African American Poetry

An Anthology, 1773-1927

Joan R. Sherman

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780486296043
• eBook ISBN: 9780486111452
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

In the 19th century, abolitionist and African-American periodicals printed thousands of poems by black men and women on such topics as bondage and freedom, hatred and discrimination, racial identity and racial solidarity, along with dialect verse that mythologized the Southern past. Early in the 20th century, black poets celebrated race consciousness in propagandistic and protest poetry, while World War I helped engender the outpouring of African-American creativity known as the "Harlem Renaissance."
The present volume spans this wealth of material, ranging from the religious and moral verse of Phillis Wheatley Peters (ca. 1753–1784) to the 20th-century sensibilities of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. Also here are works by George Moses Horton, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Alberry Alston Whitman, Henrietta Cordelia Ray, Daniel Webster Davis, Mary Weston Fordham, James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and many more.
Attractive and inexpensive, this carefully chosen collection offers unparalleled insight into the hearts and minds of African-Americans. It will be welcomed by students of the black experience in America and any lover of fine poetry.

ALBERRY ALSTON WHITMAN (1851—1901)

The “Poet Laureate of the Negro Race” was born a slave and became the finest African-American poet of his age. His epic-length Romantic poems reveal superior skills with a great variety of moods, subjects, emotions and techniques.

FROM NOT A MAN, AND YET A MAN

The hunters mount menacing as they go,
And thro’ the village disappearing slow,
Betake them to the woods and brisker ride
Along the neighb’ring forest’s eastern side.

There where a peaceful streamlet ambles by
Thro’ dabbling ferns and gossips cheerfully
With shaggy roots that reach into the flood,
They spy a maid just bord’ring womanhood.
Now ranging feathers in her head-gear fair,
And with her fingers combing out her hair,
She on the prone bank stands, where smoothly flows
The liquid mirror, and her beauty shows.
Now grand old sylvans raise their solemn heads,
And make obesience as she lightly treads
Beneath their outstretched arms, and looks around
To gather nuts upon the leaf-spread ground.
The hunters see her, wayward, wild and sweet;
She sees them not, nor hears their horses’ feet.
“Hold!” cries Sir Maxey, “What a lovely maid!
Ah! what a princess of this ancient shade!
Let me behold her! Quiet! Don’t move!
Did admiration e‘er see such a dove?
Young love no sweeter image ever drew
Upon imagination’s tender view.
Her perfect form in idle movements seems
The fleeting creature of our youthful dreams.”
A rougher comrade at his elbow growls,
“A purty good ’un o’ the dusky fowls,
She’s hard o’ hearin’, le’me try my gun;
Give her a skere, and see the red wench run.”
His deadly eye directs, his rifle speaks,
The maiden throws her arms and runs and shrieks;
Towards the hunters pitiously flies,
The mournful wastes lamenting with her cries,
Till at their feet she sinks, and all is o’er,
Poor bleeding Nanawawa is no more.

Thrice hail! proud land, whose genius boasts a Clay!
The Cicero of slavery’s palmy day,
The gifted champion of Compromise,
Whose mien majestic filled a nation’s eyes;
And on the eloquence of whose wise tongue
A learned Senate in rapt silence hung;
A Senate, too, whose fame no one impugns,
Of Websters, Randolphs, Marshals and Calhouns.
And could a land that boasts a mind like this —
That bord‘ring on the clime of freedom is —
Suffer a harlot with her whorings vile
To peacefully pollute her gen’rous soil?
Yes, green Kentucky with her native pride,
Proclaiming trust in the great Crucified,
Flaunting her prestige in the world’s wide face,
Boasting descent and precedence of race,
And by the greatest of all statesmen led,
Shared the pollutions of a slavish bed.
All o’er her fields, the blood-hound’s savage bay
Pressed the poor sable trembling runaway,
And sometimes by the home of Henry Clay!

I love Kentucky; tho’ she merit scorn
I can’t despise the land where I was born.
Her name I cherish, and expect to see
The day when all her sons will cherish me.
Her many sins have all in common been
With other sisters’ who their sins have seen.
Yes, I will pray for that good time to come
When I can say: Kentucky is my home.
And this I now ask at my country’s hand,
If I must die in some far distant land,
Then let my countrymen, when I am dead,
Where I was born, make my eternal bed.

Hail dawning Peace! Speed on thy glorious rise!
And with thy beams unseal the nation’s eyes.
Let Islam in the blaze of scimitar
Proclaim his rites, and gorge the fangs of war,
But peace be unto thee, land of our sires,
Whose sacred altar flames with holier fires!
Let lawlessness no longer stagger forth
With his destructive torch, nor South nor North;
And let the humblest tenant of the fields,
Secured of what his honest labor yields,
Pursue his calling, ply his daily care,
His home adorn and helpless children rear,
Assured that while our flag above him flies,
No lawless hand can dare molest his joys.

Free schools, free press, free speech and equal laws,
A common country and a common cause,
Are only worthy of a freeman’s boasts —
Are Freedom’s real and intrinsic costs.
Without these, Freedom is an empty name,
And war-worn glory is a ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliographical Note
• Copyright Page
• Note
• Table of Contents
• PHILLIS WHEATLEY PETERS (1753?—1784)
• GEORGE MOSES HORTON (1797?—1883?)
• JOSHUA McCARTER SIMPSON (1820?—1876)
• JAMES MONROE WHITFIELD (1822—1871)
• FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER (1824—1911)
• JAMES MADISON BELL (1826—1902)
• CHARLOTTE L. FORTEN GRIMKÉ (1837—1914)
• ALFRED ISLAY WALDEN (1847?—1884)
• ALBERRY ALSTON WHITMAN (1851—1901)
• GEORGE MARION MCCLELLAN (1860—1934)
• JOSEPH SEAMON COTTER, SR. (1861—1949)
• JOSEPHINE DELPHINE HENDERSON HEARD (1861-1921)
• DANIEL WEBSTER DAVIS (1862—1913)
• MARY WESTON FORDHAM (1862?—?)
• JAMES EDWIN CAMPBELL (1867—1896)
• JAMES DAVID CORROTHERS (1869—1919)
• JAMES WELDON JOHNSON (1871—1938)
• PRISCILLA JANE THOMPSON (1871—1942)
• PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR (1872—1906)
• ANNE SPENCER [ANNIE BETHEL SCALES BANNISTER] (1882—1975)
• CLAUDE MCKAY (1890—1948)
• JEAN TOOMER (1894-1967)
• LANGSTON HUGHES (1902—1967)
• COUNTEE CULLEN (1903—1946)
• ALPHABETICAL LIST OF TITLES
• ALPHABETICAL LIST OF FIRST LINES
• DOVER · THRIFT · EDITIONS