Popular Writers of the Harlem RenaissanceIsaac Berg, Daniel LeeRobert Lee, Kathy Chung

Intro

Writers of the Harlem Renaissance were often part of a small circle, due to racial discrimination Many were friends and accomplices

They created a distinct style of literature and poetry that often drew inspiration from the hardships African Americans faced

Many grew up in other places and moved to Harlem or Chicago Less discrimination Others like them Burgeoning African American city culture

Countee Cullen

Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee; I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, "Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Balimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That's all that I remember.

Incident

Jessie Redmon Fauset

On summer afternoons I sit Quiescent by you in the park, And idly watch the sunbeams gild And tint the ash-trees' bark. Or else I watch the squirrels frisk And chaffer in the grassy lane; And all the while I mark your voice Breaking with love and pain.

I know a woman who would give Her chance of heaven to take my place; To see the love-light in your eyes, The love-glow on your face!

And there's a man whose lightest word Can set my chilly blood afire; Fulfillment of his least behest Defines my life's desire.

But he will none of me, nor I Of you. Nor you of her. 'Tis said The world is full of jests like these-- I wish that I were dead.

La Vie C'est la Vie

Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.I am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchenWhen company comes,But I laugh,And eat well,And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I'll be at the tableWhen company comes.Nobody'll dareSay to me,"Eat in the kitchen,”Then.Besides,They'll see how beautiful I amAnd be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

I, Too

Claude McKay

HEAR the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass Eager to heed desire's insistent call: Ah, little dark girls, who in slippered feet Go prowling through the night from street to street. Through the long night until the silver break Of day the little gray feet know no rest, Through the lone night until the last snow-flake Has dropped from heaven upon the earth's white breast, The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street. Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace, Has pushed the timid little feet of clay. The sacred brown feet of my fallen race! Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet In Harlem wandering from street to street.

Harlem Shadows

Wallace Thurman

Emma Lou had been born in a semi-white world, totally surrounded by an all-white one, and those few dark elements that had forced their way in had either been shooed away or else greeted with derisive laughter. It was the custom always of those with whom she came into most frequent contact to ridicule or revile any black person or object. A black cat was a harbinger of bad luck, black crepe was the insignia of mourning, and black people were either evil niggers with poisonous blue gums or else typical vaudeville darkies. It seemed as if the people in her world never went halfway in their recognition or reception of things black, for these things seemed always to call forth only the most extreme emotional reactions. They never provoked mere smiles or mere melancholy, rather they were the signal either for boisterous guffaws or pain-induced and tear-attended grief.

The Blacker the Berry

An excerpt from

Zora Neale Hurston

"Course Ah knowed it! That's how come Ah done it." He slapped his leg with his hand and almost rolled on the ground in his mirth. "If you such a big fool dat you got to have a fit over a earth worm or a string, Ah don't keer how bad Ah skeer you.”

"You aint got no business doing it. Gawd knows it's a sin. Some day Ah'm goin' tuh drop dead from some of yo' foolishness. 'Nother thing, where you been wid mah rig? Ah feeds dat pony. He aint fuh you to be drivin' wid no bull whip.”

"You sho is one aggravatin' nigger woman!" he declared and stepped into the room. She resumed her work and did not answer him at once. "Ah done tole you time and again to keep them white folks' clothes outa dis house."

SweatAn excerpt from

Nella Larsen

“Her front teeth just touched. She spoke through them, and her tones held a thin sarcasm. “Brian, darling, I’m really not such an idiot that I don’t realize that if a man calls me a nigger, it’s his fault the first time, but mine if he has the opportunity to do it again.”

An excerpt from

The Passing

James Weldon Johnson

When I come down to sleep death’s endless night, The threshold of the unknown dark to cross,What to me then will be the keenest loss,When this bright world blurs on my fading sight?Will it be that no more I shall see the treesOr smell the flowers or hear the singing birdsOr watch the flashing streams or patient herds?No, I am sure it will be none of these.

But, ah! Manhattan’s sights and sounds, her smells,Her crowds, her throbbing force, the thrill that comesFrom being of her a part, her subtle spells, Her shining towers, her avenues, her slums—God! The stark, unutterable pity, To be dead, and never again behold my city!

My City

Bibliography

Works Cited "About Countee Cullen's Life and Career." Welcome to English. 18 Mar. 2010 <http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/poets/a_f/cullen/life.htm>. Applebee, Arthur N. The language of literature. Evanston, Ill.: McDougal Littell, 1997. "Claude McKay's Life." Welcome to English. 18 Mar. 2010 <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/life.htm>. "Claude McKay's Life." Welcome to English. 18 Mar. 2010 <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/life.htm>. "I, Too by Langston Hughes." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of poems and poets.. Poetry Search Engine. 16 Mar. 2010 <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-too/>. "James Weldon Johnson's Life and Career." Welcome to English. 18 Mar. 2010 <http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/g_l/johnson/life.htm>. "Jessie fauset, jessie redmon fauset, jessie redmon fauset poems, jessie fauset - Welcome to African-American Writer Jessie Fauset Webpage... Collection of poems written by Jessie Fauset can be found here... ( Jessie Redmon Fauset harlem renaissance, harlem renaissance poet jessie redmon fauset, jessie fauset poetry )." Black writers, black authors, famous black writers, african american writers, harlem renaissance, harlem renaissance poets, harlem renaissance poems, famous african american authors, black famous poets, harlem renaissance writers, harlem renaissance poetry - Welcome to AfroPoets.Net - Famous Black Writers... Here you will find poems written by Famous African American Poets. 16 Mar. 2010 <http://www.afropoets.net/jessiefauset.html>. "Langston Hughes -." Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. 16 Mar. 2010 <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83>.