Celebrating Black-American Literature

[AuntShecky]

Phillis Wheatley
(1753-1784)




On Being Brought from Africa to America
by Phillis Wheatley

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.


Note to my fellow NitLetters: Please feel free to include other Black-American authors in this thread. It would be really good if there could be at least one posting for each of the 28 days in February, though any time of year is appropriate to recognize such noteworthy authors.

And one more thing, if you don't read anything else today, please read the enlightening article by June Jordan. Click here (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68628/the-difficult-miracle-of-black-poetry-in-america) or paste the link below.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68628/the-difficult-miracle-of-black-poetry-in-america

[Danik 2016]

First a link to her bio. I don´t know if there are many people who know this slave poet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillis_Wheatley

[Danik 2016]

Ralph Ellison

His fiction addresses racial and identity conflicts. A link to the story "A party down the square" (pdf)

mcpworldliterature.wikispaces.com/.../A+Party+Down+at+the+Sq...

[tailor STATELY]

Maya Angelou: Poet, novelist, humanitarian, child of God

Start with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqo50LSZ0

Poem I Know Why Caged Bird Sings: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/caged-bird-21/

Audio version recited by Angela and various: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZzOxWAxde0

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Angelou

Audio by Maya: Excerpt from her autobiographical novel Why the Caged Bird Sings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lrNS7I2Wqg

Shmoop analytics on Maya's novel: https://www.shmoop.com/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings/

and so much more: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=maya+angelou

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[AuntShecky]

Thank you Danik and Tailor for your info on Ralph Ellison and on Maya, respectively. Keep 'em comin', NitLetters!


February 2

Charles Johnson
(b. 1948)

Professor Johnson is among the most versatile of prominent American creative artists. An adept cartoonist and illustrator as well as literary scholar and critic, he is best known for his vibrantly illuminating novels and short story collections. Some have described Johnson's works as "slave narratives," but that may be too slight a characterization, given the depth and multi-layered structure of his fiction. Although the historical perspective, mythological allusions, and social commentary of Johnson's subjects can't be denied, readers should know how "readable" and entertaining his prose can be. I heartily recommend Oxherding Tale and Middle Passage, the latter having won the National Book Award for 1990. He is a good author whose works are worth exploring more closely.

For more, click here (http://www.oxherdingtale.com/).

http://www.oxherdingtale.com/

[AuntShecky]

One of my goals for this post -- no pun intended, football fans! -- is to bring to light some authors who may be new to some readers. Even so, the spotlight at the moment is on an American poet well known to most high school students across the U.S. Of course I'm talking about Langston Hughes (1902-1967.)

His verse is straightforward, and yes, I suppose we could say "accessible," but what should be mentioned is the fact that his lines are far from superficial. In fact, Hughes's verse shares attributes with other twentieth century stalwarts such as Robert Frost and Delmore Schwartz in that multiple levels of meaning lie beneath the ostensibly "simple" lines.

For instance, like "True-Blue American" by the aforementioned Schwartz, "Theme for English B" features both (literally) concrete descriptions of the city streets as well as imagery and language symbolizing abstract philosophical and social commentary. Layers of cultural, economic, and racial significance lie buried under the colloquial chatty style.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47880/theme-for-english-b

And similar to Gwendolyn Brooks, Hughes can deftly traverse from the use of a highly structured, "literary" technique to unfiltered "dialect." In "Mother to Son," the poem crystallizes insight and emotion. Yet his poetry never suffers from the "bad art" cursed by Stravinsky for its excessive "sincerity."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX9tHuI7zVo

For more about Langston Hughes, here is a cogent summary by Benjamin Voight:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/88972/langston-hughes-101

Langston Hughes: Superstar.

[Danik 2016]

Lucy Terry Prince-The very first one

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Terry

Her ballad about an attack upon two white families by Native Americans on August 25, 1746 is the first known work of literature by an African American.

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bars-fight/

[Ecurb]

One of my favorite current novelists is James McBride, author of "Good Lord Bird", "Miracle at Santa Anna", and "Five Carat Soul" (among other novels). He also wrote the best-selling memoir "The Color of Water", about his family. His mother was a Jewish immigrant living in the North Carolina. She married a black man, moved to Brooklyn, and was ostracized by her family. Her husband died young, leaving her a widow with six children. She remarried another African-American, and had six more children. The memoir explains how Ruth (James' mother) organized and motivated the impoverished family, all of whom went on to become doctors, lawyers and college professors (except James, who was a ne'er do well Jazz musician, attended college at my alma mater, and then became an award-winning author in middle age).

"Good Lord Bird" is the story of John Brown, as told by a ten-year-old boy who joins his mob. Brown (and Frederick Douglas) are portrayed as dangerous lunatics -- but Brown, at least, is redeemed in the moving ending.

[AuntShecky]

Thank you, Danik and Ecurb for your contributions. That's the spirit! So many authors; not enough days in the month. We'll most likely have a carry over, which is wonderful.

One theme found throughout the literature of these shores is the so-called "American Dream." This aspirational motif transcends every ethnic and religious group, but not, we could say, economic, as the desire for a better life is not relevant to the top 1%, where it's a given.

Langston Hughes's famous question about a deferred dream inspired perhaps the most well-known drama by an African-American, A Raisin in the Sun. The playwright was Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), the first female Black American author to have her work performed on Broadway. The premiere was in 1959, in the midst of the Civil Rights movement.

Perhaps inspired by an incident in Hansberry's own family which led to an actual U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the plot concerns a Black family's attempt to purchase a house in Chicago over the objection of neighbors bitterly opposed to integration. The Critics Circle named this play Best Drama of 1959.

Some of Hansberry's other writings include The Drinking Gourd, a play set in the American South during the time of slavery, and a posthumous production of a compilation of her writings entitled To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, named for the title of song written about her by Nina Simone.

Sadly, this gifted author's life ended too soon. She did, however, leave a legacy of far-reaching influence on later generations toward insight into social issues, politics, racial identity, feminism and sexuality. American literature has been blessed by her all-too-brief illumination.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorraine_Hansberry

[tailor STATELY]

Sterling Allen Brown

Raised in a rich intellectual environment his writing often accentuated the vernacular of his black heritage: "Brown often imitated southern African-American speech, using "variant spellings and apostrophes to mark dropped consonants". - Thompson-Taylor, Betty (2002). "Sterling Brown". Critical Survey Of Poetry.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_Allen_Brown

Brown began his teaching career with positions at several universities, including Lincoln University and Fisk University, before returning to Howard in 1929. He was a professor there for 40 years. Brown's poetry used the south for its setting and showed slave experiences of the African American people. Brown often imitated southern African-American speech, using "variant spellings and apostrophes to mark dropped consonants". He taught and wrote about African-American literature and folklore. He was a pioneer in the appreciation of this genre. He had an "active, imaginative mind" when writing and "a natural gift for dialogue, description and narration"...

His poetic work was influenced in content, form and cadence by African-American music, including work songs, blues and jazz. Like that of Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and other black writers of the period, his work often dealt with race and class in the United States. He was deeply interested in a folk-based culture, which he considered most authentic. Brown is considered part of the Harlem Renaissance artistic tradition ( in the 1920's and 1930's. ), although he spent the majority of his life in the Brookland neighborhood of Northeast Washington, D.C.

His poem Southern Cop describes the pathos of a tragic encounter with a twist of his deft hand: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/southern-cop/

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[AuntShecky]

Thank you, Tailor STATELY for your latest contribution. This is exactly what I'd hoped this thread would do!

Your author, Sterling Allen Brown, is new to me, but thanks to your post, one whose works I'd like to explore. Apparently, among his many literary and academic accomplishments, Professor Brown was also a folklorist. This is a similarity he shares with another luminary, Zora Neale Hurston, who will appear on this thread soon.

Today, I'd like to include James Baldwin (1924-1987) Decades ago I saw a magazine article containing a conversation between Mr. Baldwin and the anthropologist, Margaret Mead. At first I thought it was an odd match-up, until I realized the common ground of the topics discussed.

James Baldwin's impressive list of works include his first novel, Go Tell it On The Mountain, whose title comes from an American Spiritual. This is partially autobiographical, as well as the later works, Giovanni's Room and Another Country. A non-fiction work in 1963, The Fire Next Time, appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list for a record 41 weeks, the first essay to do so. His impassioned prose not only reflected but also informed the Civil Rights Movement in mid-twentieth century America.

Baldwin was the subject of two episodes of American Masters on PBS, which also recently broadcast an Oscar®-nominated documentary about his life. And speaking of movies, take a look at this article (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/04/the-most-powerful-piece-of-film-criticism-ever-written/359996/), praising his critical skills.



https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/04/the-most-powerful-piece-of-film-criticism-ever-written/359996/

[Danik 2016]

William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois(February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963)

"He was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor.
...
Racism was the main target of Du Bois's polemics, and he strongly protested against lynching, Jim Crow laws, and discrimination in education and employment. His cause included people of color everywhere, particularly Africans and Asians in colonies. He was a proponent of Pan-Africanism and helped organize several Pan-African Congresses to fight for the independence of African colonies from European powers. Du Bois made several trips to Europe, Africa and Asia. After World War I, he surveyed the experiences of American black soldiers in France and documented widespread prejudice in the United States military."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois

A short excerpt of his essay on what it is to be a Negro in US:

The Souls of Black Folk
"After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face."
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/408/408-h/408-h.htm

[AuntShecky]

A worthy and highly important addition to our survey, Danik. Thank you for your post!

The other day when I was looking up info on Lorraine Hansberry, it occurred to me that the realm of Black American literature has blessed us with quite a number of talented women authors, four of whom I'd like to give a shout-out today. Some of these contemporary artist are also known for their acting skills and political activism as well as novels and poetry, but what they hold in common is their gift for drama.

