Magical things happen when we give young people permission and the opportunity to share their innermost feelings with us. It's so encouraging to see the enthusiam with which these young people embrace life and allow their experiences and feelings to be exposed to the community.
This effort is an excellent example of how different generations of the village can come together and build for the future.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
James Weldon Johnson, Writer and Poet:
Author of "Lift Every Voice and Sing"
The Negro National Anthem
born in Jacksonville,
The Negro National Anthem
born in Jacksonville,
Florida, where he attended the
Public Schools. In 1894 he grad
uated from Atlanta University,
with the degree of A. B., and he
received the degree of A. M. from
the same University in 1904. Mr.
Johnson also spent three years in post
graduate
work at Columbia University, in the City of
New
York. In 1917, the honorary degree of Litt.
D.,
was conferred upon him by the Talladega
College,
Talladega, Alabama.
For several years, Mr. Johnson was princi-
pal of the Colored high school at
Jacksonville. He
was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1897,
and prac
ticed law in Jacksonville until 1901, when
he re
moved to New York to collaborate with his
bro
ther, J. Rosamond Johnson, in writing for
the light
opera stage.
In 1906, he was appointed United States
Consul
at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, being
transferred as
Consul to Corinto, Nicaragua, in 1909, and
to the
Azores in 1912. While in Corinto, he looked
after
the interests of his country during the
stormy days
of revolution which resulted in the
downfall of
Zelaya, and through the abortive revolution
against
Diaz.
His knowledge of Spanish has been put to
use
in the translation of a number of Spanish
plays. He
was the translator for the English libretto
of "Goy-
escas," the Spanish grand opera
produced by the
Metropolitan Opera Company in 1915. Mr.
Johnson
also has several French translations to his
credit.
Mr. Johnson is well known throughout the
coun
try as the Contributing Editor of the New
York
Age. He added to his distinction as a
newspaper
writer by winning in an editorial contest,
one of
three prizes offered by the Philadelphia
Public
Ledger, in 1916.
During the fall of 1916 Mr. Johnson went on
a
six weeks mission throughout the South,
when he
interviewed the editors of the leading
white news
papers and talked with them regarding the
atti
tude they should take on the exodus of
Negro la
bor, which was then reaching its height,
and upon
the whole Negro question.
Mr. Johnson contributes to various
magazines
and periodicals. His poems have appeared in
the
Century, the Independent, the Crisis and
other pub
lications. He is the author of a novel,
"The Auto
biography of an Ex-Colored Man," and a
volume
of poems, "Fifty Years and Other
Poems." He is
a member of the American Society of Authors
and
Composers, the American Sociological
Society, and
of the Civic Club of New York, and is the
Field Se
cretary of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.
Advancement of Colored People.
It is as a writer that Mr. Johnson is best
known.
His novel, "The Autobiography of an
Ex-Colored
Man" aroused considerable comment, and
his re
cent volume of poems, "Fifty Years and
Other
Poems" has been favorably reviewed by
a num
ber of the best critics of the country
Professor
Branden Matthews, of Columbia University,
in his
introduction which he wrote for the book,
says of
Mr. Johnson and his work, "But where
he shows
himself a pioneer is in the half-dozen
larger and
bolder poems, of a loftier strain, in which
he has
been -nobly successful in expressing amply
the
higher aspirations of his own people. It is
in ut
tering this cry for recognition, for
sympathy, for
understanding, and, above all, for justice,
that Mr.
Johnson is most original and most
powerful."
Mr. Elias Lieberman, in the American
Hebrew,
says of him, "James Weldon Johnson is
not only
versatile but more than that sincere. He
has con
tinued to do for the Negro race what Paul
Law
rence Dunbar began so inimitably. He has
thrown
the illuminating light of interpretation
upon lives
which for so many of us are puzzles."
