jerky rhythm of the famous Negro dance" which be bad seen performed by Black longshoremen on the Ohio or the Mississippi. type of word-movement marriage ¼s1 SJ usual in Black poetry. today. JI TEI r is This not un- Numerous examples of such pairings abound Lastly, we should note that Campbell's near-Gullah dialect would later be revived (in the thirties and forties) by writers like Ambrose Gonzales and .Julia Peterkin. McKay, we have said, employed a similar dialect in bis .Jamaican poems. Actor-singer ~~rkf Belafonte, son of West Indians, would popularize this same dialect in the 1950"is andl16o?s ( ''Daylight come and me.ta go home 11 ) . I ts w&~l\(A.. More salient contemporary examples of this idiom -tk-e. (and its cadences) can be found in the lyrics of,-._West IndiatJt ii: .SI 1 lil music known as the "ReggaJ~--an island version of .f 7t �Afro-American "soul 11 music. One of the first Black poets to write in dialect, Campbell deserves much more attention than he has thus far received. At this writing, the most exhaustive studies of him appear in fagner's Black Poets and Sherman's Invisible Poets. Thoug e was a close friend of Dunbar's, his major works in dialect preceded Dunbar's books. In addition to his poetry he was also a member of a group that edited the Four O'Clock Hagazine which was published for several years in Chicago. One or# occasion, Campbell is known to have spent time talking to BI.ack men, pleading with them to spend their time more drinking and gam ling. sely than in For selections of his work see .Johnson, Robinson and Negro Caravan. For critical evaluations see Brovn, .Johnson, Redding ("Camp ell's ear alone dictated his language.") and Carter G. ?oodson's "J".E. Campbell: Letter," Negro History Bulletin, Nove A For otten Man of er, 1938, p. 11. In 1937, Sterling Brown said "Eloquent and militant" were the "words most descript ve 11 of the poetry of , 111 am Edward urghardt DuBois (1868-1963). Bron, w o also termed DuBois "t e leading intellectual infl ence of his generation,n was only tro years ahead of as milar accolade frora .J. Saunders Redding: "T ey (poems) r pr sent t e as an inspirationa _ force." reatness of Dr. DuBois I n the history of Black poetry, however, DuBo · s does not deserve as la.re a. portion of the limelight as is nor1 all accorded bis -mrk as historian, social critic, journalist, novelist, Africanist, organizer of important Wd1ne~ �Pan~Af'rican Congresses in the 1920 s, editor of the Crisis, (3LA-tt. pathfinder-scholar of the Black Experience, precursl r ofAmilitancy and the "New egro. 11 Kerlin (Negro In 1923, Poets) said DuBois was "celebrated in the Five Continents and the Seven Seas. n As a poet, however, DuBois is important for bis work in the prose-poem {ii ii J A?,t("proem 11 ) forml and f'or asserting a militance., a defiance and • 1 exclaiming._ a hatred of' racism and oppression that bad not been heard since James lfuitfield. Like molten lava, the disgust and \r)ger spill from DuBois's pen as in "Hymn of Hate fl: I hate them, Ob! I bate them well, I hate them, ChristJ As I bate hellJ Ironically, though, in his hatred DuBois always managed to re-establish his faith and trust in some higher order--in God. Most of his poems bad been published in various periodicals (the Independent., Atlantic Monthly and Crisis) efore several of them were interspersed among the essays in Darkwater (1919). DuBois bad, by that time, already gained recognition for bis individualized use of poetic prose--wbich fused J1iblical language and imagery with his classical education and the expressions from the Souls of Black Folks (1903). But in "A Litany of Atlanta, written after the racial hola caust that took several Black lives, be assails all fundamentals--including the existence of God. _,_:µ, God does exist., in f'ace of such violence and savagery, fl �Surely Thou too art not white, 0 Lord, a pale, bloodless, heartless thing? DuBois also takes the occasion to cite his arch-enemy (Booker T. Washington) : They told him: 1 erk and Rise. A seeker ai'ter universal suffrage and brotherhood, DuBois employed much of his poetry in the service of the political ideologies that be e~poused. Thus in nA Hymn to the Peoples 11 he unites socialism and the Christian God under one banner, viewing "the primal meeting of the Sens of Man 11 as Foreshadowing the union of the worldJ Other poems in Darkwater include nThe Riddle of the Spbinxn and 11 The Prayers of God,." His 11 S ong of' the Smoke 11 (written in 1899) makes the American Black the "Smoke King. 11 Listing achievements and misuses of Blacks (a favorite habit of Black poets), DuBois at one point asks for acceptance of the Black man on equal terms with the white: Souls unto me are as mists in the night, I whiten my blackmen, I beckon my w te, What's the hue of a bide to a man in bis mightJ But, DuBois does not silence bis pen without some appeal to God: Sweet Christ, pity toiling landsJ Hail to the smoke king, Hail to the blackJ For selections from and comment on Dubois's poetry see Kerlin, �Brown, Redding, Freedomways (Winter, 1965), Johnson (American Negro Poetry). For assessments sJ:'Jahn, Barksdale and K~nnamon, Wagner, Mays and Chapman (Black Voices, 1968) who rightly calls DuBois "the intellectual father of modern Negro scholarship, modern Negro militancy and self-consciousness, and modern Negro cultural development." DuBois I Selected Poems have just been published (1973) by Ghana Universities Press and is available in the United States from Panther House, Ltd. James David Corrothers (1869-1919) acknowledged his debts to Shelley, Keats ( "Dream and the Song") and Dunbar ( nPaul Laurence Dunbar n) after whom much of his dialect poetry is modeled. But Corrothers, a minister, displays neither the range (in subject matter) nor the skill of Dunbar. died at his birth in Cass County, Michigan, and apparently gave him little care. His mother is father In Michigan, he worked as a youth in the sawmills and lumber camps, as a sailor on the Great Lakes, and later eeked out a living as janitor, coachman and bootblack in a barbershop. Encouraged by associates to continue his education, he studied for t h e mi nstry and remained in t h at profession (pastoring in Heth odist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches) all bis life. His first publ s ~ing oppor- tunity callle through Century ma azine; this ~ h im a Nide reading audie nce because of the resemblence of that of Dunbar's. Corrothers' first volum was published in 1907 a nd is work to (Selected Poems) is second collection (Te Drea a a nd e ~as n Ch icago d r ng the same �period that Campbell lived there and he also worked for various o met and socialized with Camp...,ell a . d da ily ne spapers . Dun ar~ F1,om newspap r articles and unpublis ed poems together Black Cat Cl h (1907) and e put is auto½iograp y, In p te