Ntozake Shange (b. 1948.) Her most famous work is For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf. Originally conceived as a "choreopoem," the stage production has been a staple for many college and community theatre groups since its off-Broadway debut. A later iteration on Broadway was nominated for a Tony® Award.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntozake_Shange

A character named Ntsozake Shange is one of cast of twenty-nine people all portrayed by Anna Deavere Smith (b. 1950) in Fires in the Mirror. Not only did Anna appear in this one-person production, she also wrote the play, based on interviews with real people. Examining a harrowing event in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn of 1991, the play's monologues examine the effect of the incident upon the members of both the Black and Jewish communities. In addition to receiving multiple awards and honors for her acting career, Anna Deavere Smith has been heralded as a "pioneer" in a new genre called verbatim theatre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Deavere_Smith

Another multi-character, one-woman show is Bridge and Tunnel, written and performed by Sarah Jones (b. 1973.) Highly acclaimed in its 2004 debut, the multi-cultural "valentine" to the outer boroughs of New York garnered rave reviews, such as this one from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/theater/reviews/27brid.html

And finally, we'll close today's post with a recognition of Lynn Nottage (b. 1964), the only woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama-- twice. The honor first went to her 2009 play, Ruined, about women attempting to survive a civil war in the Republic of the Congo. Her more recent play, Sweat takes place in Pennsylvania in which working class folks, both black and white, attempt to cope during a time of economic crisis. This play was nominated for a Tony® Award in 2017.

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/lynn-nottage-sweat

[tailor STATELY]

Paul Laurence Dunbar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Laurence_Dunbar :

Another writer utilizing the black dialect/vernacular Dunbar was "an American poet, novelist, and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War". "Dunbar became the first African-American poet to earn national distinction and acceptance."

"(C)ritic William Dean Howells... particularly praised (Dunbar's) dialect poems. In this period (1896) there was an appreciation for folk culture, and black dialect was believed to express one type of that. The new literary fame enabled Dunbar to publish his first two books as a collected volume, titled Lyrics of Lowly Life, which included an introduction by Howells." An example of Dunbar's dialect poems:



Little Brown Baby

Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes,
Come to yo' pappy an' set on his knee.
What you been doin', suh — makin' san' pies?
Look at dat bib — you's es du'ty ez me.
Look at dat mouf — dat's merlasses, I bet;
Come hyeah, Maria, an' wipe off his han's.
Bees gwine to ketch you an' eat you up yit,
Bein' so sticky an sweet — goodness lan's!

Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes,
Who's pappy's darlin' an' who's pappy's chile?
Who is it all de day nevah once tries
Fu' to be cross, er once loses dat smile?
Whah did you git dem teef? My, you's a scamp!
Whah did dat dimple come f'om in yo' chin?
Pappy do' know you — I b'lieves you's a tramp;
Mammy, dis hyeah's some ol' straggler got in!

Let's th'ow him outen de do' in de san',
We do' want stragglers a-layin' 'roun' hyeah;
Let's gin him 'way to de big buggah-man;
I know he's hidin' erroun' hyeah right neah.
Buggah-man, buggah-man, come in de do',
Hyeah's a bad boy you kin have fu' to eat.
Mammy an' pappy do' want him no mo',
Swaller him down f'om his haid to his feet!

Dah, now, I t'ought dat you'd hug me up close.
Go back, ol' buggah, you sha'n't have dis boy.
He ain't no tramp, ner no straggler, of co'se;
He's pappy's pa'dner an' play-mate an' joy.
Come to you' pallet now — go to yo' res';
Wisht you could allus know ease an' cleah skies;
Wisht you could stay jes' a chile on my breas'—
Little brown baby wif spa'klin' eyes!

Dunbar's works writing purely about white culture were not met with critical acclaim.

Though Dunbar only lived to the age of 33 he was very productive: "he wrote a dozen books of poetry, four books of short stories, four novels, lyrics for a musical, and a play."

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/paul-laurence-dunbar

An example of Dunbar's non-dialect poetry:



Ships that Pass in the Night


Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing;
I look far out into the pregnant night,
Where I can hear a solemn booming gun
And catch the gleaming of a random light,
That tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing.

My tearful eyes my soul's deep hurt are glassing;
For I would hail and check that ship of ships.
I stretch my hands imploring, cry aloud,
My voice falls dead a foot from mine own lips,
And but its ghost doth reach that vessel, passing, passing.

O Earth, O Sky, O Ocean, both surpassing,
O heart of mine, O soul that dreads the dark!
Is there no hope for me? Is there no way
That I may sight and check that speeding bark
Which out of sight and sound is passing, passing?

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[AuntShecky]

Thanks for your post, Tailor. I was going to write something about Dunbar's formal verse a little later in the month. I might still do it. We'll see.

In addition to portraying both the past and present, Black American literature often examines topics that remain in focus decades after the work was originally created. From the Civil Rights Movement, The Right to Vote continues to loom as an issue, despite the ratification of the 15th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Even today, some U.S. states are imposing strict “voter I.D.” rules which have a direct impact upon minority groups.

In the tragic chapters of America’s past, the South enforced notorious Jim Crow laws as well as less formal but just as sinister tactics, such as so-called “literacy tests” whose acceptable answers were so arbitrary that it was said that even Ph.D scholars couldn’t pass them.

Black American veterans returning home from armed conflicts experienced voter suppression in an acutely painful way. They had risked their lives serving a country which categorically denied them their rights as citizens.

Which brings us to today’s featured writer, Junius Edwards (1929-2005.) Born in Louisiana, he served in the U.S, Army for nine years. After his military service, he earned a college education at the University of Oslo in Norway with the help of the G.I. bill.

When he was still a soldier stationed in New Jersey, he discovered that he had a natural knack for winning contests in which entrants came up with jingles or catchy slogans for products. After his military service, he earned a college education at the University of Oslo with the help of the G.I. bill.

Other than the sloganeering, Junius Edwards had no other experience in copywriting. Nevertheless, upon his returning to this country from Norway, he was able to land such a job at an advertising agency in New York. After eight years, Junius Edwards opened his own advertising agency, the very first such agency owned by a Black American.

Junius Edwards wrote award-winning short stories but his best known work is a 1963 novel about Will Harris, a returning Korean War vet returning home amid vicious discrimination. Many of the authors we’ve looked at so far have selected the titles for their works from lines of other great Black American artists. Junius Edwards continues that tradition by gleaning his title from a poem by Claude McKay: If We Must Die.

The following excerpt is often published separately as “Liars Don’t Qualify.” (https://www.whatsoproudlywehail.org/curriculum/the-american-calendar/liars-dont-qualify) Hope you can take the opportunity to read it. The prose reminds me of that in some of Ralph Ellison's short stories as well as the sparse Hemingway-inflected lines of dialogue.


https://www.whatsoproudlywehail.org/curriculum/the-american-calendar/liars-dont-qualify

[Ecurb]

Ah! The fame and glory of ad copywriting. I once wrote copy for The Bradford Exchange, dealers in fine collector's plates. My boss was a very nice and talented guy (I was 22 or so), who believed that AD copywriting was as admirable an art, and as fair a demonstration of literary skill, as writing novels, plays or poems. He was actually a very, very good writer and editor, and helped me a lot, making sure I chose the right word instead of the one that was almost right. He started his own "collectors" company, and became a multi-millionaire. If memory serves, no African-Americans wrote copy (or served in any professional positions) at the Bradford Exchange (you must have seen their ads, but the mailings we did were actually brilliant, if slightly manipualtive and deceptive. Caveat Emptor!

[tailor STATELY]

Countee Cullen

Best known as a poet he was also a novelist, children's writer, and playwright; he was also a controversial figure in the Harlem Renaissance:

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/cullen/life.htm

“If the aim of the Harlem Renaissance was, in part, the reinvention of the native-born Negro as a being who can be assimilated while decidedly retaining something called "a racial self-consciousness," then Cullen fit the bill. If "I Have a Rendezvous with Life" was the opening salvo in the making of Culln's literary reputation, then the 1924 publication of "Shroud of Color" in H. L. Mencken's American Mercury confirmed the advent of the black boy wonder as one of the most exciting American poets on the scene. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from NYU, Cullen earned a masters degree in English and French from Harvard (1925-1927). Between high school and his graduation from Harvard, Cullen was the most popular black poet and virtually the most popular black literary figure in America.”

Poetry:

https://www.poemhunter.com/countee-cullen/poems/

His poem Incident contains the derogatory n-word which shatters the young protagonist’s sensibility.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Danik 2016]

Toni Morrison- (1931)
"American novelist, essayist, editor, teacher, and professor emeritus at Princeton University."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison

She is mostly known for her novels which shed a new look on Afro-American life and brought black literature into the mainstream. She was awarded several prizes and was the first black woman that received the Nobel (1993).

"She wanted to write from within. It was the era of "black is beautiful"; everywhere she looked in New York, the black power movement was promoting that slogan. It struck her both as true – "of course" – and at the same time, ahistorical and reactive. "All the books that were being published by African-American guys were saying 'screw whitey', or some variation of that. Not the scholars but the pop books. And the other thing they said was, 'You have to confront the oppressor.' I understand that. But you don't have to look at the world through his eyes. I'm not a stereotype; I'm not somebody else's version of who I am. And so when people said at that time black is beautiful – yeah? Of course. Who said it wasn't? So I was trying to say, in The Bluest Eye, wait a minute. Guys. There was a time when black wasn't beautiful. And you hurt.'"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/13/toni-morrison-home-son-love

A lengthy BBC documentary about her;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjmuzU1ec3o

[AuntShecky]

An earlier post in this thread featured an example of what has been called a “dialect” poem. Verse written in this informal language, specifically the kind which supposedly mimicked the vernacular of Black people was popular in the early twentieth century.

Verse written in dialect comfortably fit into the accepted stereotypes about Black Americans at the time, in much the same way that Hollywood depicted black people. Mervyn LeRoy’s 1937 film They Won’t Forget took a stand again lynch mobs; yet ironically a minor character played by Clinton Rosemond is embarrassingly offensive. In his childhood, James Baldwin (cf. Reply # 11 above) loved going to the movies, but seeing characters such as played by Stepin Fetchit and Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas disheartened him and very likely raised his consciousness about his racial identity.

