become a writer grew particularly ardent. A good many
of my literary attempts saw the light in school and local
periodicals, some bringing encouraging comment. In June
of 1926, I was graduated, having been chosen as valedictorian
for that year.
I feel it necessary to mention here that my college
career was made possible mainly through the sacrifices of
my noble and devoted mother.
In the past winter I was engaged in teaching at Kendall
Institute in Sumter, S. C. During this time some of my
work appeared in _Opportunity_, _American Life_, _The Southwestern
Christian Advocate_, and _The Lyric West_.
This year one of my poems, “To Melody,” was awarded
the prize for the best sonnet in a state-wide contest conducted
by the United Daughters of the Confederacy
(North Carolina Division).
TO MELODY
I think that man hath made no beauteous thing
More lovely than a glorious melody
That soars aloft in splendor, full and free,
And graceful as a swallow on the wing!
A melody that seems to move, and sing,
And quiver, in its radiant ecstasy,
That bends and rises like a slender tree
Which sways before the gentle winds of Spring!
Ah, men will ever love thee, holy art!
For thou, of all the blessings God hath given,
Canst best revive and cheer the wounded heart
And nearest bring the weary soul to Heaven!
Of all God’s precious gifts, it seems to me,
The choicest is the gift of melody.
PORTRAIT
Her eyes? Dark pools of deepest shade,
Like sylvan lakes that lie
In some sequestered forest glade
Beneath a starry sky.
Her cheeks? The ripened chestnut’s hue,--
Rich autumn’s sun-kissed brown!
Caressed by sunbeams dancing through
Red leaves that flutter down.
Her form? A slender pine that sways
Before the murmuring breeze
In summer, when the south wind plays
Soft music through the trees.
Herself? A laughing, joyous sprite
Who smiles from dawn till dark,
As lovely as a summer night
And carefree as a lark.
RICHARD BRUCE
I was born in Washington, D. C., on the second of July,
1906, and have never ceased to marvel at the fact. After
attending public school with very good marks (I was
thrashed if I did not lead my class), I attended Dunbar
High School of the same city. When I was thirteen my
father died, my greatest impression being the crowded
church and the vault. Mother left Washington for New
York where my brother and I joined her in a few months.
New York was an adventure and still is. A glorious
something torn from a novel. Even the first hard winter
with mother ill and my feet on the ground was just a part
of it. My gathering bits of fur to paste on newspaper to
cut out for inner soles for my shoes, the walking to work
to save carfare, and getting lunch as best I could, all
seemed romantic and highly colored. Weren’t there theatres
and lights, Broadway, Fifth Avenue ... and lights?
Noise and bustle and high silk hats and flowers in pots
in the Bowery. Hobble cars creeping like caterpillars up
Broadway. Taxis and people and forty-second street.
Traffic towers and tall buildings. Wasn’t this New York?
A year later I discovered Harlem. I was at that time
an art apprentice at seven fifty a week. But that was too
little money. So I became in turn errand boy for ten
dollars, bell hop in an all-women’s hotel for eleven fifty-five,
eighteen with tips, secretary and confidence man for
a modiste for twenty-five, ornamental iron-worker and
designer for twenty-eight, and elevator operator for thirty.
Then I had the mumps and despite the glamor of New
York, I wanted to go, just go somewhere. So I went to
Panama working my way. Then New York again and a
costume design class. A visit home to D. C. where I met
Langston Hughes. _Opportunity_ accepted my first poem.
Washington for eleven months then New York again. I
arrived penniless and have remained so. Dilatory jobs,
trips to New England, Florida, California and Canada, but
always New York again. The few drawings and sketches
made on these trips were either destroyed, lost, or given
away en route. I began to write seriously and to paint
just as seriously; I entered contests but never won. I am
still penniless and happy and planning to go to Paris and
Vienna by hook or crook.
SHADOW
Silhouette
On the face of the moon
Am I.
A dark shadow in the light.
A silhouette am I
On the face of the moon
Lacking color
Or vivid brightness
But defined all the clearer
Because
I am dark,
Black on the face of the moon.
A shadow am I
Growing in the light,
Not understood as is the day,
But more easily seen
Because
I am a shadow in the light.
CAVALIER
Slay fowl and beast; pluck clean the vine,
Prepare the feast and pearl the wine.
Bring on the best! Bring on the bard,
Bring on the rest. Let nought retard
Nor yet distress with putrid breath,
My new mistress, My Lady Death.