published in 1916. of 11 Corrotbers' At t 1e Closed Gate of Justice" apparently has b on mis-read by a num er of cr · t cs (Johnson incl ded) 1t, knorled e t at as adv sin resi nation and conciliation. Corrothers as a minister, should shed more light on and implicat · ons. the fourth Eac s sasos one of t 10 fou r stanzas (except for ich ends '' ' Ierely a Je ,rd--in a day l1ke t isl") egins and ends wit: To be a Negro in a day like this. As a sermon on t e surfac , t e poen appears to tell Blacks 1 to :1avc " atience" and Tlforgiveness,u and so on. readin will reveal a strong adjective leading every virtue. So t e groupin s look like this: "strange loyalt ff But a closer nto almost "rare patience, ff and "utter da.rkness"--all of whic su gest tat, in the code of the proac er, it just might be too nrare" or nstrange'1 or 11 utter, n During the delivery or a sermon, or . «<.Tt\tt'fy similar verbal "-" t UF-, Blacks are ace stomed to searc ing for meani ng--shifts and levels vocal modulations~ n encoding" ased on tonal variet and ot er So, we see yet one more example or a possible , See, tl.o.pif.t0:IQLO J.. II) in what ttseemstt to be, of messages • at best, harmless deliveries atd, at orst, conciliatory. "Paul Laurence Dunbar" anticipates the Harlem Renaissance �and tho " ew egro II in having the "Dark melod st" venture to the citadels of vestern culture--using "Apollo's Fire" and ' ,('~ visit'"-"Helicon 11 , the home of the muses. Even more latant, however, is Corrothers' brilliant sonnet "The Negro Singer, 11 in which he carries out a major theme of the Harlem Renaissance-reclamation of Black cultural values and the Black past. The "Singer , " tired arrl f'rustrated from trying to write (and act) white, finally decides that ut I shall dig me deeper to the gold; and Fetc water dripping, over desert miles, so that at least some of his original virtue and ancestr~l strength can be exploited in the iestern world. Such a course is the only way for the Black poet, Corrothers says, the only way for "men II to: •• • know, and remember long, Nor my dark face dishonor any song. The same theme (slightly altered) is picked up in "Te Road to the Bow" where the singer again knows that I hold my head as proudly high As any man. Tension develops between the Black and white men "In the Matter of' Two Men" and 11 An Indignation Di.nner" features a dialect presentation of the popular plantation/minstrelsy theme about Blacks stealing chick~ and turkeys. A social lesson occurs in the poem, however , for "old Pappy Simmons ristr and explained .t '17 �to those facing a food-less Christmas that nothing but "wintry wind" (hot air) is "a-sighing th'ough/de street. 11 He tells the persons at the meeting that be has seen plenty food on a 11 certain gemmun' s/f ahm" and that "All we need is a committee fob to tote the goodies here." Earlier in the poem, Blacks protest their treatment at the hands of whites; and in a 17-part series called "Sweeten 'Tatahs, 11 one annoyed Black complains that 11 Evahthaing is 1 dulterated By de white folks, nowadays-Even chime bones, when you buys 'em De ain't worf de cash you pays. In one poem, Blacks complain of small wages; in another they protest high prices--familiar stories in the Afro-American corru.nunities. They dispel ignorant statements (like agner 1 s) that Corrothers is "lacking in personality" and that bis works do not belong in "the literary domain. 11 And, they cancel in part, Brown's allegation that Corrot ers follows a "typical dialect pattern." For selections of Corrot ers' works see Johnson, Hughes and Bontemps, and Robinson. For critical appraisals see Brown, Johnson and Braley. James veldon Johnson (1871-1938), fo"" mportant in his own right as a poet andwis immense "service to other Negro poets, is looked at in passing here. 11 He will be seen again in Chapter Vin connection with the Harlem Renaissance--where he is normally placed even though he was in bis fifties when t e leading lights 17f �--tw-.d°' €Nl of ,._wi: ii i •• 1 &11--Cullen, Hughes, McKay, Toomer and others-- first started to publish their works. Johnson, considered here a s a writer of d alect poetry, was born in Jacksonville, Florida, to middle-class Black parents, and attended Stanton Central Grammar Sc ool (all Black) where his mother taught. He entered a preparatory program at Atlanta University, later graduating and returning to assume principals ip of Stanton wher~ uring an eight year period--he upgraded the school to secondary status . Considered a "Renaissance" man (int e European sens ~/ i$;ii: at Johnson founded a local newspaper I• (The Daily American, 1894), studied :for th Florida ar nh t €t,dmitted in 1897), wr ote dialect poems (modeled after Dunbar ' s), a nd finally made his way to Broadway n _ ew York where he c olla orated with his brother, composer J. Rosamond, and Bo Cole in light operas. Sterl ng Brown said Johnson recognized the "triteness" of his early dialect poems (many pu. 1 s _ed in Fift Years and Ot er Poems, 1917), to music y bis ut several of them--put rot er and Cole--became popular favorites . The Century acce ted "Sence you W'ent Away" for pu lication. And the rot rs composed "Lift Every oi ce and Sing" (lyrics y James) for the Fe ruary 12, 1900, anniversary of Lincoln's irth- This poem is generally regarded as t e "National nthem" of Black America . I;Tardl y Qta OiC;p 2 OmliiP ioata ll QB t2ob Jonson s dialect poe s, listed in bis and Croons, 11 leave much to e desired t71 ook under "Jingles n t e area of originality. �Per aps is own experiments int at :form are what led him to state so emphatically that dialect and pathos." as but ntwo stops"--" 1umor .Johnson was not totally right, as we shall see later (Brown takes up this issue in The egro in Poetry and Drama). 11 However, Kerl n (whom '1agner says shows a sense 11 ) ca led .Johnson's -rnrk 11 some o:r the in the whole range o:r Tegro literature. cellence is here." def'iciency in critical est dialect writing Every qua.lit Technically, .Johnson was quite capa le in handling dialect ( ?3 $$ ) But brings noting new to Black poetry (unlike Sterlin and his themes have been pretty much he reaches print. Dunbar s o:r ex- is dialect Brown' sj -••ilil..,8ly the "Hy Lady's Lips Am Like de time oney 11 recalls 11 A Megro Love Song," Corrothers' nuegro Serenade," and other such pieces • o:r Dunbar's "Song. 11 .John~ontpoem carries none o:r the power And his su title ( "Negro Love ongfl) shows that he is working in the stock trade f'or the period. The lover :finally gets to the point where he Felt her kinder squeeze mah ban', 'Nuf'f' to make me undorstan. 