Despite such pitfalls, in most cases it is vital for artists to depict their subjects as accurately as possible. It is possible to use the language of real life respectfully. Langston Hughes was able to do that. So did today’s featured poet, Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000.) A good example is the frequently anthologized “We Real Cool” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/28112/we-real-cool)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/28112/we-real-cool

On the other hand, Gwendolyn Brooks was a technical virtuoso, a master of formal verse as well as the difficult skill involved in using slant rhyme. Illustrating this point is another poem (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58378/an-aspect-of-love-alive-in-the-ice-and-fire)which treats its theme in a formal way.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58378/an-aspect-of-love-alive-in-the-ice-and-fire

Gwendolyn Brooks is known for many “firsts”: first Black American woman to be: awarded the Pulitzer Prize (http://www.pulitzer.org/article/frost-williams-no-gwendolyn-brooks) (for Annie Allen, 1950), inducted into the
American Academy of Arts and Letters, and to be appointed an early manifestation of the position of Poet Laureate of the United States (1985.)

http://www.pulitzer.org/article/frost-williams-no-gwendolyn-brooks

Although always dedicated to reflecting her own heritage, Gwendolyn Brooks became more politically aware (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gwendolyn-brooks) at the age of 50 after attending a event at Fisk University. In a sense, she was already ‘woke” (to use the current term), but she emphasized the aspect of “unity” embodied by a metaphorical “handshake” rather than bitter militancy.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gwendolyn-brooks

Her brilliant accomplishments were fondly recollected in her New York Times obituary (http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/04/books/gwendolyn-brooks-whose-poetry-told-of-being-black-in-america-dies-at-83.html) by Mel Watkins

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/04/books/gwendolyn-brooks-whose-poetry-told-of-being-black-in-america-dies-at-83.html

[tailor STATELY]

Charles W. Chesnutt 1858 - 1932

Thumbnail sketch on LitNet: http://www.online-literature.com/charles-chesnutt/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Chesnutt

"an African-American author, essayist, political activist and lawyer, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South." Three of his works were adapted in film.

"Chesnutt's stories were more complex than those of many of his contemporaries. He wrote about characters dealing with difficult issues of mixed race, "passing", illegitimacy, racial identities, and social place throughout his career. As in "The Wife of His Youth", Chesnutt explored issues of color and class preference within the black community, including among longtime free people of color in northern towns."

"Chesnutt's speech/essay chronicled black achievements and black poverty. He called for full civil and political rights for all African Americans.

He had little tolerance for the new ideology of race pride. He envisioned instead a nation of "one people molded by the same culture." He concluded his remarks with the following statement, made 58 years before Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech:" From "Race Prejudice; Its Causes and Its Cure" (1905)

Looking down the vista of time I see an epoch in our nation's history, not in my time or yours, but in the not distant future, when there shall be in the United States but one people, moulded by the same culture, swayed by the same patriotic ideals, holding their citizenship in such high esteem that for another to share it is of itself to entitle him to fraternal regard; when men will be esteemed and honored for their character and talents. When hand in hand and heart with heart all the people of this nation will join to preserve to all and to each of them for all future time that ideal of human liberty which the fathers of the republic set out in the Declaration of Independence, which declared that 'all men are created equal', the ideal for which [William Lloyd] Garrison and [Wendell] Phillips and [Sen. Charles] Sumner lived and worked; the ideal for which [Abraham] Lincoln died, the ideal embodied in the words of the Book [Bible] which the slave mother learned by stealth to read, with slow-moving finger and faltering speech, and which I fear that some of us have forgotten to read at all-the Book which declares that "God is no respecter of persons, and that of one blood hath he made all the nations of the earth."

eText of The House Behind the Cedars... http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/chesnutthouse/cheshouse.html

eText of Po' Sandy... http://fullreads.com/literature/po-sandy/

Poems: http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/Works/Poems/poems.html

An unexpected find: History Of Black Science Fiction:
Expanded Course in the History of Black Science Fiction/Nisi Shawl: “The Goophered Grapevine” by Charles W. Chesnutt - (an analysis) -
https://www.tor.com/2017/01/09/expanded-course-in-the-history-of-black-science-fiction-the-goophered-grapevine-by-charles-w-chestnutt/

[Danik 2016]

Ai

In Japanese "ai" means love. In Portuguese it is an interjection of pain. Because of her mixture of races which include Japanese, Black, Indian and Irish, she is an outsider even among the outsiders. Her poems, "dramatic first person monologues", give voice to the marginalized and the abused but not in a conventional, moralist way.
Bio and poems: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ai


Passing Through
BY AI
“Earth is the birth of the blues,” sang Yellow Bertha,
as she chopped cotton beside Mama Rose.
It was as hot as any other summer day,
when she decided to run away.
Folks say she made a fortune
running a whorehouse in New Orleans,
but others say she’s buried somewhere out west,
her grave unmarked,
though you can find it in the dark
by the scent of jasmine and mint,
but I’m getting ahead of myself.
If it wasn’t for hell,
we’d all be tapdancing with the devil
Mama Rose used to say,
but as it is, we just stand and watch,
while someone else burns up before salvation.
“People desire damnation, Bertha,” she said,
unwrapping the rag from her head
to let the sweat flow down the corn rows,
plaited as tightly as the night coming down
on the high and mighty on judgment day.
They say she knew what was coming,
because she threw some bones that morning.
She bent down to pick up her rag which had fallen
and when she straightened up, her yellow gal
had gone down the road.
“Go then,” she called out, “I didn’t want you no how.”
Then she started talking to herself
about how Old White John caught her milking cows.
“He wrestled me to the ground and did his nastiness.”
He said, “your daddy was a slave and his daddy
and I’m claiming back what’s mine.”
It was July. I remember fireworks going off outside.
When Bertha come, so white
she liked to scared me to death,
I let her suckle my breast
and I said, “All right, little baby,
maybe I’ll love you. Maybe.”
Mama Rose said she did her best,
but it’s hard to raise a gal like that
with everybody thinking she’s giving them the high hat,
because she’s so light and got those green eyes
that look right through you. She frightens people.
Even men, who’re usually wanting to saddle up
and ride that kind of mare, can’t abide her.
They’re afraid if they try her, they’ll never be the same.
The only ones willing are white.
They’re watching her day and night,
but they know John swore to kill any man
who touched her,
because lo and behold, he owns up to her.
He’s proud of her. Nobody can believe it.
He’s even at her baptism.
He buys her cheap dresses and candy at the store.
He hands it to her out the door,
because she can’t go in.
He won’t, he won’t stop looking at her
like it’s some kind of miracle she was born
looking so much like him and his people.
It’s a warning, or something.
“It’s evil turning back on itself,” said the preacher
the Sunday cut clean through by the truth,
by the living proof, as Old John stood up in church
and testified to the power of God,
who spoke to him that morning,
telling him he was a sinner.
He died that winter. Horrible suffering, they say.
He had a stroke on the way to town.
His car ran off the road and he drowned.
They say Bertha found him.
They say she ran all the way to town for the doctor,
who told her, “I am not a colored doctor,”
so she went and got the sheriff.
He listened for a while, then he locked her in a cell.
He said he knew she was guilty of something.
Well, after a while, Rose went down there
and I swear she nearly had a fit.
“Get my daughter out here,” she said.
“How can you lock up your own brother’s child?”
The sheriff knew it was true, so finally he said,
“You take her and don’t ever cross my path again.”
When Bertha passed him on the way out,
he tripped her with his foot.
When she got off the floor, she said,
“Every dog has its day.”

From that time to this is a straight line,
pointing at a girl,
who doesn’t even have shoes anymore,
as she runs down the road,
throwing off her ragged clothes, as she goes,
until she’s as naked as the day she was born.
When she comes to washing hanging on the line,
she grabs a fine dress and keeps on running.
She’s crying and laughing at the same time.
Along comes a truck that says J. GOODY on the side.
The man driving stops to give her a ride.
He swings the door open on the passenger side,
but Bertha says, “Move over, I’ll drive.”
When she asks him why he stopped,
he says, “I know white trash, when I see it.
You’re just like me, but you're a girl. You’re pretty.
You can free yourself. All you have to do
is show a little leg and some titty in the big city.”
He gave her fifty cents and a wink
and she started thinking she might as well turn white.
She got a job waiting table in a dance hall.
One night, the boss heard her
singing along with the band.
He said, “Why don’t you go up on stage,”
and she said, “I play piano too.”
He said, “Howdy do.”
From then on, she made everybody pay
one way, or another.
She got hard. She took lovers—
fathers, sons, and husbands.
It didn't matter,
but once in a while, she heard her mother’s voice,
saying, “You made the wrong choice,”
and she felt the blues
and she let loose with a shout.
“Lordy,” said the boss, “you sound colored.”
More and more people came to hear her sing,
but they kind of feared her too.
They said, she was too white to sing the blues like that.
It wasn’t right.
One night, she got to talking with the boss.
He walked round and round the office, shaking his head,
saying how much he’d lose,
if she stopped singing the blues.
“How often can you find a treasure like mine,” he said,
laying his hand on her shoulder,
then he said, “If I weren’t so old,”
and his voice dropped off to a whisper,
then he said, “I got the answer now, sweet Roberta.
Go on down to the dressing room and wait.”
It didn't take long.
He came in and set a jar on the table.
“What do I do with this?” Asked Bertha.
He said, “you’re going to pass for colored.”
Suddenly, she was wearing blackface.
Suddenly, she was safe on the other side
of the door she slammed on the past
and it was standing open at last.
She could come and go as she pleased
and no one saw her enter, or leave.
She was free, she was freed,
but she didn’t feel it
and she needed it to be real.
She went on, though. She flowed like a river,
carrying the body of a man,
who had himself a nigger, because he could.
She lived. She got old.
She almost froze one cold spell
and she got up from her sickbed
and told her daughter
she got during the change of life
it was time to go.
She sewed a note to her ragged coat.
It said, “This is the granddaughter of Mama Rose.”
She put fifty cents in her hand
and went to stand with her at the bus stop.
She would not return, but her child
had earned the right to go home.

When I got off the bus,
a hush fell over the people waiting there.
I was as white as my mother,
but my eyes were gray, not green.
I had hair down to my waist and braids so thick
they weighed me down.
Mother said, my father was a white musician
from another town,
who found out her secret
and left her and me to keep it.
Mama Rose knew me, though, blind as she was.
“What color are you, gal?” She asked
and I told her, “I’m as black as last night.”
That's how I passed, without asking permission.

Ai, "Passing Through" from Vice: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1999 by Ai. Reprinted with the permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Source: Vice: New and Selected Poems (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1999)

[AuntShecky]

There often seems to be two distinct worlds of reading material: the first- Literature with a capital “L”- is considered more seriously than the second. This lighter fare, often dismissed as “popular” or “escapist” fiction, occasionally ventures over into the rarefied world by handling significant themes while reflecting the real world in which the works were created.

We don’t immediately associate genre novels with Black writers, but as society finally began to change, the doors slowly, slowly began to open. This is only fitting, for the movement is primarily about equality and inclusion, and if an author wishes to write about life in an earlier era he should have every right to do so.

