This address was delivered as the Keynote Address at The Learning Center’s  Black History Month Program at The Gay Men’s Health Crises in Manhattan, New York on February 24^th, 2010. 
 
 

“….Awakened at 4 A.M., I rise alone,

answer the phone,

darkness casting shadows amongst

the white walls of my apartment.” 

AFRICAN-AMERICAN POETRY FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT

By

Cleo E. Brown 
 
 
 
 

      Several years ago, I was invited to my oldest brother’s home for dinner.  My brother has been married for over twenty years to a very nice woman from Germany.  They have two sons named Trey and David whom are both dyslexic.  This means that reading anything for Trey and for David is quite difficult.  I cannot tell you, therefore, how thrilled I was when my nephew, who is now thirteen, he was ten years old at the time, began reciting these words he had learned in school that day.  He said:  Mercy, Mercy me things ain’t what they used to be, no

            Where did all the blue skies go?

            Poison is the wind that blows

            From the north and south and east.

For those of you who are familiar with popular music, you know that those are the words to Marvin Gaye’s “Ecology Song.”  I recognized the words immediately as well as the name of the African-American Poet who wrote them, and marveled at ten year old David’s and Marvin Gaye’s ability to turn a dinner party into a jubilant celebration. 

      More recently, I had the good fortune to see a film named Notorious B.I.G. about the rise of an East Coast Rapper named Christopher Wallace a/k/a Biggie Smalls and his rivalry with a West Coast Rapper named Tupac Shakur.  Besides the fact that both men died young, as did Marvin Gaye, both men were modern day poets as was Marvin Gaye.  In In the Midst of Passion Tupac Shakur wrote: 

            In the midst of passion 2 figures stand

            Emerged in ecstasy joined hand and hand

            Words are unnecessary feelings R heard

            The body takes control deaf 2 words

            It is at this stage that I think of u

            In gratitude for this joy u have exposed me 2

            Each day is bright with you as the Dawn

            With the collapse of each night a strong bond is born… 

Now, I don’t want you to think that all modern day poets are men for there is Queen Latifah.  Nor, are they all rappers and musicians for there is Sonia Sanchez and there is Leroi Jones (Amiri Barracka).  Some are playwrights such as Ntoke Shange in For Colored Girls who have considered suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf or Lemon Anderson in County of Kings.  Some are Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning authors such as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker.  All derive their talent from our roots, however, which can be traced back to the tradition of the West African Griot, or storyteller, and the merging of this tradition with the English Language.

      African-American Poetry can be categorized by five distinct period’s of time in our Nation’s History.  These are:  The Early African-American Literature Era;

The Post Slavery Era; The Harlem Renaissance; The Civil Rights Movement; and The Recent Era.  There is a sixth movement, however, in African-American   Literature which takes place during the 1800’s.  This is the period of time of the great slave narratives during which very little African-American Poetry was written. 

      During the Early Period, the work of poets such as Phyllis Wheatley, Lucy Terry and Jupiter Hammond is important.  They were all firsts.  Lucy Terry was the first African-American person to write a poem publicly.  Jupiter Hammond was the first African-American person to publish a poem in the United States while Phyllis Wheatley was the first African-American woman to publish in the United States.  They did not usually write about themselves.  They wrote about God.  They wrote about each other.  They wrote about Liberty.  They wrote about other people including their owners.  In Bars Fight Lucy Terry writes about two families who were killed by Native American Indians in a meadow.  She writes: 

            August ‘twas the twenty-fifth,

            Seventeen hundred forty-six

            The Indians did in ambush lay,

            Some very valiant men to slay,

            The names of whom I’ll not leave out.

            Samuel Allen like a hero fout,

            And though he was so brave and bold,

            His face no more shalt we behold… 

      Although Jupiter Hammond died a slave, Phyllis Wheatley’s work was so impressive that she was given her freedom based upon the merits of her poetry.  Lucy Terry’s work, however, although written around 1746 from a prison, was not published until around 1853.

      The next era was the Post Slavery Era which was characterized by the work of Paul Laurence Dunbar who wrote in both The Black Dialect of the day and in standard, grammatically correct English.  The Post Slavery Era is the period of time after the Civil War in which there are both Reconstruction in the south, and the birth of Jim Crow Law in the south.  These are two distinct periods of time which are contained within this same Era.  For instance, Reconstruction begins immediately after The Civil War (1865-1872) and with it is the passage of the Civil Rights Amendments (the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments) giving to the newly freed slaves their Civil Rights.  While the Jim Crow Laws, which invalidate much of this Civil Rights Legislation, are enacted in fact by around 1870 and in law by around 1896 with The Plessey vs. Ferguson Decision by The Supreme Court.  Now, you must understand that this was deeply troubling for the great masses of African-Americans in the United States for they had worked very hard both to attain and to keep their freedom.  A beautiful example of Dunbar’s poetry as well as the consternation which he and other African-American’s felt over this loss of freedom is contained in his poem entitled Compensation.  In Compensation he wrote: 

            Because I had loved so deeply,

            Because  I had loved so long,

            God in His great compassion

            Gave me the gift of song. 