1 t sence ou Went Away" is one of the real touch ng statements in ".Jingles and Croons 11 and shows .Johnson blues and Spiritual styles. ridging It has an authentic (t oug the quietly turbulent) ring in its simplicity--moving and lingering in its spell wrought by seeing the loss of a lover as a cause for disorder in the cosmos. Glimpses of , "~ me1~ctre1' w11.Lke"" umor comet rough in a :re o:r the poems but generally the dialect is used f'or ridicule--albe t �11 unwittingly--and deals with the easy" life oft e plantation, the stealing of turkeys and ••• eatin 1 watermelon, an' a layin' in de shade. e will meet Johnson again, as critic, different poe~ {)Jf' user of a different 11dialect. 11 ) -poullot1,11enc.t. t)uW\b~ Ul12-190" 'J I\ 2'he towering figure of Black American literature until ~ the Renaissance of the 192O l s, r B ■&2!1Bl160 naatar (l@iff l986!>' lived a complex, tragic, ambiguous and short life. Dayton, Ohio, to former slaves, Dun ar completed Born in is formal training at that city's only high school--graduating with good marks and as the only Black in his class. He was ,J wJ..eh he wASf ~ yeers 01.U sickly at an early age but became the man of the ' ho se1,.after his father I s death,. •i1'1@taz he ems !M!. J oar a 17 io Completing hig school, but being financially unable to pursue bis interests in law and journalism, Dunbar began work as an elevator boy, maintaining his voracious reading habits. He was fond of Tennyson, Shelley (whom he took as a model for bis poems in standard English), James Russell Lowell ( whose ~ork, along with Riley, Eugene Field and Ella Wheeler Wilcox, be found in The Century), and others. Much of Dunbar's poetry bears striking ~ resembl~nce to the ~orks of poets he admired, especially Shelley, Tennyson and Riley whose ndevices II Dunbar uindustriously: 11 set . ~ bsli..1"1.1.. "'"' --• ~ , ,.·,nkil. WO.~ ••((~\ol•e.cS~• ·~•Twh~t'\ .,._~ ,o,'t ~I\ oul; to "dismantle 1 and master. ~ oFC:it,o.1..(o.,,m-t,no.,.ant,,c f.'ta'"p b,,...,n!) hc.1 R p1\.Tu.,.« 4n ltf lS-. His volumes of verse include Oak and Ivy (1893), privately "t\·,t•• o,,,,e '~"" printed; Hajors and Minors (1895), also privately printed, with �the aid of patrons; Lyrics of Lowly Life {1896, with a preface by William Dean Howells) which, representing a major break.. through for a Black author, was published by Dof Mead and Company. ti-10 This third volume included the best poems from the previous volumes and some that bad not before. een pu lished Dunbar, now almost instantly famous, continued to write and pu lish both verse and fiction. His later books of poems included Lyrics of the Heartbside {1899), Lyrics of Love and Laughter {1903) and Lyrics of Suns ine and Shadow (1905), the year in 1913 .. efore bis deat. Interspersed among these of short stories and four novels~ Complete Poems as pu lis1ed ooks of poetry ·were volumes Na ~£ •~ The Unca led (), (1898), The Love of Landry (1900), The FAnatics (1901) and • The port of the Gods {1902). His s1ort stores incl ded Folks from Dixie (1 98), T e Strength of Gideon (1900), In Old Plantation Days (1903) and The Dun ar as prol r·c eart of Hap y Hollov (1904). almost rig t up w ich be knew was approac ing .. e nti~ the time of ad n:arried Al ce Rut'h M~tE-) a promising author from Tev Orleans, in l 9; and years is deat. -- ere an effort to .eal both failing .ealt is last and a failin marriage. As a poet, Dun a.r's ork falls into t10 div sions: lect and standard (some say e attempt nts and t n torary 11 or "class c H) Eng,1.isb. ere to present some of .0 and co , plex to cs. o;iun ar s f l f d n- C is poetic concerns, ac ·eve- arrl mr rs are too far-reac 1 • e assessed co.. i.p _etel;r · n t is t pe of surve:r. ng �~ en sa "d a out DmL&! ~ seemin ina '"'5.liti: or 1 muill n 0 ness to artic late in verse the .i:ts reE1t, 1ent of his 1 pcop_e. 1, .et1 or tbis was of his choosing, as a rnan or as a art· st, has :,rot to "be tJ.. oroughly ascertained., t 1e ans1 er see 1s to 1 :2aunched into czar, 11 o locked _. n "his o n c 1r · o 1 s II ri t n s. D n ar 1,•as ne 27, ~996, '½en l terary on e.i::10 1- owe:'.. ls, p b is ed a favora le f 11- age rev -w of i~jors and I1inors · n er ' s owells' influence is indicated y an Wyck Broo s: -1as per aps t e onl~.r literary critic l "te at re no as omc indication of Jee ly. n the nHo ells istory of A nor can een a _e to create rep tations hy as nble t, as Barksdale rev ewn ( rooks, P-,le Conf det,l;t,.IeA.;§., 1952). and Kinnamon note, HoweL.. s 1 rev c c1 was more of a social cornmen- tary (liberal, t1at is) tan literary critic sm. singled o t the dialect poems for special pra se. said, nwas the only man of pure African Howells D n ar, e lood and of Amer can civil zation to feel negro life aestheticall~r and expr ss t lyrically~ n D n ar, later realizing Howells' praise as a c rse in disguise, struggled forte rest of h s 1 fe to remove t½e dialect stigma . t e pu lie onl He complained to james vanted to read the pressure to be an s dialect pieces. ntelligent nsambo , plained of havi ng to play t 1e Dunbar's resentment of' t e 11 eldon jo nson that 11 And feeling be elsewhere com- part of a n lack w te man. la el" of d alect poet when 11 e felt he had more profound and cor.1plex things to say is capsuled in �th soften-quoted stanza from "The oet": e sang of love wl:1en earth •ras young, And love, itself, was in his lays. But ah, the world, it turned to pra se A jingle in a roken tongue. Earlier in the poem Dun ar refers to a ttdeeper noten which he preferred to sing. But w:1 le poems like "Sympathy," "The aunted Oak," "The Debt," and ''Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the 1 eary Eyes," do have deep and complicated meanings, one searches in vain for Dunbar t e man in them. In the dialect pieces, Dunbar was able to capture the rhyt ms, phonetics and idioms of lack speech. But it is generally agreed that, es- pecially since be used ridicule-directed w ite models, e saw the Black man as a su ject for either humor or pity. The South's revenge for the Civil ,Jar bad come in part through its philosophers and writers who reflected nostalgically about the "peace and tranquility" of plantation life. This was political chicanery at its worst, but several Black poets, Dunbar included, followed the white originators of the minstrel and plantation school of_ poets. (Whites did not origi- nate minstrelsy--but they did corrupt it; see Loften Hitcbell's Black Drama.) As a result, Dunbar's treatment of Blacks in . . ••stock•• ••"""_. .O\a e.-.~L for the era: his dialect poems is singing, grinning, obsequious, head-scratching, master-loving, waterP>i elfon-eating, dancing, banjo-picking, darkies. (!/' Certainly Dunbar comes through realistically as in "A Tegro Love Song" �(a written account of a song sung by Blaci{he bad worked with), 11 Little Brown Baby," "When De Co'n Pone's Hot," (the good-eating theme), "The Party, 11 11 How Lucy Backslid, 11 "The Rivals II and others. He also achieves subtlety and irony in others. 