Even so, one writer known for his work in historical fiction has been criticized for choosing subjects not customarily found among other Black authors. The creator of thirty novels, Frank Yerby (1916-1991) was subject to the disdain of many critics who “felt his work lacked appropriate racial consciousness.”

http://www.blackpast.org/aah/yerby-frank-g-1916-1991

This may not be entirely true about his first novel, The Foxes of Harrow, set in antebellum New Orleans, or his best known work, The Dahomean, about African history. A Darkness at Ingraham’s Crest is subtitled a “Tale of the Slaveholding South.”

(If not exactly politically correct, Yerby is a million miles away from the racist, white supremist jingoist drivel from historical novelists or the late 19th century, such as G.A. Henty who distorted the real image of minority groups for generations.) Despite the charge of “denying” his heritage, Yerby has been called one of the most commercially successful writers of the twentieth century.

The P.C. critics who blasted Yerby could not easily make the same charge at of Chester Himes (1909-1984.) His first novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go as well as his second, The Lonely Crusade apparently covered the territory of social consciousness. Yet abstract political polemics were no match for Himes’s own experiences.

https://www.npr.org/2017/07/26/539487052/new-chester-himes-biography-reveals-a-life-as-wild-as-any-detective-story

Himes's future seemed promising, but his academic career at Ohio State University was short-lived, soon to be replaced by a stint in the Ohio State Penitentiary. During that stretch that he began to write. After his parole, he somehow made his way to Hollywood, where he worked as a screenwriter until studio boss Jack Warner, notoriously racist, had him fired. Eventually he moved to Paris where he joined the community of expatriates such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin.

We know Chester Himes today for his detective novels, some of which were adapted into popular motion pictures such as Cotton Comes to Harlem and A Rage in Harlem, which perhaps could mollify Warner’s injustice to him decades earlier, with -- as any good detective knows --revenge as a dish best served cold.

Following Chester Himes’s footprints, is a contemporary detective writer, Walter Mosley (b. 1952.) Appearing in several novels, Mosley’s hero is a black detective and WW II vet. One of these stories, Devil in a Blue Dress, has been translated to the screen.

Though most known for his detective fiction, Mosley has published works on a wider variety of subjects, including the socially aware themes which Frank Yerby’s critics harped about. Mosley shows his insight and hard-fought wisdom in eminently quotable statements such as this:


Science and religion, capitalism and socialism, caste and character are all on the auction block. The waters are rising while we are dreaming of dancing with the stars. We call ourselves social creatures when indeed we are pack animals. We, many of us, say that we are middle class when in reality we are salt-of-the-earth working-class drones existing at the whim of systems that distribute our life’s blood as so much spare change.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/books/review/walter-mosley-by-the-book.html

If we can picture genre writing as a Venn diagram, imagine a section set aside for science fiction writing. Now assign part of that section to women science writers. An even smaller slice would be left for Black American science fiction writers.

Yet they do exist! Perhaps the brightest star in that constellation is Octavia Butler (1947-2006.) The author of several novels of science and fantasy fiction, she won both Hugo and Nova awards. Ms Butler was unique in being the first and only science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur “genius” Award.

The works themselves are popular, but it is the author herself who garners much attention, if the sheer number of web pages posted by her admirers. She is a cultural icon and an inspiration to science fiction enthusiasts, feminists, and the Black community.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/07/10/535879364/octavia-butler-writing-herself-into-the-story


“I began writing about Power because I had so little.”
–Octavia Butler


Coming soon: Richard Wright, Zora, and two writers named Toni

[Danik 2016]

Is one of the Tonis, Toni Morrison? I wrote a short post about her, but of course it welcomes additions.

[AuntShecky]

Is one of the Tonis, Toni Morrison? I wrote a short post about her, but of course it welcomes additions.

Yes, and I read your piece -- it's great. But if it's all right with you, I will write something about Toni M. on Valentine's Day. Also, something more about Ralph Ellison at the end of the month. I'm saving one of my "faves" for the 28th.

This household is really hectic on Sundays and I'm just sneaking a few minutes on the Internet machine to make this reply. Otherwise I'd write a full post on another author, but my attention is being pulled elsewhere. Of course, there's no hard and fast rule requiring only one post per author or an Author-an-Day on this thread. It's not vitamins!

[Danik 2016]

Sure, Aunt Schecky. Both my posts were only informative, I copied and pasted the informations from other sources. For the sake of the reader maybe it would be nice if posts on the same author could be read together.

[tailor STATELY]

Georgia Douglas Johnson 1880–1966

Georgia Douglas Johnson was a poet, playwright, newspaper columnist, songwriter, and the most-published female poet of the Harlem Renaissance:

"Johnson’s house at 1461 S Street NW, which came to be known as site of the S Street Salon, was an important meeting place for writers of the Harlem Renaissance in Washington, D.C. Johnson published her first poems in 1916 in the NAACP’s magazine Crisis. Her weekly column, Homely Philosophy, was published from 1926 to 1932. She wrote numerous plays, including Blue Blood (performed 1926) and Plumes (performed 1927). Johnson traveled widely in the 1920s to give poetry readings. In 1934 she lost her job in the Department of Labor and returned to supporting herself with temporary clerical work."
- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/georgia-douglas-johnson

I Want to Die While You Love Me - https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/i-want-die-while-you-love-me

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Douglas_Johnson

https://washingtonart.com/beltway/gdjohnson.html

eText of Bronze: A Book of Verse: https://archive.org/stream/bronzeabookvers00boisgoog/bronzeabookvers00boisgoog_djvu.txt

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[Ecurb]

W.E.B. DuBois

DuBois was an historian, essayist and journalist, as well as being the first African American to get a PhD. from Harvard and the founder of the NAACP. His best known work is "The Souls of Black Folk", a collection of essays.

Harvard has a proud (though not untainted) history of supporting civil rights. When Edward Everett was President of Harvard in the 1840s, Harvard admitted a black student. Many of the white students threatened to leave the college. Said Everett, "If this boy passes his examinations he will be admitted; and if the white students choose to withdraw, all the income of the college will be devoted to his education."

[Danik 2016]

W.E.B. DuBois

DuBois was an historian, essayist and journalist, as well as being the first African American to get a PhD. from Harvard and the founder of the NAACP. His best known work is "The Souls of Black Folk", a collection of essays.

Harvard has a proud (though not untainted) history of supporting civil rights. When Edward Everett was President of Harvard in the 1840s, Harvard admitted a black student. Many of the white students threatened to leave the college. Said Everett, "If this boy passes his examinations he will be admitted; and if the white students choose to withdraw, all the income of the college will be devoted to his education."

Ecurb,

You probably didn´t notice that there already is a post about DuBois.
I recomend that posts on the same authors are put together, else this thread may confuse the readers.
On the other hand there are a lot of poets and authors that weren´t contemplated on this thread as yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_literature

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_writers

[AuntShecky]

Thank you, Tailor for the info. on Georgia Douglas Johnson, a new author for me. That's exactly what this thread is for.

Thanks as well to Ecurb for more info on W.E. B. DuBois. A family member recently told me about a beautiful letter DuBois wrote to his daughter. If I locate it on line, I'll post it on this thread.

And Danik, I totally get what you're saying, Ideally, it would be good for all the info about a particular writer to be in one reply. But occasionally a poster will think of something he or she wants to add about a writer after the initial post.

One solution is to start new thread(s) on individual authors in order to treat them in depth.

Right now I'm working on a mini-essay on Richard Wright. I hope to finish it soon, as well as post my thoughts about Toni Morrison et al. Tempus fugit!

Again, thanks so much for the gratifying enthusiasm and participation in this thread so far.

[tailor STATELY]

John Willis Menard 1838-1893

Abolitionist, federal government employee, civil servant, poet, newspaper publisher, and politician... Audio article: https://floridahumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2002_03_brown_JohnWillisMenard.mp3

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Willis_Menard - "born in Illinois to parents who were Louisiana Creoles from New Orleans. After moving to New Orleans, on November 3, 1868, Menard was the first black man ever elected to the United States House of Representatives (though he was refused being seated)."


He was a featured speaker at the Emancipation Jubilee in April 1863, which celebrated the first anniversary of the act which freed enslaved people in the District of Columbia; he composed and read a poem, “One Year Ago Today,” to commemorate the occasion. The poem celebrates the freedom of those who had been enslaved in Washington, but it also expresses hope that the same freedoms will soon be extended to all: “Give liberty to millions yet / ‘Neath despotism’s sway, / That they may praise thee as we did, / One year ago today.” - https://randolphsociety.org/john-willis-menard/

Poem To My Wife - https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/my-wife-10

Poem Good-Bye! Off For Kansas: https://p.bbdg.net/poem.php?id=10107028

Poem The Negro's Lament: http://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10107029

Poem Stoicism: http://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10107031

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[AuntShecky]

Born in Lorain, Ohio, a town near Cleveland, she was originally named Chloe Ardelia Wofford. Later in life, combining a diminutive of her confirmation name with the surname of her husband, “Toni Morrison” became a name known to all (or should be!)

Her debut novel, The Bluest Eye, appeared in 1970. The pre-World War II story concerns a teenage girl, Percola, who, having been impregnated by her father, is being temporarily cared for by another family in Lorain, Ohio. Amid symbols that are both supernatural and sociological, one of Percola’s foster sisters narrates the account with magical thinking as well as realistically sociological perception. Though frequently challenged, banned, and censored by officials in American high schools, this novel is a brilliant portrayal of the conflict between Black identity. Young women were adversely affected by the prevailing attitude of the society; they felt “ugly” when they compared themselves and the standard of beauty only whites had been allowed to define at the time. The novel’s title reinforces that notion, as in a section of Gwendolyn Brooks poem “In the Mecca,” both whites and blacks had been taught that “Whiteness is great.”

Another quotation – a verse from Romans 9:25-- forms the epigraph for what arguably may be the most celebrated among all of Toni Morrison’s eleven novels, Beloved, first published in 1987. Suggested by an actual historical incident, this is a fictional account of a black woman in the time of the Civil War era in similar circumstances. The woman named Sethe murders one of her children in order to save her from the torture of an enslaved life. After Sethe escapes and settles in Cincinnati, the deceased child returns to haunt her as a ghost. There is no doubt that Beloved is a work of art yet in addition it can be considered a reflection of African-American experience and as such – despite the paranormal elements – an accurate one. Sethe’s motive is not unlike the ultraviolent character Bigger Thomas in Native Son, albeit Richard Wright's novel has with a 20th century setting and a naturalistic style. Sethe personifies the extreme lengths Black Americans have been forced to go because of the destruction transformation caused by relentless suffering.