            Because I have loved so vainly,

            And sung with such faltering breath,

            The Master in infinite Mercy

            Offers the boon of Death. 

      The Harlem Renaissance was begun by W.E.B. Dubois and was born as the result of Jim Crow in the south and the consequent disenfranchisement (or loss of civil rights including the vote) which occurred.  The Harlem Renaissance was the rebirth of African-American Culture through the arts.  Poetry during this period of time is characterized by the work of people like Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude Mckay, Jeane Toomer, and James Weldon Johnson whose lyrics we sing at the beginning of each Black History Month Program in tribute to all people of African descent:  Lift every voice and sing, till Earth and Heaven ring, ring with the harmony of Liberty….Unfortunately, the Harlem Renaissance ended around the same period of time as the Great Depression began in 1928 because there was no more money to put into the growing community of Harlem.

      With the Civil Rights Movement is the resurgence of the female poets who, after the time of Phyllis Wheatley and Lucy Terry, seemed to be nonexistent.  During the Civil Rights Period notable poets are Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, and Sonia Sanchez.  These poets, who belonged to The Black Arts Movement, which was the artistic branch of the Black Power Movement, were more likely to speak of their liberation in terms of both their race and their gender.  These women also liked to write about themselves within the context of their family relationships.  In this touching tribute to her father, Sonia Sanchez writes:   

            With exact wins

            Your words sailed back

            Into your throat.  Could

            Not fly forward.

            Your mouth face

            Startled by this autumn

            Thunder went south again.

            I had forgotten the salute

            Of death, how it waits Militarily

            On the outskirts of our skin.

            I had forgotten how death

            Howls inside our veins.

            O father, how much like a child

            Again I felt as I ran down doctors

            Painted on porcelain corridors.

            O My father, as I breathed

            Inhaled for us both,

            I began to sing a song

            You sang when I was little

            Without a poet’s name,

            Afraid of all the shadows

            Cremating my bones, 

                  Remember the nite,

                  The nite you said

                  I love you

                  Remember… 

            I remembered your voice swollen

            In a ritual of words on

            152^nd Street and St. Nicholas Place.

            Now I, daughter of applause,

            Hands waterlogged with memory,

            Asked for nothing more

            As I circled your hospital room,

            Sequined with our breaths

            In an hour-glass of sound. 

      Finally, we have the more recent era as well as the future which is characterized by the work of many people and different types of artists.  Some poets of the recent era are Leroi Jones (who began The Black Arts Movement), Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Rita Dove (who was the poet laureate of the The United States from 1992-1993), Tupack Shakur, Marvin Gaye, Lemon Anderson, Queen Latifah, and many others.  I recently had the good fortune to attend a performance of Lemon Anderson’s work at The Public Theater in New York.   Lemon Anderson is a Biracial young man from Brooklyn who has struggled through the trauma of watching his drug addicted parents die from Aids, as well as the trauma of going through the prison system.  He is a masterful poet and playwright who, through rap, demonstrates the heights to which poetry can be used to tell a story. He, like so many others, are poets of the future.  I highly recommend his one man show entitled County of Kings to anyone who has the opportunity to see it.

      In closing, I would like to leave you with two poems:  the first was written by William Shakespeare over five-hundred years ago, while the second poem was written by Queen Latifah during modern contemporary times; keeping in mind that of the most requested poetry for the year 2009, according to Poetry.com, that four of the top ten poems were written by African-Americans while a fifth, William Shakespeare’s My Mistress’ Eyes are nothing like the Sun or Sonnet 130, was written about a Black Woman. 

SONNET 130 

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the

Sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts

Are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her

Head.

I have seen roses damask’d, red and

White,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more

Delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress

Reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing

Sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on

The ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as

Rare

As any she belied with false compare.  
 

And, this by Queen Latifah is called Latifah’s Law 

            Alright, listen, I’m back again cause that’s what you required of

            Me steady rhyming, and I’m so sick and tired of

            Being forced to put suckers in their place

            You make me mad enough to punch you in the face.

            But I’m not trying, so never sound like I don’t bone to pick with you

            Show and prove that you can stand on your own two

            I speak the poetry, dissing those who keep on quoting me.

            So smile in my face, behind my back take a line or two

            I’m not an idiot, so who you think you lyin to?

            So speed it up or shake it around because it’s a showdown

            The 45 king is arising, suprising, hypnotizing star, he’s up to par

            So I hope you’ve prepared yourself for what you’re in for

            This is Latifah’s law. 

Thank you.