'rfuen Malindy sings" is by all accounts his important linguistic-cultural contri ution. Yet Dunbar seemed to reserve the "serious" sub- jects for standard English--for which Black critics will not forgive im--and even in this seriousness he speaks of people lai Hi l!S- behind lonely. 11 masks" or WMg "caged 11 or udreamingn or•• • In these standard pieces, Dunbar treats unrequited love and goes on lofty flights as a knig tor wanderer or theologian; or he is resigned as in "Resignation 11 where he invites God to "crush me for Thy use" if need be. Yet accusations that Dunbar was completely torn from the real world of Blackness are not true. In "The Haunted Oak," for xample, he indicts the judge, the minister ar.d the doctor, for the lynching of a Black man. He also brooded over his dark skin, feeling that, during a time of preference for l ght-skin and the habit of "passing," his color held him back. But some of his poetry anticipates Garvey's call for "ethnic purity. 11 He praises the brown skin of l!andy Lou in 'tnreamin' Town" and he loves "Delyn for being ,,. • • • brown ez brown can be1 r ,, '· ••• She ain't no mullater; She pure cullud,--don't you see •• . �k=,--Datts de why I love hu so, :a D' ain't no mix a out huh. A similar theme pervades "Song, Dough 11 ( 11 ( "African maid") ''I)ina Kneading ''Brown arms buried elbow-deep 11 ) and "A Plantation Por- trait!' ("Browner den de Frush 1 s Wing"). In his dial ct poems, Dunbar reveals a love for spirit and revelry and good times. But nowhere is there an indication oft e enormous suff ring and violence inherited y ost-war Afro-Americans. The lynchings, the patt -rollers s,rooping down on defenseless ex-slaves, the nig t-rides of the the hars u Klux Ilan and · ite Citizens organizat ons, and debilitating econon c situation of lacks in general--none of t ese things find t eir •ray into Dun arts poetry. All this., of course, is ironic against Dun arts great admiration for sue ;:}.,n as Frederick Douglass, Alexander Crumr.iell, ookcr T .. · as. ingtonA "Black Sampson of he imraorta_ized in (notwit stan o-etry.. rand 1inc "--all of w o Instead., in is "deep.or note" Dun _o.r ng t e exa ples of Whitfield, 1· it ..,1an, D and ot;hers) spo ce of e rtbreak, probed his own pessimism and religio s dou t and seer,1ed l terally to ine away. lect poen., ho 10ver, 11 Hue ois, e advised lacks to ~eep Pl ggin 1 Along.") of t1 s enigma of D n ar seems to poem'~ Choice" (general overlooced quote from "The Poet") in w ic (In one dia- e explained in his y critics w o r.ionotonously he complains of pro lens and stresses: ut in a poefu let mes p, lots mples brewed to cure or ease eing tired of �~unanity rs confessed disease, Buttes rt- ine of a singinc line, Or a dew-dro in a ~oney c. 1 On more t 11an one occasion, Dunbar int· mated to associates tQat nc 1as all ut fed up wit t1at Black- · te relations wore at least one reason w1y T.ere are poets, f - racial ag tation--a parentl_ feeling el t e same 1 a:r • eyond repair. ~nis cold e c 11 -ms ed .is 1ands" of invol ement. int e middle of the 2 t . cent ry, ~o ~ . , lt'tciwU~lltfLY ~, • ever-c 1eless D n ar s req est/\lM& aas::u ed a conte~11porar:r, Cotter., Sr., w o in his !!Answer to D ·1 ar • s ' AC oice, 1" said by suift T1at poets should Put back t e frail, deerees ring fort . t e strons, And 1ed stern facts to sober song. Dun ar eitler did not . ecd/hear or was not aware oft is nanswer n; would kno t if ~1e had taken Cotter f s advice perhaps t 11e world 1 ~f a different poe~ reader of bis poetry--often A ove all, D nbar was a sk " llful ring · ng audiences tot eir feet for standing orations and pleas for encores. His dexterousness in the use of language and sty e ·was ad~nired :r rations of se eral gene- lack colle ge poets and la~r writers w. o imitated I n al:nost every su . stantial Black community t ere is some p lie facility named after D nbar. prevailing style--the techniques rre wrote in al : nost every reatest exploiter of etween 1, itman and Cullen. nglis poetic Sonnet, :71adrigal, couplet, ballad , Spiritual, pre- lues, soncs (including use �of musical notation in some instances), 1111•--•••• Dun ar em <.L• seems to 1ave tried Dunbar 1 s poer.1s can e found in Complete Poems, the text used for tbe discussion 1ere. For critical- iographical writing on D n ar see Wa ner ' s Black Poets of t . e United States (t e r,iost am itious study to date), Brawle., of His People, 1-rnrrn ts Paul Laurence Dunhar: Poet y Brm·m, Redding, Victor La~ son's D n1Jar £ri tic ally Exaljlip~, Virginia C nningham f s Pa 1 Lat re nee Duni• ar and is Song, an Jean Gould's Tat Dunbar Boy: America 1 s Famous Negro Poet. Ot ers 1 ,. o The Story of ave written on D n1')ar include _ouston Baker, Darwin T rner, Benjamin Mays, James /-le,,,be,-.-r Ma.i,:1J,.. Jeldon Jo nson, /\Nie~ Aarot Ford and Addiso n Gay e, Jr., w o recently pu lis ed a Dunbar Junius Hordecai A_len (l litt e, is an important figure int is transit onal p ase of Black poetry ,......-;;; ' i-111ic 1 w tnessed t 11 passing of t . e plantation tradition in poetry and the wilting of fas in 6 ton's inf'luence on Black t inkers and activists, Allen was orn in J'.-fontgomery, Ala Jama, and moved with ,is family to Tope a, Ka.ns a#_ ·w en years old. wrote £'011 Except for a t ree-year period, d ring and traveled wit e was seven ,._,ic 1e a t eatrical grou , 1e spent most His only vo ume is_ .,mes, Tales an bymed Tales (Tope~a, 1906). �I,..ostly dialect, R mes contains "great felicit~ of c.arac11 terization, surpris in 6 turns of wit II and quaint p ilosophyJ 11 uu'N#lllw• Tbe book appeared the year of Dun ,ar • s dea.t 1, and Kerl n places Allen on par wit Dun ar--somew at of an exa.~ration. Allen is deep and profound in ( e includes two int e otb _o · e- er, is standard ~n 0 lis. pieces 11 ook) and dialect. C ount nG O t II s a rat.er lg t recollection of c ild.ood games s c Out, 11 11 Hide-and-seek, 11 and "I spy. 11 The poem, wit its re- curring "Ec;.1y meeny L iny mo 11 gives cl es to the psyc.o ogical, 1·ne development of sic and gest ra lac-:: yo ngsters (w1ic . is c .arLningl:r s fficient). Allon also ,mm s t e consequences of "getting ca n g ,t or in a_ien terr tory amon 6 vicio s, lync ,-prone 11:1i tes. t II o t at ate-,.1oncer ;.1 6 and The gai1es re no v •· i t 1 L.ere 1 s g1 consequences fra s' lac: dissrace in 1,ein t; cau 17 0 t. Deat1 as a general realit~ is also ass med: For c.:cat. 11:1 soon co nt do n t e row, 11 Eeny ;.11eer:;- rn n: 11 Tre Psa:., o. n of Up:!.ift II raises q ·cstio 1s an do t •e pess:k: · st:c strain of t e poe,n above (a1., n>ar). Fe asks if one s otl ts, revea_ n tl at fo :: 0 in str.°v- Till s nset of etern t~, and w ether t e victori s Jon are wor~ o"!: co 1 r::rn, are ecl1 oes of t e str g _e. is con'!::o porar:· :::"enton 0 nere, o',nson l- 1 1 0 �-,1 .... 