A 2015 New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/magazine/the-radical-vision-of-toni-morrison.html) profile about Toni Morrison acknowledges the fact that her position and descriptions of race are “varied and complicated.” Her purpose in writing is neither didactic nor polemical but rather a response to the human condition as experienced by Blacks. As she tells the interviewer, Toni Morrison says her purpose is to “suggest what the conflicts are, what the problems are;” the author’s role is to record and reflect.

According to The Reader’s Encyclopedia, “Morrison’s novels expose the formerly disregarded experience of the black American woman. Her language is musical and precise, creating evocative dialogue and merging mythical, supernatural elements with reality to paint a bleak and painful portrait of American life.”

Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison’s third novel, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1979. She received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Beloved in 1988. In 1993 she made history by becoming the first Black female writer to win a Nobel Prize in Literature. Seven years later the National Endowment for the Humanities presented her with its highest award, the Medal of Honor.

This coming Sunday, February 18, 2018 will mark the 87th birthday of Toni Morrison. We thank her for her transformative contribution to American culture and send her best wishes for her years to come.

Please read this profile, if you can:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/magazine/the-radical-vision-of-toni-morrison.html

[AuntShecky]

Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) led a remarkable life, rich in such varied experiences as a student of the art of mime in Paris, a dancer with the prestigious Katherine Dunham Studio in New York, a literary scholar and critic, social worker, activist in the feminist movement, college professor, and documentary film maker. She is best known, however, as an author of short stories.

Miltona Mirikin Cade changed her first name to Toni at the age of 6 and later began using a surname derived from an ethnic group in West Africa. Toni’s early life was firmly located in the geographic area of New York. Born in Harlem, she grew up in the Bed-Sty section of Brooklyn, Queens, and across the river in New Jersey. She was educated in Queens College and did her Master’s degree work at City College. Her academic career included teaching at Rutgers, Emory, and Atlanta Universities.

Among her short stories, her first collection, Gorilla, My Love (1970) earned much acclaim. Because of her skillful characterizations of young women, especially teenagers, many high school anthologies feature a story by Toni Cade Bambara. Often driven by first-person narrators, the rhythmic, realistic language of her prose “sounds” authentic.

In this regard “Raymond’s Run” is especially noteworthy. “Squeaky” is a talented runner, vexed by the seemingly pretentious postures of her classmates. Though determined to best them in a race, Squeaky also takes responsibility for taking care of her brother, Raymond, who apparently has a cognitive disability. “Raymond’s Run” is a powerful story, which explores emotional territory in an unsentimental, nuanced way.

The story called “The Lesson” features subtle social commentary. A self-proclaimed do-gooder in the neighborhood takes a small group of disadvantaged Black children to a pricey toy store apparently to show them the kind of life circumscribed to them because of their current living conditions. The children are savvy enough to recognize the ridiculous irony of the situation. “The Lesson” was chosen for inclusion in the annual anthology, The Best American Short Stories for 1972, edited by Martha Foley.

In his review of that volume, New York Times critic C.D.B. Bryan said


Toni Cade Bambara tells me more about being black through her quiet, proud, silly, tender, hip, acute, loving stories than any amount of literary polemicizing could hope to do. . .[S]he writes about love: a love for one's family, one's friends, one's race, one's neighborhood, and it is the sort of love that comes with maturity and inner peace.


http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/11/nyregion/toni-cade-bambara-a-writer-and-documentary-maker-56.html

[tailor STATELY]

Anne Spencer 1882 - 1975

Harlem Renaissance poet, activist, librarian, teacher, gardener.

Youtube: Anne Spencer - African American Trailblazers -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsEl92RCTwU

Biography: Anne Spencer house and Garden Museum:

http://www.annespencermuseum.com/biography.php


Much of her poetry was deeply connected to her garden and she used her garden and the plants she grew there symbolically in many of her poems, among them, "Grapes, Still Life." Among her most influential works was "White Things", though it was not republished in her lifetime after its initial appearance in The Crisis. Nevertheless, its impact was such that Keith Clark, in Notable Black American Women, referred to it as "the quintessential 'protest' poem."[9] Still poetically active up to her death in 1975, Anne Spencer wrote one of her most evocative poems, titled for that same year, "1975."

Article: "Seeking Anne Spencer Dec 10, 2017 By: Lesley Wheeler Volume 2, Cycle 4" -

https://modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts/seeking-anne-spencer

The following Abstract is by Jenny Hyest from "Not Entirely Secular, Not Entirely Sacred: Woman, Modernism, and Religion" http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jmodelite.38.3.129?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents -


Abstract:
Although Anne Spencer has been regarded as one of the significant female poets of the Harlem Renaissance, less attention has been given to her role as an important innovator of American modernism. Spencer's modernist formal experiments enabled her to express and enact her feminist aspirations for modern women. Her poems, including “Before the Feast at Shushan,” “Letter to My Sister,” and “The Lemming: O Sweden!,” explore the psychodynamics of male dominance and female resistance, affirming literary modernism's liberatory potential for women in its ability to convey the affective experience of subordination and to disrupt older discursive structures rooted in masculinist ideology.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[AuntShecky]

Thank you very much, Tailor, for your post on Anne Spencer. In so many ways a lovely woman.

I am deeply involved in preparing posts on Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston and hope to finish them soon. (That's not in any way intended to prevent other NitLetters from posting their findings/thoughts on those two authors. The more the merrier, to use a cliché.)

I'm also halfway through writing a "spinoff" essay which will appear in a separate thread in this particular forum. The more I do research on this essay, the more material I discover. Many more names are appearing on my list, so it's a safe bet that this thread (unlike the Winter Olympics) will spill over past February 28!

Meanwhile, keep posting and reading fellow LitNetters.

[tailor STATELY]

Gwendolyn B. Bennett 1903 - 1981

Poet, journalist, columnist, fiction-writer, illustrator, artist, teacher, educator, and feminist.


Though often overlooked, she herself made considerable accomplishments in poetry and prose. She is perhaps best known for her short story "Wedding Day", which was published in the first issue of Fire!! Bennett was a dedicated and self-preserving woman, respectfully known for being a strong influencer of African-American women rights during the Harlem Renaissance. Throughout her dedication and perseverance, Bennett raised the bar when it came to women's literature, and education.... Source: Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_B._Bennett

Poem "Hatred" with some analysis - https://wordsmusicandstories.wordpress.com/2017/05/15/harlem-renaissance-hatred-by-gwendolyn-b-bennett/

"Feminism in the Jazz Age"... the poem "Usward" - https://sites.google.com/site/feminisminthejazzage/journal-blog

Poem: “To A Dark Girl”, and short story: “Wedding Day” ( both with analysis )... https://gwendolynbbennett.wordpress.com/analysis-of-gwendolyn-bennett/

Paintings:

• http://iraaa.museum.hamptonu.edu/page/FOUND!-A-Gwendolyn-Bennett-Painting

• http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/bennett/life.htm

More poems: https://allpoetry.com/Gwendolyn-Bennett

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[tailor STATELY]

George Marion McClellan 1860-1934


George Marion McClellan wrote poetry and short stories in standard English, taught school, and served as a Congregational minister between 1892 and 1934. His reputation rests on his sentimental and conservative poetry. While some of his poetry expresses racial pride and race consciousness, most of his poetry does not express protest or polemics. This fact suggests the tension experienced by African American writers between racial consciousness and adherence to the dominant white literary trends. However, McClellan was concerned for his people and promoted the value and success of African Americans. He wrote within white literary mainstream in order, perhaps, to illustrate the humanity of the African American. Source: http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/4371/McClellan-George-Marion-1860-1934.html

More: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/mcclellan-george-marion-1860-1934

Book digitized by Emory University: Poems by George Marion M’Clellan: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=emu.010000709155;view=1up;seq=11

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

P.S. Thank you admin !

[hellsapoppin]

I am deeply involved in preparing posts on Richard Wright ...





I am interested in reading your views of Wright's under rated "Man of All Work" which deals with black American masculinity and gender roles in the face of economic & social injustices.

[AuntShecky]

Now we have come to a Supernova among Black American writers: Richard Wright (1908-1960.)

Born in Mississippi, he was the grandson of slaves; some of his ancestors se served in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Richard Wright was an outstanding student; as an eight grader he wrote a short story that was published in a newspaper covering his Black community It is nothing short of miraculous that Wright was able to excel in studies under the shadow of school segregation. The unfair conditions under which Black children endeavored to learn would only begin to ameliorate in 1954 with the Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education.

Though Richard Wright had been born well after the turn of the century, his right to an education was doubly threatened--not merely by "separate but equal" statutes but by the dictates of customs held over from the in the antebellum South as well. Before the Civil War the idea of educating black children and adults was forbidden not merely by individual slave owners but by iron-clad laws in several states. Both blacks and whites faced severe punishments for attempting to teach a black person to read. A fictional example of this can be found in the novels of Charles Johnson and more recently in a Independent Lens documentary broadcast on PBS.

Such an insidious aspect of racism continued through the early decades of the 20th century with subtle yet insidious barriers against Blacks pursuing higher learning. From his youth well into adulthood, Wright relied on his own resources for learning since he could not depend on any school system willing to fulfill his educational needs. In any case, circumstances impelled him to abandon formal schooling around the age of 12 in order to support his disabled mother and younger brother. A lifelong autodidact, Wright found comfort and illumination through reading.

In his comprehensive essay on Richard Wright, Louis Menand of The New Yorker illustrates how reading provided not only enlightenment but also solace. “Wright loved literature intimately,” Menand writes, “as you might love a person who has rescued you from misery or danger. Literature, he said, was the first place in which he had found his inner sense of the world reflected and ratified. Everything else, from the laws and mores of Southern apartheid to the religious fanaticism of his own family (he grew up mostly in the house of his maternal grandmother, a devout Seventh-Day Adventist, who believed that storytelling was a sin), he experienced as pure hostility.”

A well-known anecdote illustrates how institutional barriers warred against him by denying him lending privileges at a public library. As he related in one of the chapters in his autobiography, Black Boy, he found a “workaround” to evade this injustice. A white co-worker lent Richard his own library card along with a note asking the librarian to allow Richard borrow books.

When Wright and his family moved to Chicago in 1927, his literary activities brought him into the realm of leftist organizations, including the Communist Party among whose members opportunistically latched onto the Black cause in order to advance their broader ideology. Such exploitation apparently was common; Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man includes a fictional representation of duplicity within a Communist cell. Initially embracing some of the revolutionary policies, Wright eventually grew disillusioned with the party, after some members exhibited their own racist tendencies, and in at least one incident, a violent way. In a later volume of his autobiography, Wright wrote about his experiment with communism, also published in Richard Crossman’s anthology, The God That Failed.

