The Book of American Negro Poetry

By James Weldon Johnson and Various

Paul Laurence Dunbar Georgia Douglas Johnson W. E. Burghardt Du Bois Anne Spencer William Stanley Braithwaite James Edwin Campbell (and others)These are the poets who gave birth to the Harlem Renaissance. These are the voices who spoke truth to power at a time when power was at its zenith. But the truth they spoke was also great and did not yield. And it's, oh, for the white man's softening flesh, While the black man's muscles grow! Well I know which grows the mightier, I know; full well I know.("In the Matter of Two Men" by James D. Corrothers)But these poets establish their place in the full range of literary poetry. They are not merely African-American poets (or "Negro poets" in the terminology of the time). Their themes are those of Wordsworth, of Burns, of Whitman; their verse is free, rhymes, follows the rigid pattern of the sonnet, creates new forms. And yet it is in many respects the poetry of a particular people in a particular place and time. It speaks to the joys, the sufferings, the "knowings" of that people alone.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1508442460
• ISBN13: 9781508442462
• Release Date: February 2015
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 138 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"