1 a.ls o q ·st · on ; ~1ct'"er, for t e _ .... ac;;: nan , str1 _;._;le · n Amer i ca i s valid or fr' itf 1 . Critics ~ave notea t a t J~·nson 13 t s A:len as rn is not tota_:y tr e. 1c.; 1 f Oi;e 11 enver s ot. la 11-ere where ~ s no retreat II simp:..:~ To win one stride fro m sh eer defeat; To die--but gain an inch. His remained silent after his first book. And one wonders inclination (in view of the ti mes) and simply gave up. His dialect poems carry, on t h e surface, the spirit of t h e "dialect tradition. " But Allen is a bi ting satirist of middle-class Blacks (Wagner attributes this to an "inferiority complex") an❖okes fun at whites. Temptation over~takes tbe preacher who tries to nresist" in "The Devil and Sis Viney" but• "Sh ine On, Mr. Suny,n and "The Squak of the Fiddle" show bis close observation of(and take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward) whites. His satire of the Black middle-class is reminiscent of the i mpatience suggested in statements by Whitman and anticipates the works, especially, of Frank Marshall Davis and Melvin Tolson. Allen is also important as a stylistic innovator. In "A Victim of Microbes," he again casts aspersions on whites and spoofs stereotypes of Blacks as field workers and laborers. But he couches his narrative in an exciting new literary form which allows for an alternation between 1tloosely rhymed eight-lin stanzas and four-linef stanzas of blank verse in �which repetition of the sort found in the blues of Spirituals occurs: I done byeabed de doctor say it--de doctor bisse'f said it-- •••• Brown was right when be said Allen's work was "unpretentious" and contained "pleasant humor." poetry see Kerlin's work; For selections of Allen's '-ii, for criticism,~own and Wagner. Primarily important as a writer of prose, journalist and an inspiration to other writers, Alice Nelson Dunbar, (1B75-l935) was born and ~eceived her public education in New Orleans. 11ed rrnarriofPaul Laurene e Dunb~: l 89 8I\ further study at Cornell and Columbia Universities and the University of Penn?Nlvania. She authored volumes of prose; iolets and Other Tales, 1894; The Goodness of St. Tocque, 189~) and edited Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence, 1913, and The Dunbar Speaker, 1920, in which appears some of her poetry. Hibl LE I a If i □ ~noted i: 1 1u J 17 · tt a journalist • and lecturer, for a whi e she served as managing edftor of The 1 Advocate and.., contributed to numerous magazines. • 12 Her poetry, yeC UtibO'l:l:cvl;aa, has little racial flavor; but she does pro- test World War I and her often-anthologized\'-~onnet"represents her technical abilities in that form. In "I Sit and Sew 1' she laments t hat, as a woman, she can do little else to hasten the end to war. "The Lights At Carney's Point 0 contains nfine symmetry, highly poetic diction and great allusive meaning•" (K-tY-Lin) . An easy-flowing poem in four-lined stanzas of iambic tetrameter/ at W ~ nLightn allows the poet (as with many romantic writers) �to stream associations from a central theme--the lights. But wet\'I fNOA something •Nost when the lights •/\.'gray in tbe ash of day" And the sun laughed high in the inf'inite sky, And the lights were forgot in the sweet, sane calm. Studies of Mrs. Dunbar-Nelson's poetry are ~=~,ra::,. :,!r collected poems have yet to be published. "The Sonnetu is printed in several anthologies and three of her poems appear in Kerlin's book. Kerlin also advances brief criticism • ....., Although Sterling Brown says that Joshua Henry Jones (1876-?) "gives little besides banal jingling" we mention him briefly as part of our effort to survey rt I f the poetic t-1-nte.I', jiflt~t of the period. \._For more listings of lesser-known poets see the end of the chapter) Jones was born in OrangiJ:urg , South, Carolina, and, after completing high school, attended Ohio State University, Yale and Brown. He served on the editorial staffs of several newspapers, was secretary to the mayor of Boston for four years, and published two books of poems (The Heart of the World and Other Poems, Boston, 1919, and Poems of the Four Seas, Boston, 1921) and e.. novel (By Sanction of Law, Boston, 1924). Jones' poetry treats nature, nostalgia, race struggle (as in nBrothers") and sentimental love ("A Southern - Love Songn), themes which Kerlin has compared to Johnson's "Love Song. " nality. Though grim, "'110 A Skull," does show origi- �Noted more for walking all the way from his home in the South to Harvard University, where he camped overnight and was arrested on a charge of vagrancy, Edward Smyth Jones (18?-?) published The Szlvan Cabin in 1911. Called npompously literary" by Brown who adds that his verses are less interesting t h an his "biography, n Jones wrote "Harvard Square" while he was in jail. The poem brought him immediate attention and helped speed up his release. European • •• t 37'"'-is a hodge-podge of imitations of various models. •lli••llllii•• He recites the names of Dante, -#he t.k Byron, Keats, Shelley, Burns, and~SIIDim!m!!ti•IPlllil•, in a bombast of stanzas. 11 - A long of Thanks, sensitivity and deeper feeling. 11 however, shows more While it leaves a· lot to be desired, one can certainly feel the power growing throu gh the fhe~N>--~~ ~ "" ~''" p et.edes repetition ( in several dozen lines) of "-"For the ",Asun, flowers, rippling streams, and other faces of nature. Alex Rogers (1876-1930) is one of the several dozen or so "minorn writers of dialect during this period. As we stated earlier, poets published pamphlets themselves, secured places for their work in newspapers and magazines, and traveled on pt.v- fi,"' rt\ (l'\q a regular reading circuit~n1••~••~ their poems and ditties, often to the accompaniment of bands or single musical instruments. This practice would continue up until this very day ~ when many CII A he poets, if not beard live, loj,e their significance and dramatic flavor. Such was the case with Rogers who "wrote lyrics for most of the songs in the musical comedies in which Williams and Walker appeared." Rogers was born in �Nashville, Tennessee, educated in the schools of that city, and finally worked his way north where he wrote some of the most popular songs of his day; he made a number of performers famous, including white entertainers looking for "Negro stuff. satire, humor and some slap-stick. some clue to his intentions: II JNJite em,t.vs His titles give ''Why Adam Sinned, n "The Rain Song" (a Flip Wilson-type conversation between "Bro. Wilson" and ''Bro. Simmons"), "The Jonah Man," and "Bon Bon Buddy, the Chocolate Drop." Rogers' significance, however, lies in his work in the theater and his ground-breaking efforts to change the popular (ministrel-inspired) image of Blacks. Dunbar had co-authored lyrics ~-C~l~o~r~indy--Origin of the Cake Walk (1898 ) and In Dahomey (1903). •---~as part of a groundswell that ~7-& J~~~~ to)Loften Mitchell (Blac k Drama): In the latter part of the nineteenth century