WARING CUNEY
Waring Cuney was born in Washington, D. C., May 6,
1906. He received his education in the public schools of
that city and at Howard University. Later he attended
Lincoln University, and while there sang in the Glee Club
and the quartet. His work with these groups encouraged
him to study music and he is now studying voice at the
New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. His
first published poem was “No Images” which won first
award in the _Opportunity_ contest of 1926. Since then he
has continued to write and his poems have appeared in
_Opportunity_, Braithwaite’s _Anthology_, _The Forum_, and
_Palms_.
THE DEATH BED
All the time they were praying
He watched the shadow of a tree
Flicker on the wall.
There is no need of prayer,
He said,
No need at all.
The kin-folk thought it strange
That he should ask them from a dying bed.
But they left all in a row
And it seemed to ease him
To see them go.
There were some who kept on praying
In a room across the hall
And some who listened to the breeze
That made the shadows waver
On the wall.
He tried his nerve
On a song he knew
And made an empty note
That might have come,
From a bird’s harsh throat.
And all the time it worried him
That they were in there praying
And all the time he wondered
What it was they could be saying.
A TRIVIALITY
Not to dance with her
Was such a trivial thing
There were girls more fair than she,--
To-day
Ten girls dressed in white.
Each had a white rose wreath.
They made a dead man’s arch
And ten strong men
Carried a body through.
Not to dance with her
Was a trivial thing.
I THINK I SEE HIM THERE
I think I see Him there
With a stern dream on his face
I see Him there--
Wishing they would hurry
The last nail in place.
And I wonder, had I been there,
Would I have doubted too
Or would the dream have told me,
What this man speaks is true.
DUST
Dust,
Through which
Proud blood
Once flowed.
Dust,
Where a civilization
Flourished.
Dust,
The Valley of the Nile,
Dust,
You proud ones, proud of the skill
With which you play this game--Civilization;
Do not forget that it is a very old game.
Men used to play it on the banks
Of the Tigris and the Euphrates
When the world was a wilderness.
There is a circle around China
Where once a wall stood.
Carthage is a heap of ashes.
And Rome knew the pomp and glory
You know now.
The Coliseum tells a story
The Woolworth Building may repeat.
Dust,
Pharaohs and their armies sleep there.
Dust,
Shall it stir again?
Will Pharaohs rise and rule
And their armies march once more?
_Civilization continually shifts
Upon the places of the earth._
NO IMAGES
She does not know
Her beauty,
She thinks her brown body
Has no glory.
If she could dance
Naked,
Under palm trees
And see her image in the river
She would know.
But there are no palm trees
On the street,
And dish water gives back no images.
THE RADICAL
Men never know
What they are doing.
They always make a muddle
Of their affairs,
They always tie their affairs
Into a knot
They cannot untie.
Then I come in
Uninvited.
They do not ask me in;
I am the radical,
The bomb thrower,
I untie the knot
That they have made,
And they never thank me.
TRUE LOVE
Her love is true I know,
Much more true
Than angel’s love;
For angels love in heaven
Where a thousand harps
Are playing.
She loves in a tenement
Where the only music
She hears
Is the cry of street car brakes
And the toot of automobile horns
And the drip of a kitchen spigot
All day.
Her love is true I know.
EDWARD S. SILVERA
I was born in Florida in the year 1906--moved to
Orange, N. J., at an early age--graduated from Orange
High School in 1924--am now a Junior at Lincoln University,
Pennsylvania. Here I am a member of the varsity
basket-ball and tennis teams and a member of Kappa
Alpha Psi Fraternity.
I get a great deal of pleasure out of observing life and
then writing about it just as I see it.
SOUTH STREET
(Philadelphia, Pa.)
South Street is not beautiful,
But the songs of people there
Hold the beauty of the jungle,
And the fervidness of prayer.
South Street has no mansions,
But the hands of South Street men
Built pyramids along the Nile
That Time has failed to rend.
South Street is America,
Breast of the foster mother
Where a thousand ill-kept children
Vie for suck, with one another.
JUNGLE TASTE
There is a coarseness
In the songs of black men
Coarse as the songs
Of the sea,
There is a weird strangeness
In the songs of black men
Which sounds not strange
To me.
There is beauty
In the faces of black women,
Jungle beauty
And mystery
Dark hidden beauty
In the faces of black women,
Which only black men
See.
HELENE JOHNSON
Helene Johnson was born twenty years ago in Boston,
Mass., where she received her early education and attended
Boston University for a short time. A year ago she came
to New York to attend the Extension Division of Columbia
University. Her work has appeared in _Opportunity_,
_Vanity Fair_ and several New York dailies; and has been
reprinted in _Palms_, _The Literary Digest_, and Braithwaite’s
_Anthology_.