The following was taken from a tribute to
him
in the Boston Evening Transcript :
"And in other verses that strike a
universal note
there is more often both felicity of
conception and
expression. Particular reference should be
made
to .Mr. Johnson's poem, "The Young
Warrior,"
which, set to music by Mr. Harry T.
Burleigh, has
been sung throughout Italy as a martial
song in
spiring the Italian soldier on his way to
the front.
The pieces in Negro dialect are
characteristic of
work of this kind and Mr .Johnson's
possesses the
usual intensity of pathos and the usual
humorous
abandon. One notes particularly, however,
in the
dialect verses in this volume, the absence
of
coarseness, of crudity, in the humor which
has
more or less pervaded the racial writers of
dialect
since Dunbar. Mr. Johnson, if he has done
noth
ing else to enhance the value of this kind
of speech
in verse, has given it a quality of
refinement."
See also (Excerpt from: Essay on the Negro's Creative Genius)
See also (Excerpt from: Essay on the Negro's Creative Genius)
Nikki Giovanni
Nikki Giovanni was born (Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr) on June 7, 1943.
She graduated with honors from Fisk University in 1967. She published
her first book of poems, Black Feeling, Black Talk in 1968.
Since the late 1960s she has been a resonant voice in the African American
community, as well as an prominent force in the Black Arts movement.
Some literal consciousness on Youtube from sistah Giovanni with love.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Antar, the Arabian Negro Warrior, Poet and Hero
A Fair Lady 'Twas then her beauties first enslaved my heart — Those glittering pearls and ruby lips, whose kiss Was sweeter far than honey to the taste. As when the merchant opes a precious box Of perfume, such an odor from her breath Comes toward me, harbinger of her approach; Or like an untouched meadow, where the rain Hath fallen freshly on the fragrant herbs That carpet all its pure untrodden soil: A meadow where the fragrant rain-drops fall Like coins of silver in the quiet pools. And irrigate it with perpetual streams; A meadow where the sportive insects himi, Like listless topers singing o'er their cups. And ply their forelegs like a man who tries With maimed hands to use the flint and steel. Antar
Author: Stafford, A. O. Volume: 1 Publisher: The Journal of Negro History Language: English Book contributor: JSTOR Link https://archive.org/details/jstor-3035636
Poems and Autobiography by George Moses Horton
Author: Horton, George Moses, 1798?-ca. 1880; Heartt, Dennis, 1783-1870
Subject: Horton, George Moses, 1798?-ca. 1880; African Americans; Slavery; Slaves; African American poets
Publisher: Hillsborough [N.C.] : Printed by D. Heartt
Language: English
Call number: b3177619x
Digitizing sponsor: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Book contributor: University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Link
https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofg00hort
Monday, March 31, 2014
Closing Women's History Month & Starting National Poetry Month with Phylis Wheatley
TO S. M., A YOUNG AFRICAN PAINTER,
On seeing his Works.
To show the lab 'ring bosom's deep intent,
And thought in living characters to paint,
When first thy pencil did those beauties give,
And breathing figures learnt from thee to live,
How did. those prospects give my soul delight,
A new creation rushing on my sight !
Still, wondrous youth ! each noble path pursue ;
On deathless glories fix thine ardent view :
Still may the painter's and the poet's fire,
To aid thy pencil and thy verse conspire !
(1864)
Author: Wheatley, Phillis, 1753-1784; Horton, George Moses, 1798?-ca. 1880. Poems by a slave; Odell, Margaretta Matilda; Knapp, Isaac, 1804-1843, publisher; Pendleton, William S., 1795-1879, engraver; Light and Horton, printer of plates
Subject: Wheatley, Phillis, 1753-1784
Publisher: Boston : Published by I. Knapp
Language: English
Digitizing sponsor: Emory University, Manuscript Archive and Rare Books Library
Book contributor: Emory University, Manuscript Archive and Rare Books Library
Link
https://archive.org/details/191229727.4837.emory.edu
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