a group of Negro theatrical pioneers sat down and plotted the deliberate destruction of the minstrel pattern. These men were Sam T. Jack, Bert Willian~, George Walker, Jesse Shipp, Alex Bogers, S.H. Dudley, Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson and John W. Isham. And in destroying the minstrel pattern, these men were to help pave the way for the million-dollar musical pattern which today dominates the American theatre. Mitchell's observation sheds great light on the importance of many Black "poets rr who, however dismally they may fare on paper, �are of major importance to the aggregate ritual and musical sense/life of on-going Black society. Today we see a similar pattern, with radical variati ons, of course--growing from the work of James Weld on Johnson and others--in Gil Scott-Heron, The Last Poets , the poets who are writing for the ritual theater, and in the efforts of dramatists like Melvin Van Peebles (Ain't ~ ' Supposed to Die A Natural{J Paul Carter _arriso n (The Great NcDaddy ), Imamu Amiri Baraka (Slave Ship), the work of Barbara Teer, Clay Goss (Andrew and Home-Cooking), Eugene.,. Redmond (The Face of the Deep, 9 Poets with the Blues John Henry Was Born) and the experimental productions of Michael Gates (The Black Coffin, There's a Wiretap in My Soup: or Quit Bugging Me and Will I Still Be Here Tomorrow). Tb is pattern, practically perfected by Langston Hughes, can also be seen in outstanding performing-cultural centers conducted by Katherine Dunham in East St. Louis, Val Uray Ward in Chicago, and atilma Lewis's Center for Afro-American Cultural and Performing Arts in Boston. Sterling Brown{· other nminor writers of dialectrr ~ includef Sterling Means (The Deserted Cabin and Other Poems), S. Tutt Whitney, Waverly Turner Carmichael, and just about anybody else who wrote dialect at the time. Means also wrote in conventional English forms. For evaluations of Rogers and other similar writers see Mitchell 's Black Drama, Johnson's American Negro Poetry and Black Manhatta and Brown. / �Oh oF °""e. ---;tream or Black "immigrants .,,,11 mrta:il :ir hls:i?a 0013 Ja~ George Reginald Margetson (1877-?), was born in St. Kitts (British West Indies) and came to the United States when he was 20-years-old. Margetson, a wholly original poet, got a good solid grounding in literature in his childhood and produced rour volumes of poetry: England in the West Indies (1906), Ethiopia's ~light (1907), Songs of Lire (1910) and The Fledgling Bard and the Poetry ~oci~ty (1916). His achievement can be seen in the last book w1ich consists of one 100-page poem. A setire, owing debt to Byron and other English inf'luences, the poem represents one or the most important technical undertakingtby a Black poet since Whitman's Rape or Florida. Marcets on uses mostly seven-line♦ stanzas of five-feet meter with the seventh line lengthening to an Alexandrine. His rhyme scheme is ab ab b cc and he ex ibits . a wacky, uproaikus use of both rhyme and humor. The basic stanzaic pattern is interspersed with shifting meters and schemes which appear as four-line4 stanzas in an ab ab movement or an a a ab context. The poem begins in a search for t he Poetry Society (reminiscent or several European poets) 0. and Margetson ,ssays an old theme: that of poetry being mechano~t~ ,r ical and .,._. success depending';en school or dress as opposed to ffO talent•. During this nquest II Mar gets on "digresses 11 to discuss and explore practically every maj or current theme in society: social conditions, World War I, politics, religion, literature, the Black problem, and he even pokes fun at President �Woodrow Wilson: Come, Woody, quit your honeymooning! In this important poem, Ma.rgetson is scathing, sustained and brilliant. He views the many currents running through the Black community and satirically sums up all the confusion: Some look to Booker Washington to lead them, Some yell for Trotter, some for Kelly Miller, Some want DuBois with fat ideas to feed them, Some want Jack Johnson, the big white hope killer. Perhaps some want carranza, some want villa, I guess they want social equality, To marry and to mix in white society. Other, later, satirists whom Margetson's work calls to mind are Tolson (and his incomparable Harlem Gallery), Frank Marshall Davis, Dudley Randall, George S. Schuyler (Black No More), William Melvin Kelley and Ishmael Reed. In his other poetry, Margetson is strong and competent--he reflects his immense reading background, 11 Spenser to Byron"--but none of his earlier work matches up to Fledgeling Bard. For samples and criticism of Margetson•s writing see Johnson and Kerlin. Brown also makes a brief critical observation. In many ways the poetry of William Stanley Braithwaite or (1878-1962) has suffered the fate of that "!~Phillis Wheatley, Dunbar and others somehow deemed "not Black enough" for inclusion in some Afro-American poetic-cultural circles. The Frenchman �Jean Wagner said that a study of Braithwaite does not belong among those of oth er ''Black poets.n A mulatto, Braithwaite was born in Boston to West Indian parents and was mainly seli'-educated. He is considered a major influence on "th e new poetry revival" in America and counted among b is friends such white literary figures as Vachel Lindsay, Carl Sandburg , Edgar Lee Masters, Amy Lowell and Edwin Arlingto n Rob inson. His career as a poet began with t h e 1904 publication of Lyrics of Life and Love and his second volume (House of t h e Falling Leaves) was published in 1908. His Selected Poems was published in 1948 by Coward-Mccann, Inc • . Best known for his Anthologies of Magazine Verse, publish ed from 1913 until 1929, Braithwaite was for many years a literary critic with t h e Boston Transcript. His other anthologies include Tbe Book of Elizebethan Verse (l906i Tbe Book of Georgian Vers~ (1908 ) and Tbe Book of Restoration Verse (1909). F or is efforts Braithwaite received the NAACP•s coveted Springarn medal in 1918 for high achievement by an Afro-American. Tbe same year he received honorary degrees from two Black universities and later became professor of creative literature at Atlanta University, a position be held until b e retired in 1945. raithwaite's poetry, Sterling Brown said: Tbe result is the usual one: the lines are graceful; at their best, exquisite, and not at their best, secondhand; but the substance is t h in. Even t h e fugitive poetry of some ,,, Of �of Braithwaite's masters had greater human sympathies. Brown is implying, of course, that some of the white "models" that Braithwaite used could b1.~eiheu~,··w,;o .. k. ti'\ A ~ec.09t11J4'lt. even if the Black poet could not. Jrt-td;-fy Brown is essentially correct: we S have tested the thesis in classrooms and the best students appear dumbfounded upon confronting Braithwaite after leaving other Black poets. And Braithwaite's problem is not the same sort of "problem" presented by a, say, Tolson--whose work is difficult and complex but not "ldy on repeated readings ~ (,._. Tolsonts work is#.