By 1937, Richard Wright had moved out of Chicago to New York. As Wright’s literary career evolved, a different problem –- aesthetic rather than sociological, this time -- presented in the fact that Richard Wright could not find any substantial bodies of literary works by Black authors. This cultural gap or literary divide meant that at the time Richard Wright decided to express the experience of being a black person in America, there were no models or precedents. Everything up to that point had been filtered through what Toni Morrison called “the white gaze.” As Wright himself put it, “[F]or my race possessed no fictional works dealing with such problems, had no background in such sharp and critical testing of experiences no novels that went with a deep and fearless will down to dark roots of life.”

It was around this point that his writing had begun to venture out beyond appearances in periodicals and literary journals with the publication of a book-length collection of his short stories, Uncle Tom’s Children in 1938. The subject matter of the pieces authentically represented the experience of black people under dominant white rule.

By 1940 Wright created this very novel for which there had been no precedent: Native Son. Just as the protagonist in Toni Morrison’s 1993 novel Beloved was based on a historical figure, Wright’s character, Bigger Thomas, derived from the notorious case of a real-life criminal named Robert Noxon. In the early sections of the novel Bigger Thomas trudges through deprivation and squalor in Depression era Chicago. Not far into the book the reader gets the impression that it is as much the environment as the titular character who is the villain.

In order to defuse what is actually an innocent action, Bigger causes a death, the unintended consequences of which escalate into another murder and extortion. The final section of the book deals with his arrest and trial in which Bigger is represented by an attorney who sees Bigger as a case study with ideological underpinnings. The defense attorney does present the argument that the actual cause of Bigger’s crime was that this corrupt culture driven by institutional racism caused Bigger’s crime, whereas, the prosecutor attempts to prove that Bigger was responsible for his own actions. At this point, Bigger has been further diminished as he has become a pawn in the legal tug-o-war, on one side a sociological symbol and on the other a vicious criminal. In both instances, is deprived of autonomy as an individual. Though conventionally unrepentant, Bigger is subtly shown to have reached some point of self-recognition.

Across the country Native Son earned by critical and commercial success. The first best-seller by a Black novelist, Native Son also was the first such novel be chosen as a selection for the Book of The Month Club. Likewise it was a best-seller and ultimately The Modern Library named it Number 20 on its list of the Best 100 Novels of the Twentieth Century.

Evidently readers were divided into two camps: one faction regarded the “literary honesty” of Native Son as an extraordinary work of art rather than a sociological treatise. As Irving Howe proclaimed in his 1963 essay, “Black Boys and Native Sons”: “The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever. No matter how much qualifying the book might later need, it made impossible a repetition of the old lies ... [and] brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear, and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture." Howe said that white liberals were moved by the shock of recognition and acknowledged their tacit complicity in the system.

On the other hand, one can surmise that a smaller group of readers saw Bigger Thomas’s rage and lack of control not as a metaphor of oppression but rather as a representation of a long-held stereotype of the “angry black man”– confirming their age-old bias in printed form. This is exactly the kind of reaction some of Wright’s fellow writers worried about. James Baldwin, tempered his initial enthusiasm for his mentor’s novel by criticizing its “unmitigated violence,” as he championed for more positive images in Baldwin’s critical book, Notes on a Native Son, which, as Irving Howe points out, urges Black writers to move beyond “the novel of protest” toward heroes who are neither victims nor revolutionaries.

Louis Menand’s view differs from that of both Howe and Baldwin. He writes, “The evil of modern society isn’t that it creates racism but that it creates conditions in which people who don’t suffer from injustice seem incapable of caring very much about people who do.”

This revelation, as well as Wright’s other positions on race and society were, as Menand points out, formed by his own experiences such as related in the 1945 appearance of Black Boy, the best known of his autobiographical volumes. It is through Wright’s own accounts that we discover how his attitudes toward society were formed.

Richard Wright spent the later years of his life as an expatriate in Paris, where he wrote his last works including The Outsider, published in 1953. A posthumous collection of short stories called Eight Men contains the story “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” a superb account of an incident of a youth’s attempt to venture into manhood, symbolized by the purchase of a shotgun. This story, like part of the plot of Native Son, shows how outside forces can affect one’s life despite the individual’s intentions.


Richard Wright’s literary reputation has endured because of his impact upon America’s consciousness – and conscience – but also for his artistic achievement in presenting truths about the universal human condition.


Sources:

Louis Menand, “The Hammer and The Nail” in The New Yorker, July 20, 1992. (A brilliant, eminently readable piece by a 2016 winner of the Medal of Honor from the National Endowment for the Humanities.)

Irving Howe, “Black Boys and Native Sons“ originally published in Dissent, Autumn, 1963, available online from Univ. of Penn.org.

“Tell Them We Are Rising,” an excellent documentary film shown on the Independent Lens series, airdate February 20,2018. Check pbs.org

Reader’s Encyclopedia


The Story and Its Writer, edited by Ann Charters, published by Bedord Books, St. Martin’s Press, 1995. (A comprehensive anthology that includes essays by the writers themselves, this volume is invaluable for students of modern and contemporary short fiction.)

[tailor STATELY]

James Monroe Whitfield 1822–1871

From the Introduction of the eText that follows:


Hailed as a poetic genius in California, Whitfield achieved little commercial success in his lifetime, and by the time of his death in 1871, he had begun to assume a somewhat invisible place within African American literary and cultural history. But he never quite vanished, remaining, like Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, a defining, if hard to detect,
presence.

eText: The Works of James Monroe Whitfield - https://the-eye.eu/public/Books/Poetry/The%20Works%20of%20James%20M.%20Whitfield%20-%20America%20and%20Other%20Writings%20by%20a%20Nin eteenth-Century%20African%20American%20Poet.pdf

Source for the following: https://muse.jhu.edu/book/19092

"The Works of James M. Whitfield
America and Other Writings by a Nineteenth-Century African American Poet - Edited by Robert S. Levine and Ivy G. Wilson

Publication Year: 2011


Levine and Wilson compile and annotate Whitfield's extant writings, both poetry and prose, and they offer significant new biographical information in a fulsome introduction to the volume. This book restores Whitfield to his rightful place in the arts and politics of his day. Whitfield's essays, which are little known to present-day scholars, situate him in relation to Douglass, Martin Delany, Frances Harper, and George Boyer Vashon, among others, and they shed much light on his poetry. This book also contributes to the on- going rethinking of African American writing in this period, underscoring the importance of poetry and periodical culture to black writing as well as the importance of the debate on emigration.

Published by: The University of North Carolina Press"


Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

p.s. link to GAMMA: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQJqWMSTBd4NJCpXbAOmZG-jTD1fxTDFIXApN7tywXvtZgEOP83Nu8SspFCw_7sPNuQ-OAwjJkFoDaM/pub

[AuntShecky]

Zora Neale Hurston

Notasulga, Alabama has one claim to fame: it’s the birthplace of Zora Neale Hurston. But it couldn’t have left much of an impression on Zora, as her family moved into a Florida town full of prosperity and promise.

Zora’s relatively happy childhood didn’t last long, once her mother died and her father married a woman with whom Zora had experienced some animosity. At that point she left home and supported herself with a series of low-level jobs.

The official D.O.B. was January 7, 1891, though some accounts list the year as 190l. Unlike celebrities such as Nancy Reagan, however, Zora had a good reason for lying about her age. It had nothing to do with vanity but everything with education.

According to Valerie Boyd:


In 1917, she turned up in Baltimore; by then, she was 26 years old and still hadn't finished high school. Needing to present herself as a teenager to qualify for free public schooling, she lopped 10 years off her life– giving her age as 16 and the year of her birth as 1901. Once gone, those years were never restored: From that moment forward, Hurston would always present herself as at least 10 years younger than she actually was. Apparently, she had the looks to pull it off.

Finally able to finish high school, she immediately began to pursue higher education, such as earning an associate’s degree from Howard University in 1920, and a B.A. from Barnard College in 1928. Additionally she began studying for a doctorate at Columbia University under the direction of famed anthropologist Frank Boas; she eventually received her Ph.D. in 1935.

While attending classes and living in Harlem, Zora started writing in the 1920s. An early short story, ”Spunk,” won an award and her stage play, Color Struck brought enthusiastic accolades. She aligned herself with the Harlem Renaissance, and with Langston Hughes along with Wallace Thurman produced a publication - a one-off - in 1926.

Several published works by Zora Neale Hurston followed, all with intriguing and catchy titles. These include a collection of folktales called Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938), set in Jamaica and Haiti. Her first novel explores the life of a black preacher in Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934.) The following year she produced the novel that would be considered her masterpiece: Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Non-fiction writings include her autobiography, Dust on a Road (1942) and a posthumous collection of writings and letters published in 1979 under the title of I Love Myself When I Am Laughing.

According The Reader’s Encyclopedia, Zora Neale Hurston created “original and earthy stories of the Black south.” Unlike her contemporary Richard Wright who’d become wealthy by his writings, Zora Neale Hurston was never able to translate her critical acclaim into substantial earnings. Valerie Boyd’s webpage notes that all of Zora Neale Hurston’s published writings totaled a lifetime sum of $943.75.

Zora Neale Hurston spent the final years of her life in Florida until she suffered a stroke. Still impoverished, she died in a publically-funded nursing home on January 28, 1960.

That a writer of Zora Neale Hurston’s talent should have endured such deprivation sparked the passionate interest of Alice Walker, the famed novelist of The Color Purple, after discovering Zora’s unmarked grave. She took up Zora’s cause with the essay: “Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View.” Rather than viewing her as a literary academic, Alice Walker likened Zora to two great jazz singers of the 20th century: Bessie Smith and Billie (“Lady Day”) Holiday. “Like Billie and Bessie,” Alice Walker writes, “she followed her own road, believed in her own gods, pursued her own dreams, and refused to separate herself from ‘common’ people. . .She was a cultural revolutionary simply because she was always herself.”



http://www.zoranealehurston.com/about/index.html


http://www.nathanielturner.com/whatwhitepublisherswontprint.htm



“I’ll plant you like a potato and dig ya later.”
-Zora Neale Hurston, “Spunk”

[AuntShecky]

Nikki Giovanni

Among the most vibrant, energetic, and productive artists writing today is Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943.) Features of both her subject matter and style seem as if they should clash against each other but actually synthesize into a union of form and content. Her colloquial diction, like that of Langston Hughes, is deceptively accessible. Just like studying the works of her predecessor, Gwendolyn Brooks, parsing some of Nikki Giovanni’s lines may reveal the kind of allusions and multiple meanings parsed in post-graduate seminars.