WHAT DO I CARE FOR MORNING
What do I care for morning,
For a shivering aspen tree,
For sun flowers and sumac
Opening greedily?
What do I care for morning,
For the glare of the rising sun,
For a sparrow’s noisy prating,
For another day begun?
Give me the beauty of evening,
The cool consummation of night,
And the moon like a love-sick lady,
Listless and wan and white.
Give me a little valley
Huddled beside a hill,
Like a monk in a monastery,
Safe and contented and still,
Give me the white road glistening,
A strand of the pale moon’s hair,
And the tall hemlocks towering
Dark as the moon is fair.
Oh what do I care for morning,
Naked and newly born--
Night is here, yielding and tender--
What do I care for dawn!
SONNET TO A NEGRO IN HARLEM
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 despise--
Your shoulders towering high above the throng,
Your head thrown back in rich, barbaric song,
Palm trees and mangoes 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!
SUMMER MATURES
Summer matures. Brilliant Scorpion
Appears. The Pelican’s thick pouch
Hangs heavily with perch and slugs.
The brilliant-bellied newt flashes
Its crimson crest in the white water.
In the lush meadow, by the river,
The yellow-freckled toad laughs
With a toothless gurgle at the white-necked stork
Standing asleep on one red reedy leg.
And here Pan dreams of slim stalks clean for piping,
And of a nightingale gone mad with freedom.
Come. I shall weave a bed of reeds
And willow limbs and pale nightflowers.
I shall strip the roses of their petals,
And the white down from the swan’s neck.
Come. Night is here. The air is drunk
With wild grape and sweet clover.
And by the sacred fount of Aganippe
Euterpe sings of love. Ah, the woodland creatures,
The doves in pairs, the wild sow and her shoats,
The stag searching the forest for a mate,
Know more of love than you, my callous Phaon.
The young moon is a curved white scimitar
Pierced thru the swooning night.
Sweet Phaon. With Sappho sleep like the stars at dawn.
This night was born for love, my Phaon.
Come.
POEM
Little brown boy,
Slim, dark, big-eyed,
Crooning love songs to your banjo
Down at the Lafayette--
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.
FULFILLMENT
To climb a hill that hungers for the sky,
To dig my hands wrist deep in pregnant earth,
To watch a young bird, veering, learn to fly,
To give a still, stark poem shining birth.
To hear the rain drool, dimpling, down the drain
And splash with a wet giggle in the street,
To ramble in the twilight after supper,
And to count the pretty faces that you meet.
To ride to town on trolleys, crowded, teeming
With joy and hurry and laughter and push and sweat--
Squeezed next a patent-leathered Negro dreaming
Of a wrinkled river and a minnow net.
To buy a paper from a breathless boy,
And read of kings and queens in foreign lands,
Hyperbole of romance and adventure,
All for a penny the color of my hand.
To lean against a strong tree’s bosom, sentient
And hushed before the silent prayer it breathes,
To melt the still snow with my seething body
And kiss the warm earth tremulous underneath.
Ah, life, to let your stabbing beauty pierce me
And wound me like we did the studded Christ,
To grapple with you, loving you too fiercely,
And to die bleeding--consummate with Life.
THE ROAD
Ah, little road all whirry in the breeze,
A leaping clay hill lost among the trees,
The bleeding note of rapture streaming thrush
Caught in a drowsy hush
And stretched out in a single singing line of dusky song.
Ah little road, brown as my race is brown,
Your trodden beauty like our trodden pride,
Dust of the dust, they must not bruise you down.
Rise to one brimming golden, spilling cry!
BOTTLED
Upstairs on the third floor
Of the 135th Street library
In Harlem, I saw a little
Bottle of sand, brown sand
Just like the kids make pies
Out of down at the beach.
But the label said: “This
Sand was taken from the Sahara desert.”
Imagine that! The Sahara desert!
Some bozo’s been all the way to Africa to get some sand.
And yesterday on Seventh Avenue
I saw a darky dressed fit to kill
In yellow gloves and swallow tail coat
And swirling a cane. And everyone
Was laughing at him. Me too,
At first, till I saw his face
When he stopped to hear a
Organ grinder grind out some jazz.
Boy! You should a seen that darky’s face!
It just shone. Gee, he was happy!
And he began to dance. No
Charleston or Black Bottom for him.