•Sfflm'-'!P.l!'!.y Black-based). Braithwaite seems to be reaching for a higher science in his words; but he does not chart his path so we can follow. Brown said his ~/\e,tclt writing resembled"-npoetry of the twilight 11 - - just as you think you have his meaning, it slips away. This is especially true of poems like "Turn Me to My Yellow Leaves" (about a death-wish?), r'J)el Cascar, "Ironic: n LL.D 11 (about the waste-land, c.f., T.S. Eliot, and history?), "Scintilla," and "Sic Vita." "Rhapsody" is one of Braithwaite's most attainable poems, but the message is nebulous. 11 He expresses thanks to the supreme being for the gif't of song" and is replenished in the knowledge that "world-end things" that dangle on the "edge of tomorrown can be obliterated by dreams. In his critical introduction to Braithwaite, Johnson (American Negro Poetry) apologizes for the poet's lack of sensitivity to mistreatment of Blacks and explains his �t)l,'l t" o..du.L (x)t\c-e. " failure to dip into the Black folk-b~ -- This has not been a matter of intention on his part; it is simply that race bas not impinged upon him as it bas upon other Negro poets. In fact, his work is so detached from race that for many years he had been a figure in the American literary world before it was known generally that he is a man of color. Certainly .Johnson meant no harm in using the word "color" but it tempts one to punning. Braithwaite, as Brown and others have noted, rejected having his work indiscriminately called "Negro" poetry. This issue continues to raise its head with, first, Cullen and, later, Hayden (including many other lesser-known poets in between). And there are other poets of the 20th century who have written (or write) Braithwaite's type of poetry. Some, of course, are experimenting and searching for new forms. See for example some of the work of Cullen, Hayden, Randall (More to :Remember) Russell Atkins, Bob Kaufman, Tolson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Michael S. Harper (especially History as and others. The debate over how much of ( or when) pple Tree), poet's work is or should be nracialn is a continuing one and is not likely-given the diversity of the poets--to be settled in the very near future.~In1't.J••esf.-n~Ly1 , with the exception of Claude McKay, no other poet bas as many (or more) poems as Braithwaite in .Johnson's 1922 (1931) anthology. Whether .Johnson did this out of debt or respect is not known. Braithwaite, we know, had praised Johnson �(Fifty Years) :for bringing "the first intellectual substance to the content" of Afro-American poetry. But J. Saunders Redding called Braithwaite "the most outstanding example of perverted energy~' that was produced in a 14-year period of Black poetry. At Atlanta University, Braithwaite rubbed shoulders with DuBois, Mercer Cook, Rayford Logan and others, which apparently helped him doff some of his Bostonian snobbish ness. His poetry in general reflects t he influence of Keats arrl the pre-romantic British poets. He loves to speak of dreams, trances, impending doom, silence and the prospect of touching other worlds. For selections of his work see most anthologies of Afro-American literature. Brown, Redding and Brawley. He is critically assessed by Oth er evaluations are primarily concerned with Braithwaite•s work as anthologist and critic. Barksdale and Kinnamon give a good overall assessment of iu;s W6JK.. Braithwaite did include some Black poets in his magazine anthologies and he stands at an important threshhold of the Afro-American's entry into the era of modern poetry. Records show that literally hundreds of poets, inspared by the brilliant example of Dunbar and comp ny, took part of this exciting pre-Renaissance of Black American culture and arts. For more on these poets, students should go to such publications as '.fhe Century, the Independent, The Chi cago Defender, and the numerous other art:-and-poetry-conscious publications of the day. Yet it is in some wa~s appropri te t hat we approach our close to t h is ch apter wit. Lucien B. Watkins 2Pf �(1879-1921), first teacher arrl t~'1en soldier, who was called "the poet laureate of tbe New Hegro. 11 llat ~ins pu lisbed one volume of poetry in 1907 (Voices of So itude) his second book (W'i.1ispering Winds, n. d. ) was brought out by friends shortly after bis untimely death. Watkins is ch iefly noted for his militancy of tone as typified in his sonnet 11 Tbe New Negro" which opens ·with the words He thinks in black and goes on to describe a god with African features. Watkins also wrote bis own eulogy a few weeks before he died. In the µyran -inspired form be is grippingly aware of his approaching death as shown in these lines: My summer bloomed for winter's frost: Alas, I 1 ve lived and loved and lost! "A Nessage to the Modern Pbaroe.hs 11 is inspired (introduced) by a passage from John 11.44 in the him! 11 f ible. The i1terations "Loose and nLet him go!' frame each of the six four-linef stanzas. Taking the militant stand characteristic of bis work, Watkins tells the Pbaroabs to let the Black man go because he "has bis part tl<b play" In Life's Great Drama, day by day,-adding that freeing the Af'ro-American will "be the saving " of whitest "soul." In many ways a precurser of the Harlem Renaissance, Watkins conducted experiments in verse ("A Prayer of t h e Race that God Made Black") and expressed pride in his African heritage ( "Star of' Ethiopian). He was born in Chesterfield, Virginia, �educated at Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute, and was active as a teacher before be served overseas in World War I which "wrecked his health.n Perhaps Watkins' feelings are best expressed in these lines (reminiscent of Margetsonts: "The white man's heaven is the black man's hell. n): God! save us in Thy Heaven, where all is well! We come slow-struggling up the Hills of Hell! .J ~A Pv-o..ye~ o rihe ~ace "tht.ft ~od Mcc.oe n, .. , f:-'') \;)'-"I.',. For additional comment on Watkins see Brawley' s Negro Genius, Kerlin 1 s study (which includes more selections) and Johnson's American Negro Poetry (selections also). During tis very important period of transition, apq ~=~/1(MJC. there were~~r~poets writing. ~ ' We ought to site T. Thomas Fortune (1856-1928 )~wrote journalism and important political studies of Blacks. 