Time and again she asserts that she writes primarily for Black audiences, specifically black women, yet every poem reaches out with the kind of “universality” which critics rave over. Like her contemporary, the short story writer Toni Cade Bambara, she maintains an ironic perspective upon life, along with a amid a generally loving attitude. Nikki Giovanni has a wry sense of humor at the same time she is being pretty damn serious. Nikki Giovanni’s artistic statements often crackle with social protest, but they are not so much militant as affirmative.

As noted in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Nikki Giovanni wrote in a literary essay from 1970 that “we haven’t had many books that view the Black experience as a positive thing.” It can be argued that she herself has helped fill that gap.


For more:

http://www.nikki-giovanni.com/bio

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/poet-nikki-giovanni-pens-heartbreak-laughter-good-cry-n830211

https://www.npr.org/2013/10/29/241605794/poet-nikki-giovanni-on-the-darker-side-of-her-life


BLK History Month

by Nikki Giovanni

If Black History Month is not
viable then wind does not
carry the seeds and drop them
on fertile ground
rain does not
dampen the land
and encourage the seeds
to root
sun does not
warm the earth
and kiss the seedlings
and tell them plain:
You’re As Good As Anybody Else
You’ve Got A Place Here, Too

Note:
It’s the last day of February, but there are still quite a number of names on my list, getting longer every day! I would like to keep this particular thread active and invite all of my fellow NitLetters to contribute their findings and feelings on Black American authors year round.

[tailor STATELY]

Jupiter Hammon (1711–1806?)

Possibly the father of black American poetry he published his first poem in 1760 - 16 years before the birth of the United States of America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Hammon

Born a slave Jupiter Hammon was never emancipated...
Although not emancipated, Hammon participated in new Revolutionary War groups such as the Spartan Project of the African Society of New York City. At the inaugural meeting of the African Society on September 24, 1786, he delivered his "Address to the Negroes of the State of New-York",[3] also known as the "Hammon Address." He was seventy-six years old and had spent his lifetime in slavery. He said, "If we should ever get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for being black, or for being slaves."[4] He also said that, while he personally had no wish to be free, he did wish others, especially “the young negroes, were free. - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Hammon

.pdf of "The Migration of Jupiter Hammon and His Family:
From Slavery to Freedom and its Consequences":

https://lihj.cc.stonybrook.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/The_Migration_of_Jupiter_Hammon_and_His_Family_Fro m_Slavery_to_Freedom_and_its_Consequences_Long_Isl and_History_Journal.pdf

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[tailor STATELY]

Fenton Johnson 1888 - 1958

Fenton's use of language in his poetry collection includes both formal and dialectical styles.

Short bio and poetry (122 poems):"Fenton Johnson was born on May 7, 1888 in Chicago, Illinois to parents Elijah and Jesse (Taylor) Johnson. His father was a railroad porter, and one of the wealthiest African Americans in Chicago. The midwest had a great influence on his writing. He was poet, essayist, author of short stories, editor, and educator. His works foreshadowed the Harlem Renaissance." (continues) - Source:

https://allpoetry.com/Fenton-Johnson

"The poetry of Fenton Johnson has often been by critics to be characterized by great irony and a kind of hopelessness resulting from an embattled African American experience. In his introduction to Fenton Johnson in The Book of American Negro Poetry, James Weldon Johnson writes that in many of Johnson’s poems, “there is nothing left to fight or even hope for.” Yet, James Weldon Johnson continues, “these poems of despair possess tremendous power and constitute Fenton Johnson’s best work.” Fenton Johnson is often seen as a poet who possesses a particularly fatalistic perspective branching from his experience as an African American, and this type of embittered poetry is what he is most known for." - Source:

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenton_Johnson_(poet)

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[AuntShecky]

You could teach a survey course on this, Tailor. Any English department would be blessed to have you. Thanks for keeping this thread active.

[tailor STATELY]

You could teach a survey course on this, Tailor. Any English department would be blessed to have you.Ms Korman (NHS) might be horrified to read this, but Thank you !

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

[tailor STATELY]

Mary Weston Fordham 1862?–1905

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Weston_Fordham

Introduction to Mary's book Magnolia Leaves by Booker T. Washington:


INTRODUCTORY.
I give my cordial endorsement to this little "Book of Poems," because I believe it will do its part to awaken the Muse of Poetry which I am sure slumbers in very many of the Sons and Daughters of the Race of which the Author of this work is a representative.

The Negro's right to be considered worthy of recognition in the field of poetic effort is not now gainsaid as formerly, and each succeeding effort but emphasizes his right to just consideration.

The hope, I have, is, that this volume of "Poems" may fall among the critical and intelligent, who will accord the just meed of praise or of censure, to the end that further effort may be stimulated, no matter what the verdict.

The readers I trust will find as much to praise and admire as I have done.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON,

Prin. Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute.Tuskegee, Ala.December 6th, 1897.

Link to the eText of Magnolia Leaves: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/BAD5606.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext

Mary's collection of poems on PoemHunter (65 of 66 ?):

https://www.poemhunter.com/mary-weston-fordham/poems/page-2/?a=a&l=3&y=

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

GAMMA... https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQJqWMSTBd4NJCpXbAOmZG-jTD1fxTDFIXApN7tywXvtZgEOP83Nu8SspFCw_7sPNuQ-OAwjJkFoDaM/pub

[tailor STATELY]

Frances E.W. Harper 1825 - 1911

Poet, abolitionist, feminist, anti-slavery lecturer/orator... great American.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Harper

From biography.com https://www.biography.com/people/frances-ew-harper-40710:
In 1854, Harper published Poems of Miscellaneous Subjects, which featured one of her most famous works, "Bury Me in a Free Land." She also became an in-demand lecturer on behalf of the abolitionist movement, appearing with the likes of Frederick Douglass, William Garrison, Lucretia Mott and Lucy Stone.

Harper made literary history in 1859 with the publication of "Two Offers". With this work, she became the first African-American female writer to publish a short story.

Frances' poem Bury Me in a Free Land with commentary and analysis https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/feb/27/poem-of-the-week-bury-me-in-a-free-land-by-frances-ew-harper

An interesting guide on teaching the student about Frances Harper and her writings: Source: http://faculty.georgetown.edu/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/harperf.html
Harper, like Emerson, is ever the teacher and preacher, but the philosophy that she comes out of and lives is not, like his, individualistic--not focused on the self or Self. It is group-centered. I think that this is one of the most important points to make about Harper...

In her own time Harper was very popular and widely acclaimed, especially among black people. She was the best-known black poet between Phillis Wheatley and Paul Laurence Dunbar. "The Two Offers" is probably the first short story published in the U.S. by any black author. For many years "Iola Leroy" was considered the first novel written by a black American woman. Harper's public speaking was uniformly praised as brilliant.

From Why Americans Know Frederick Douglass but not Frances Harper January 25, 2018, by Koritha Mitchell:
http://www.korithamitchell.com/americans-know-frederick-douglass-not-frances-harper/
In short, Harper’s life and work exemplify the tradition among black women to engage in justice-oriented activism not only while encountering hostility but also whether or not they receive the recognition that seem to flow to their black male and white woman colleagues.

eText of Atlanta Offering: Poems by Frances E.W. Harper, Miami, Florida, First published 1895 Reprinted 1969 Reprinted from a copy in the Negro Collection of the Fiske University Library": https://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/BAC5663.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext

(5) Project Gutenberg eBooks by Frances offered including Iola Leroy; or Shadows Uplifted - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/345 * Note: Copyrights will vary from country to country.

Wikisource (downloads) including Poems of Miscellaneous Subjects: click the (External scan) links -
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Frances_Harper


Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

GAMMA: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQJqWMSTBd4NJCpXbAOmZG-jTD1fxTDFIXApN7tywXvtZgEOP83Nu8SspFCw_7sPNuQ-OAwjJkFoDaM/pub

[tailor STATELY]

Jean Toomer; aka Nathaniel Jean Toomer; aka Nathan Eugene "Jean" Pinchback Toomer

1894 - 1967

African American teacher of philosophy, novelist, and poet loosely associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

Bio at AfricanAmerican.org http://www.africanamerica.org/topic/nathaniel-jean-toomer:
He taught philosophy in Harlem and Chicago until the mid-1930s. Toomer wrote voluminously until his death, and although much of his writing received occasional praise for its experimentation, African-Americans largely dismissed it.

Poetry Foundation bio and selected poems: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jean-toomer

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Toomer

24- poems: https://www.poetrynook.com/poet/jean-toomer

17- poems: https://mypoeticside.com/poets/jean-toomer-poems

Jean Toomer and the Politics and Poetics of National Identity
Onita Estes--Hicks, State University of New York at Old Westbury January 1985: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1046&context=cibs

Race and Religion in Jean Toomer’s "Cane" by Carley Charbonneau: https://carleycharbonneau.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/race-and-religion-in-jean-toomers-cane.pdf

An analysis of The Blue Meridian:

• http://images.slideplayer.com/32/9932132/slides/slide_6.jpg

• https://www.enotes.com/topics/blue-meridian/in-depth

The Yale University Jean Toomer papers: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/toomer/ToomerpapersYale.pdf

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

GAMMA: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQJqWMSTBd4NJCpXbAOmZG-jTD1fxTDFIXApN7tywXvtZgEOP83Nu8SspFCw_7sPNuQ-OAwjJkFoDaM/pub

[AuntShecky]

Thanks for these posts, Tailor!

[AuntShecky]

In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's death yesterday, it might be appropriate to cite an example of the type of injustice which the Civil Rights Movement hoped to eradicate. As Dr. King unknowingly approached the end of his life, the Civil Rights movement was pointed toward the future, by beginning to expand its focus on other pressing issues of the day, such as poverty and the anti-war movement, notably with fair educational practices. Thus, the inspiration for today's posting:


Diane Oliver

In 1943 Diane Oliver was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, a daughter of a public school educator and his wife, a piano teacher. Diane attended segregated elementary schools, despite the fact that she was an elementary school pupil in 1954 when the historic Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education occurred.