No sir. He danced just as dignified
And slow. No, not slow either.
Dignified and _proud_! You couldn’t
Call it slow, not with all the
Cuttin’ up he did. You would a died to see him.
The crowd kept yellin’ but he didn’t hear,
Just kept on dancin’ and twirlin’ that cane
And yellin’ out loud every once in a while.
I know the crowd thought he was coo-coo.
But say, I was where I could see his face,
And somehow, I could see him dancin’ in a jungle,
A real honest-to-cripe jungle, and he wouldn’t have on them
Trick clothes--those yaller shoes and yaller gloves
And swallow-tail coat. He wouldn’t have on nothing.
And he wouldn’t be carrying no cane.
He’d be carrying a spear with a sharp fine point
Like the bayonets we had “over there.”
And the end of it would be dipped in some kind of
Hoo-doo poison. And he’d be dancin’ black and naked and gleaming.
And he’d have rings in his ears and on his nose
And bracelets and necklaces of elephants’ teeth.
Gee, I bet he’d be beautiful then all right.
No one would laugh at him then, I bet.
Say! That man that took that sand from the Sahara desert
And put it in a little bottle on a shelf in the library,
That’s what they done to this shine, ain’t it? Bottled him.
Trick shoes, trick coat, trick cane, trick everything--all glass--
But inside--
Gee, that poor shine!
MAGALU
Summer comes.
The ziczac hovers
’Round the greedy-mouthed crocodile.
A vulture bears away a foolish jackal.
The flamingo is a dash of pink
Against dark green mangroves,
Her slender legs rivalling her slim neck.
The laughing lake gurgles delicious music in its throat
And lulls to sleep the lazy lizard,
A nebulous being on a sun-scorched rock.
In such a place,
In this pulsing, riotous gasp of color,
I met Magalu, dark as a tree at night,
Eager-lipped, listening to a man with a white collar
And a small black book with a cross on it.
Oh Magalu, come! Take my hand and I will read you poetry,
Chromatic words,
Seraphic symphonies,
Fill up your throat with laughter and your heart with song.
Do not let him lure you from your laughing waters,
Lulling lakes, lissome winds.
Would you sell the colors of your sunset and the fragrance
Of your flowers, and the passionate wonder of your forest
For a creed that will not let you dance?
WESLEY CURTWRIGHT
Wesley Curtwright was born in Brunswick, Georgia, on
November 30, 1910, but he knows as little about Georgia,
perhaps, as about any state in the South. Immediately
after his father’s death in 1913, he began a disjointed
tour of the land. He has “broken out in spots” of a dozen
states both South and North, attending at intervals various
schools. He lives in New York at present and has
lived there three years. He is attending Harlem Academy,
a small private school. He has contributed to _Opportunity_
and _The Messenger_.
THE CLOSE OF DAY
“To meet and then to part,” and that is all,
To slowly turn an album’s crusty leaves,
To see the faces and the scenes recall,
Are things that in a lifetime one achieves.
To wander down a broad-arch gallery,
Viewing the scenes from life on either side,
Pressed forward with the force of years to see
But part of every picture when espied.
The big sun in its blue dome keeps its course,
Without a falter moves upon its way.
So human life, returning to its source,
Is overtaken by the close of day.
To dream, and being rudely waked from thought,
Return to peaceful dreaming dearly bought.
LULA LOWE WEEDEN
Lula Lowe Weeden was born in Lynchburg, Va., Feb.
4, 1918. Her mother, Mrs. Lula L. Weeden, herself a
poet of ability, writes of this youngest of Negro singers:
“She is a very close observer. Each flower in my garden
she knows. Sometimes she counts each bloom, lingering
over those she likes most.
“Each one of my children is very distinct in her make
up. Lula is quiet, sweet and unselfish, a decided contrast
to the second. This gives each a chance for moral development
while trying to adjust her little mind to the other. A
few nights ago, Iola the second child slapped Mary the
baby. Lula said to Iola, ‘You are not being a good citizen
when you strike back even if Mary did slap you.’ Another
time, Iola was saying what her teacher had said
about her. Lula remarked, ‘It is not what she says you
do, it is what you do do.’ Neither statement meant much
to Iola.
“I have always mixed my night time stories with ‘Home
spun ones.’ All seem to like them best. I asked Lula
since Christmas why she liked my stories. She said because
they seemed to be true, and criticized fairy stories.