11 calls him one of And although Brawley the most intelligent and versatile Negroes of tbe era,n his collection of poems, Dreams of Life: cellaneous Poems (1905), shows no marked distinction it ey 11 Mis11 CL 1 F (though he implies a desire to return to Africa in The Clime of My Birth"). A preacher-poet, George C. Rowe (1853-1903), published Thoughts in Verse (1 887) and Our Heroes (1890). The first book contains sermons in verse and the second is aimed at "the elevation of the race. 11 Rowe, a pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church of Charleston, South Carolina, also published 11 A Noble Life, 11 a poem in memory of Joseph C. Price, first president of Livingston College. Known for her �now famous Journal, Charlotte L. Forten Grimk~ (1 837-1914) is considered to have "possessed sensitivity and creative skills (?~er-m-.ru beyond the ordinary"Ain the few poems s he wrote. Uncollected, they are scattered throughout her notes and various periodicals published between the 1850's and t h e turn of the century. Islay Walden (1847?-1884) published Miscellaneous Poems in Wash ingto n, D.C., in 1873. There is an i mmaturity in Walden's style, owing, according to Jahn, to t he fact t hat his enrollment a t Howard University 11 destroyed h is natural tale nt. u Th e Nation's Loss: A Poem on the Life and Death of t he Hon. Abraham Lincoln, by Jacob Rhodes (1835?-?), was published in 1866. Summer, John Willis Menard (1838-1893), t h e In Lays of first ✓elected Black congressmen in the United States, makes women h is central theme--calling t h em by name as h e praises t h eir nhair" and "lips." For racial reasons, he was de nied h is uearned" term in the House of Representatives. James Ephriam McGist (1874-1930) brought out Avenging the Maine (Raleigh , North Carolina, 1899), Some Simple Songs and A Few More Ambitious Attempts (Ph iladelph ia, 1901 ) and For Your Sweet Sake (P 1ila.delp'1ia, 1 06). Charles Douglas Clem published Rhymes of a Rhymster (Edmond! Oklah oma , 1896) and A Little Souvenir (n.p., 1908 ). Sam Lucas (1845?-?) contributed to t he post-war transitional sh aping with Careful Man Songster (Ch ica go, 1881). i mpression that Lucas was a troubador of sorts. One gets t be Bisb op He nr y McNeal Turner, well known among his contemporaries, publish ed meditation and exhortatory verse in The Conflict for Civil Ri ghts (Washington, D.C., 1881). Revels of Wancy (Boston, 1892) �reflected the thoughts of William J. Candyne. Prose was in- cluded by Frank Barbour Coffin (1870?-1951) in Coffin's Poems with Ajax ' Ordeals (Little Rock, 1892). James Thomas Franklin published one volume of poetry (Jo+,mine/Poems, Memphis, 1900) and one of prose and poetry (Mid-Day Geanings, A Book for Home and Holiday Reading (Memphis, 1893). not extant. Jessamine apparently is Poems of To-Day or Some From the Everglades ( Q inc!, Florida, l 93) was pu _ s ed 'y C pid Aleyts P1itf "eld. Joshua Mccarter Simpson (1820?-1876) released The Emancipation Car (Zanesville, Ohio,) in 1874. called Simpson included a prose satire 11 A Consistent Slaveholder's Sermon. 11 The Open Door (1895) was published in Winfield, Kansas, by F.S. Alwe11(/Aaron Belf'ord Thompson (1883-1929) was a member of a family that consisted of a trio of poets. Thompson and his sisters, Pr\tilla and Clara, brought out seven volumes of poetry between 1899 and 1926--the middle of the Harlem Renaissance. Priscilla Thompson published Ethiope Lays (1900) and Gleanings of Quiet Hours (1907). Clara Thompson released Songs from the Wayside (1908) and A Garland of Poen1s (Bos ton, 1926). Aaron Thompson published Morning Son€/s (1899), Echoes of Spring (1901)--both dictated to his sisters and brother--and Harvest of Thoughts (1907). Echoes, in its second edition of 1907, bore a handwritten complementary introduction by James Whitcomb Riley. Their subjects are the conventional ones of the 19th century. Charles Henry Shoeman published A Dream and Other Poems in Ai_Arbor in 1899. Magnolia Leaves was published by Mary Weston Fordham in Charleston, �South Carolina, in 1897. Straddling similar fields of expression, as did Alex Rogers, James Weldon Johnson, Nathaniel Dett and others , George Hannibal Temple (a musician) brought out The Epic of Columbus' Bell and Other Poems in 1900. enjamin Wheeler followed him in 1907 with Culling from Zion's Poets (Mobile, Alabama). _ Several dozen other Afro-Americans wrote poetry during the later part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. (JSss--'l) Among them were Robert Benja.minl\(Poetic Gems, 1883), Lorenzo Oen-!) (l1S1-iq,dJ Ctlff-,q~) Dow Blaclrso"tt, Walter Henders on Brooir~ John Edward Brue~, 1 Qf(,l-fl?) Alexander Duman Delaney, Josephine Delphine Heard., Joseph ~a-Hl'1) .If Cephas HollyN A.J. Jackson (A Vision of Life, 1869), Henry QJ10t..:'1) (tQo-1) Allen Laine1 '(Footprints), Mary Eliza Lamber1;r Lewis Howard tl!'ll-1121> Latime~ Grace Mapps , Journalist William H.A. Moore, Gertrude (12~-1) Mossel~, "James Robert Walker (Poetical Diets). Other occasional poets who were ·q uite popular among their contemporaries included Solomon G. Bvown, William Wells Brown, Katie D. Chapman, W.H. Crogman, Frederick Douglass, Leland M. Fisher, Nathaniel Dett, and Virgie Whitsett. Some notable turn-of-the-century poets, a few of which will be heard from later were, Benjamin Brawley (critic and social historian), Charles Roundtree Dinkins, David Bryant Fulton, Gilmore F. Grant, M.N. Rayson, H.T. Johnson , Jefferso n King, J.W. Palsey, Otis M. Shackelford, Walter E. Todd, Richard E.S. Toomey, Irvine W. Underhill, Julius C. Wright and others. ~or more on these poets, including delightful pictures of some, see �Brawley's The Negro Genius (and other works), Sherman's . Invisible Poets ,and Kerlin 1 s Negro Poets and Their Poems. Kelly Miller ' s Race Adjustment appeared in 1909 as a partial answer to some of the evils and ills plaguing Blacks. 0 ' But against the hr.locaustal "panorama of violence ,r and 'bloods ied, the title of Hiller's book seemed al most hollow. T1e N"AACP was born in 1909 and a year later DuBois was t the 1elm of its publicit ut de)artment and m de editor of Crisis. Echoes from the 1906 Atlanta riots, in w1ich 30 Blacrs were . '~utchered could still be Blac ~ eard reverberatin '0 in speeches and fear-seized hearts. (For more on this senseless and sadistic murder of Blacks . see John Hope ·Franklin 1 s From Slavery to Freedom Ralph Ginzberg's 100 Years of Lynching.) nd On t.e lecture-circuit rampage, DuBois heatedly criticized President T1e odore Roosevelt who bad declared t at "Rape is the greatest cause of lynching. The nation was trying to turn back the clock, as evidenced y the nostalgic minstrelsy, and was conducting a good nsabote.ge 11 of the Reconstruction • .And .Blacks were .feverously mobilizing to keep from being sold "back into a new form of sl very. 11 11 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. 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_24_25 Title A name given to the resource First typed draft of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Chapter IV. Jubilees, Jujus and Justices, p. 130-207, typed with handwritten edits 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.