Table of Contents
1.What was the Harlem Renaissance? http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/ethnicstudies/harlem.html (for a brief answer)
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap9/9intro.html#fea (even more)
2. Sterling Brown, “Southern Road”
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15490 (link here)
Two illustrations to Sterling Brown’s “Southern
Road”
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/brown/illustrations.htm
3. Countee Cullen (1903-1946)
What is Africa to me:
Copper sun or scarlet sea,
Jungle star or jungle track,
Strong bronzed men, or regal black
Women from whose loins I sprang
When the birds of Eden sang?
One three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?
So I lie, who all day long
Want no sound except the song
Sung by wild barbaric birds
Goading massive jungle herds,
Juggernauts of flesh that pass
Trampling tall defiant grass
Where young forest lovers lie,
Plighting troth beneath the sky.
So I lie, who always hear,
Though I cram against my ear
Both my thumbs, and keep them there,
Great drums throbbing through the air.
So I lie, whose fount of pride,
Dear distress, and joy allied,
Is my somber flesh and skin,
With the dark blood dammed within
Like great pulsing tides of wine
That, I fear, must burst the fine
Channels of the chafing net
Where they surge and foam and fret.
Africa? A book one thumbs
Listlessly, till slumber comes.
Unremembered are her bats
Circling through the night, her cats
Crouching in the river reeds,
Stalking gentle flesh that feeds
By the river brink; no more
Does the bugle-throated roar
Cry that monarch claws have leapt
From the scabbards where they slept.
Silver snakes that once a year
Doff the lovely coats you wear,
Seek no covert in your fear
Lest a mortal eye should see
What's your nakedness to me?
Here no leprous flowers rear
Fierce corollas in the air;
Here no bodies sleek and wet,
Dripping mingled rain and sweat,
Tread the savage measures of
Jungle boys and girls in love.
What is last year's snow to me,
Last year's anything? The tree
Budding yearly must forget
How its past arose or set--
Bough and blossom, flower, fruit,
Even what shy bird with mute
Wonder at her travail there,
Meekly labored in its hair.
One three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?
So I lie, who find no peace
Night or day, no slight release
From the unremittent beat
Made by cruel padded feet
Walking through my body's street.
Up and down they go, and back,
Treading out a jungle track.
So I lie, who never quite
Safely sleep from rain at night--
I can never rest at all
When the rain begins to fall;
Like a soul gone mad with pain
I must match its weird refrain;
Ever must I twist and squirm,
Writhing like a baited worm,
While its primal measures drip
Through my body, crying, "Strip!
Doff this new exuberance.
Come and dance the Lover's Dance!"
In an old remembered way
Rain works on me night and day.
Quaint, outlandish heathen gods
Black men fashion out of rods,
Clay, and brittle bits of stone,
In a likeness like their own,
My conversion came high-priced;
I belong to Jesus Christ,
Preacher of Humility;
Heathen gods are naught to me.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
So I make an idle boast;
Jesus of the twice-turned cheek,
Lamb of God, although I speak
With my mouth thus, in my heart
Do I play a double part.
Ever at Thy glowing altar
Must my heart grow sick and falter,
Wishing He I served were black,
Thinking then it would not lack
Precedent of pain to guide it,
Let who would or might deride it;
Surely then this flesh would know
Yours had borne a kindred woe.
Lord, I fashion dark gods, too,
Daring even to give You
Dark despairing features where,
Crowned with dark rebellious hair,
Patience wavers just so much as
Mortal grief compels, while touches
Quick and hot, of anger, rise
To smitten cheek and weary eyes.
Lord, forgive me if my need
Sometimes shapes a human creed.
All day long and all night through,
One thing only must I do:
Quench my pride and cool my blood,
Lest I perish in the flood,
Lest a hidden ember set
Timber that I thought was wet
Burning like the dryest fax,
Melting like the merest wax,
Lest the grave restore its dead.
Not yet has my heart or head
In the least way realized
They and I are civilized.
4. Langston Hughes, “I, Too, Sing America”
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--I, too, am America.
5. Langston Hughes, “America”
Little
dark baby,
Little Jew baby,
Little outcast,
America is seeking the stars,
America is seeking tomorrow.
You are America.
I am America
America— the dream,
America— the vision.
America— the star-seeking I.
Out of yesterday
The chains of slavery;
Out of yesterday,
The ghettos of Europe;
Out of yesterday,
The poverty and pain of the old, old world,
The building and struggle of this new one,
We come
You and I,
Seeking the stars.
You and I,
You of the blue eyes
And the blond hair,
I of the dark eyes
And the crinkly hair.
You and I
Offering hands
Being brothers,
Being one,
Being America.
You and I.
And I?
Who am I?
You know me:
I am Crispus Attucks at the Boston Tea Party;
Jimmy Jones in the ranks of the last black troops marching
for democracy.
I am Sojourner Truth preaching and praying for the goodness
of this wide, wide land;
Today’s black mother bearing tomorrow’s America.
Who am I?
You know me,
Dream of my dreams,
I am America.
I am America seeking the stars.
America—
Hoping, praying,
Fighting, dreaming.
Knowing
There are stains
On the beauty of my democracy,
I want to be clean.
I want to grovel
No longer in the mire.
I want to reach always
After stars.
Who am I?
I am the ghetto child,
I am the dark baby,
I am you
And the blond tomorrow
And yet
I am my one sole self,
America seeking the stars.
6.
Georgia Douglas Johnson, “The Heart of a Woman”
7. Helene Johnson, “Sonnet To A Negro In Harlem”
(1927)
You are
disdainful and magnificent--
Your
perfect body and your pompous gait,
Your dark
eyes flashing solemnly with hate;
Small
wonder that you are incompetent
To imitate
those whom you so dispise--
Your
shoulders towering high above the throng,
Your head
thrown back in rich, barbaric song,
Palm trees
and manoes stretched before your eyes.
Let others
toil and sweat for labor's sake
And wring
from grasping hands their meed of gold.
Why urge
ahead your supercilious feet?
Scorn will
efface each footprint that you make.
I love your
laughter, arrogant and bold.
You are too
splendid for this city street!
8. Helene Johnson, “Poem” (1927)
Little
brown boy,
Slim, dark,
big-eyed,
Crooning
love songs to your banjo
Down at the
Lafayerre--
Gee, boy, I
love the way you hold your head,
High sort
of and a bit to one side,
Like a
prince, a jazz prince. And I love
Your eyes
flashing, and your hands,
And your
patent-leathered feet,
And your
shoulders jerking the jig-wa.
And I love
your teeth flashing,
And the way
your hair shines in the spotlight
Like it was
the real stuff.
Gee, brown
boy, I loves you all over.
I'm glad
I'm a jig. I'm glad I can
Understand
your dancin' and your
Singin',
and feel all the happiness
And joy and
don't care in you.
Gee, boy,
when you sing, I can close my ears
And hear
tom-toms just as plain.
Listen to
me, will you, what do I know
About
tom-toms? But I like the word, sort of,
Don't you?
It belongs to us.
Gee, boy, I
love the way you hold your head,
And the way
you sing, and dance,
And
everything.
Say, I
think you're wonderful. You're
Allright
with me,
You are.
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