By the time she reached college age, she was a member of only the second integrated freshman class to be admitted into Women’s College (later known as University of North Carolina at Greensboro.)

After winning a fiction-writing contest for a young women’s magazine, Diane had the opportunity to live and study in England and Switzerland before returning to the United States. She studied at the prestigious Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa until she died in an auto accident in 1966, when she was awarded her MFA posthumously.

Because her career was cut short, Diane Oliver’s body of work makes up in quality what it necessarily lacks in quantity. She made significant and relevant artistic choices.

For instance, the progress of school integration developed painfully slowly, not without extreme anguish for the families and young pioneers who were the first to break this seemingly adamantine color line. Having witnessed a friend enduring such an ordeal, Diane later used the material for the most famous of her stories, “Neighbors.”

The narrator of the story is Ellie, a young adult whose family is in a state of turmoil the day before her brother is scheduled to transfer schools– his first day in an all-white school. The subtle unfolding of emotions, such as showing the family going about their daily routines both before and after a sudden dramatic event, gives the story authenticity.

In addition, like “if We Must Die” by Junius Edwards, “Neighbors” can be categorized as a work of art accurately reflecting historic events and conditions as they are occurring.

“Neighbors”can be found online and also in several anthologies, including Modern Short Stories: The Uses of Imagination, edited by Arthur Mizener, published by Norton in 1971, with a subsequent edition eight years later.

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Tracy K. Smith


Tracy K. Smith (born April 16, 1972) is an American poet and educator. She is currently serving as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States, an office she assumed in 2017. She has published three collections of poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 volume Life on Mars." " In April 2018, she was nominated for a second term as United States Poet Laureate by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_K._Smith

Blue Flower Arts pages about Tracy: http://blueflowerarts.com/artist/tracy-k-smith/

Article, March 22, 2018: "Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith on America’s Troubled Racial History" - https://www.vogue.com/article/tracy-k-smith-poet-vogue-april-2018

Youtube videos of Tracy reading her poem Wade in the Water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0znrveDbNI

Reading from Life on Mars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLIH6ewfplA

Reading from Ordinary Light: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsXWErr_-lg&pbjreload=10

Poetry Foundation:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/tracy-k-smith

Poem My God, It's Full of Stars - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/55519

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
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Robert Hayden August 4, 1913 – February 25, 1980

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hayden


Hayden’s influences included Wylie, Cullen, Dunbar, Hughes, Bontemps, Keats, Auden and Yeats. Hayden’s work often addressed the plight of African Americans, usually using his former home of Paradise Valley slum (Detroit, Michigan) as a backdrop, as he does in the poem "Heart-Shape in the Dust". Hayden’s work made ready use of black vernacular and folk speech. Hayden wrote political poetry as well, including a sequence on the Vietnam War.

On the first poem of the sequence, he said: “I was trying to convey the idea that the horrors of the war became a kind of presence, and they were with you in the most personal and intimate activity, having your meals and so on. Everything was touched by the horror and the brutality and criminality of war. I feel that's one of the best of the poems.

From Modern American Poetry: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hayden/life.htm


Robert Hayden looms as one of the most technically gifted and conceptually expansive poets in American and African American letters. Attending to the specificities of race and culture, Hayden's poetry takes up the sobering concerns of African American social and political plight; yet his poetry posits race as a means through which one contemplates the expansive possibilities of language, and the transformational power of art. An award-winning poet of voice, symbol, and lyricism, Hayden's poetry celebrates human essence.

12 Poems: http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/robert_hayden/poems

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
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Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), a.k.a. LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka

Poet, playwright, activist, essayist, Professor, Poet Laureate of New Jersey, and poet laureate of the Newark Public Schools. He "received honors from a number of prestigious foundations, including: fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Langston Hughes Award from the City College of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation Award for Drama, an induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Before Columbus Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award."...


In Rain Taxi, Richard Oyama criticized Baraka's militant aesthetic...In the end, Baraka's work suffered because he preferred ideology over art, forgetting the latter outlasts us all.


In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Amiri Baraka on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

Above cited from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiri_Baraka

From http://www.amiribaraka.com/ :
The literary world respects the playwright and poet, Amiri Baraka as one of the revolutionary provocateurs of African-American poetry. He is counted among the few influential political activists who have spent most of their life time fighting for the rights of African-Americans.

YouTube: "Amiri Baraka on his poetry and breaking rules": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHG60P2ECNk

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
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Frank Marshall Davis 1905 - 1987

Poet, activist, and journalist.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Marshall_Davis

Quotes from Poetry Foundation - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/frank-marshall-davis :


Although critics have disagreed about the value of Davis' poetry—whether at times he is presenting poetry or propaganda, poetry or prose—as Black Literature Criticism concludes, "few dispute the sociological and historical value of his works.


Yet his poetry will be remembered for more than its sound and its social commentary, observes Helena Kloder in CLA Journal, who believes that Davis' greatest strength lies in his creation of visual art, calling his poetry "a force of verbal kodacolor snapshots and reels of spliced, almost always precisely edited, motion pictures" which offer readers "an assortment of colorful, realistic portraits of Americans (black and white), their lifestyles, their visions."

Rice & Roses Documentary in 3-parts including: poetry readings, interviews, history, and jazz (YouTube)
• Part 1... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUgF7-psibk
• Part 2... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30J37bHFeCU
• Part 3... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vaWyyOUa3g

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
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George Moses Horton 1798 ? - 1884 ?

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Moses_Horton ... Poet: "the first to be published in the Southern United States. His book The Hope of Liberty was published in 1829 while he was still enslaved."

"Horton's poetic style was typical of contemporary European poetry and was similar to poems written by free white contemporaries, likely a reflection of his reading and his work for commission.[3] He wrote both sonnets and ballads. His earlier works focused on his life in slavery."

Poetry Foundation: Bio and 8-poems -

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/george-moses-horton

Poem Hunter: 69 poems -

https://www.poemhunter.com/george-moses-horton/poems/

Several videos:

https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=george-moses-horton+videos+youtube&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

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Lucille Clifton 1936 - 2010

"In addition to the Ruth Lilly prize, Clifton was the first author to have two books of poetry chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969-1980 (1987) and Next: New Poems (1987)." - PoetryFoundation.org; bio and poems:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lucille-clifton

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_Clifton

"The Poet's Reflections on What Poetry Is" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfYCRZ9LVh4

Lucille speaking of her works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPr6EOggzm0

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[AuntShecky]

Wanda Coleman

Dubbed the “unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles” along with “L.A. Blueswoman,” Wanda Coleman (1946-2013) is still another literary light who deserved more recognition in her lifetime.

The samples of her poems offered online display a breathy naturalism, the kind of improvisational quality heard in good jazz. The subject matter is detailed, realistic, and affecting. A free-wheeling “On the Road” type of sensibility echoes through “In that Other Fantasy Where We Live Forever,” with a definite undertone of sorrow, both historical and personal.

Despite their seemingly colloquial diction, these poems blend form and content in a way similar to the tradition of Metaphysical poets. Additionally, as evident in poems such as “Mastectomy,” Wanda Coleman has ability to make a poem “do what it says.”

One of Wanda Coleman’s most significant contributions is the creation (or re-creation) of an age-old poetic form, now called the “American sonnet.”
(More about this next time.)



https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/wanda-coleman



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanda_Coleman

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Gil Scott-Heron 1949 – 2011

Writer, poet, musician.

https://www.poemhunter.com/gil-scott-heron/

I ain’t saying I didn’t invent rapping,” says Gil Scott-Heron. “I just cannot recall the circumstances.

Article: http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/48003/

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Scott-Heron

Poem "Black History": http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/heronblackhistory.html

Obituary: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/arts/music/gil-scott-heron-voice-of-black-culture-dies-at-62.html -
... Yet, along with the work of the Last Poets, a group of black nationalist performance poets who emerged alongside him in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Mr. Scott-Heron established much of the attitude and the stylistic vocabulary that would characterize the socially conscious work of early rap groups like Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions. And he has remained part of the DNA of hip-hop by being sampled by stars like Kanye West.

YouTube: "Gil Scott-Heron poetry (mostly)" - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH8flyG1AInHEnyHujbKOQtuhzT9Z4xNO

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[AuntShecky]

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, Don Chiasson presents a profile of Terrance Hayes (b. 1971) with the publication of the poet’s new book,American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin.

The new collection consists of 70 poems, each with the same title as the book. This unconventional repetition of individual titles is just one of the ways Terrance Hayes’s voice is original. Don Chiasson writes: “A former college basketball star, he treats poetry like a timed game, a theatre for dramatic last-minute outcomes.” Hayes himself describes the form as
“part music box, part meat grinder.” Chiasson explains that the poems are not mere protest nor “invective but diagnosis.” Similar to some of the great Black American writers we’ve visited on this thread, Terrance Hayes has the ability to express both the biographical present and the historical past in the very same lines.

Though Hayes states he is concerned with feeling, he seems to be adept with both language and the poetic form. The Italian and later English Renaissance sonnet, with its proscribed cadences and 14-line length, readily emigrated to these shores by the twentieth century, Chiasson says, with its “gait loosened, its politics sharpened.”

The adapted form called the American sonnet first appeared with the poems of Wanda Coleman. (See #57 above.) In an earlier collection, Hayes paid tribute to his inspiration with “American Sonnet for Wanda C.” Like the last line of Wanda’s poem about a mastectomy, the last line of Hayes’s poem about her ends abruptly.

As evident in the earlier poems, Hayes displays a facility, almost a playfulness, with language. Words starting with “c” (as in “Coleman”) abound, and the end words are slant rhymes, a technique perfected by Gwendolyn Brooks (also subject of a tribute in “The Golden Sword,” in a way a riff on Brooks’s “we real cool” poem.)

Concerning Hayes’s word choice and interest in initial letters of words, the New Yorker critique includes one of the American sonnets which uses every letter of the alphabet. Such poems are “game-like,” Chiasson says. At times they seem like word puzzles.

Hayes improvises like a jazz pianist; you can almost detect the angular near-dissonant notes of Thelonious Monk in some of those lines. Yet, at the same time Hayes keeps the language grounded, looking at it granularly-- not just as sentences but words, and not mere words but the letters which compose them. Is that the point, I wonder? Perhaps that’s what pure radicalism means: getting down to the root.

The Hayes poems offered by the Poetry Foundation (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/terrance-hayes) page show subject matter that is often painful and provocative, but the expression provides an affirmative experience. I am grateful to have learned about this exciting new poet!


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/terrance-hayes