“I have emphasized racial stories for this reason--I
was born on a big farm. There were many employed by
my father, also tenants. With these we were not allowed
to mingle. On the edge of the farm there was a white
school. There was a barrier also. Those little girls with
golden locks looked like little angels to me. How I
wished to be like them with their shrill voices and laughter.
They seemed so happy. I just thought of them as things
apart. It took much to get this false conception out of
me. They were just God sent. This I have tried not to
have my children to fight. Now neither one wishes to be
white or dislikes them. To them, they all seem like
people.
“Lula does most of her writing at night. It is a privilege
to remain a few minutes after the other children to
finish something. Some nights she will write several. She
mumbles them to herself before she begins to write and
then keeps saying the words softly. She will finish this
and will draw figures and flowers or people. This she
does very well for a child until she says, ‘I am going to
write something else.’ Interruptions don’t seem to bother
her very much as the little ones are always saying something
to make her laugh. I usually attempt to quiet them,
but some of her best things are written with many around.
“When she shows them to me, she watches for a favorable
expression. I always try to be pleased, but somehow
she knows from my face that that was not so good,
then remarks, ‘I am going to write something else.’
“The amusing part about it all is that she feels as she
has begun to write at a mature age, but consoles herself
with this statement, ‘Stevenson did not begin to write until
he was fifteen and wrote very skillful things.’
“Lula is just a little girl and is very talkative if anyone
appeals to her and will talk with her. You can’t
explain anything too minutely for her--whether it is her
Sunday school lesson or a star, it matters little.”
ME ALONE
As I was going to town,
I saw a King and a Queen.
Such ringing of bells you never heard,
The clerks ran out of the stores;
You know how it was, Me alone.
I was standing as the others were,
“Oh! you little girl,” some one said,
“The King wants you,”
I became frightened
Wondering what he had to say,
Me alone.
Here’s what he wanted:
He wanted me to ride in his coach,
I felt myself so much riding in a King’s coach,
Me alone.
HAVE YOU SEEN IT
Have you ever seen the moon
And stars stick together?
Have you ever seen it?
Have you ever seen bad?
Have you ever seen good
And bad stick together?
Have you ever seen it?
ROBIN RED BREAST
Little Robin red breast,
I hear you sing your song.
I would love to have you put it into my little cage,
Into my little mouth.
THE STREAM
It was running down to the great Atlantic.
I called it back to me,
But it slyly looked and said,
“I have not time to waste,”
And just went arunning running on.
THE LITTLE DANDELION
The dandelion stares
In the yellow sunlight.
How very still it is!
When it is old and grey,
I blow its white hair away,
And leave it with a bald head.
DANCE
Down at the hall at midnight sometimes,
You hear them singing rhymes.
These girls are dancing with boys.
They are too big for toys.
INDEX
_Absence_, 91
Across the dewy lawn she treads, 195
A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in, 5
_Advice_, 156
A fancy halts my feet at the way-side well, 15
_Africa_, 123
_After All_, 191
_After the Quarrel_, 5
Ah, how poets sing and die, 50
Ah, I know what happiness is, 107
Ah, little road all whirry in the breeze, 221
Ah, you are cruel, 47
ALEXANDER, LEWIS, 122
ALLEN, GEORGE LEONARD, 203
All that night I walked alone and wept, 169
All the time they were praying, 208
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, 83
Always at dusk, the same tearless experience, 37
_America_, 83
And God stepped out on space, 19
_And What Shall You Say?_, 103
_April Day, An_, 102
A silence slipping around like death, 46
As I was going to town, 227
A tree is more than a shadow, 170
_At the Carnival_, 53
_Auf Wiedersehen_, 189
_Baby Cobina_, 200
_Baker’s Boy, The_, 58
_Band of Gideon, The_, 103
Beat the drums of tragedy for me, 148
BENNETT, GWENDOLYN B., 153
_Black Madonna, The_, 177
_Black Man Talks of Reaping, A_, 165
Black reapers with the sound of steel on stone, 94
_Blight_, 170
Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold, 99
BONTEMPS, ARNA, 162
_Bottled_, 221
Bow down my soul in worship very low, 87
BRAITHWAITE, WILLIAM STANLEY, 31
BROOKS, JONATHAN HENDERSON, 192
Brother, come, 103
Brother to the firefly, 55
BROWN, STERLING A., 129
Brown Baby Cobina, 200
BRUCE, RICHARD, 205
Brushes and paints are all I have, 155
_Cavalier_, 207
Cemeteries are places for departed souls, 159
_Challenge_, 138
Chilled into a serenity, 110
_Close of Day, The_, 225