The Harlem Renaissance
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5 million African-Americans migrated North
 WWI & After
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New York
 Harlem
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Poets, painters, musicians, dancers, etc.
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Moved to New York at 19
First African-American to
support himself as writer
Poet, journalist, novelist,
musician
Poems capture musical
qualities of African oral
tradition
 Fuse everyday speech with
rhythms of jazz and blues
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of
human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down
to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in
the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.
Chicago born
First African-American
Pulitzer Prize winning
poet
 Poems paint picture of
black ghettos
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 Drew from jazz and
street slang
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
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Began writing at age 14.
Attended New York
University; Masters from
Harvard.
Popular with white poetry,
sometimes shunned in
black community because
of this.
Lyric poet in tradition of
Keats and Shelley
Locked arm in arm they cross the way,
The black boy and the white,
The golden splendor of the day,
The sable pride of night.
From lowered blinds the dark folk stare,
And here the fair folk talk,
Indignant that these two should dare
In unison to walk.
Oblivious to look and work
They pass, and see no wonder
That lightning brilliant as a sword
Should blaze the path of thunder.
TO JOHN KEATS, POET, AT SPRING TIME
(For Carl Van Vechten)
I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;
There never was a spring like this;
It is an echo, that repeats
My last year's song and next year's bliss.
I know, in spite of all men say
Of Beauty, you have felt her most.
Yea, even in your grave her way
Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,
Spring never was so fair and dear
As Beauty makes her seem this year.
I cannot hold my peace, John Keats,
I am as helpless in the toil
Of Spring as any lamb that bleats
To feel the solid earth recoil
Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats
her tocsin call to those who love her,
And lo! the dogwood petals cover
Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek
White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover
About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,
While white and purple lilacs muster
A strength that bears them to a cluster
Of color and odor; for her sake
All things that slept are now awake.
And you and I, shall we lie still,
John Keats, while Beauty summons us?
Somehow I feel your sensitive will
Is pulsing up some tremulous
Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves
Grow music as they grow, since your
Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves
For life that opens death's dark door.
Though dust, your fingers still can push
The Vision Splendid to a birth,
Though now they work as grass in the hush
Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.
"John Keats is dead," they say, but I
Who hear your full insistent cry
In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,
Know John Keats still writes poetry.
And while my head is earthward bowed
To read new life sprung from your shroud,
Folks seeing me must think it strange
That merely spring should so derange
My mind. They do not know that you,
John Keats, keep revel with me, too.
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Born 1924 in Harlem
Compared his stern stepfather
to Ishmael in Genesis
 First, albeit illegitimate son of
Abraham
 Forced to wander in the
wilderness after legitimate Isaac
was born
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Ishmael theme apparent in
literature
Fled the segregated north for
France
Wrote much about black
struggles in America
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Lil Hardin Armstrong
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As you listen to
Armstrong, write down
some adjectives that
describe the music.
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Charlie Parker
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As you listen to Parker,
write down differences
you hear from
Armstrong
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From whose point of view is “Sonny’s Blues”
told?
 How do the narrator’s values and experiences
affect his view of the story?
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What does the older brother’s profession
suggest about his personality
How would this story change if it was told by
the younger brother?