By: Konjit Richards-Johnson
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Sterling Allen Brown was born on January 13th, 1901
in Washington, DC to Sterling Nelson Brown
and Adelaide Allen Brown.
Sterling graduated from Williams College in 1922 as the only
student awarded final honors in English.
Sterling accepted a Clark Fellowship for graduate studies in
English at Harvard University where he completed his MA in
English in 1923, then headed south to teach at Virginia Seminary
and College in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Sterling Brown used folk tales and the African American idiom in
his writings to spread the knowledge of the amazing things
ordinary people did.
Sterling also wanted the African-American reader to learn all of
the representations of other African-Americans in his writings as
well.
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Sterling Brown had poems in magazines such as The
Crisis, the New Republic, and the Nation.
Sterling was rediscovered as a poet later in his life and
Southern Road, The Last Ride of Wild Bill, Eleven Narrative
Poems, and The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown were
all republished because of it.
In 1937 Sterling Brown was awarded a Guggenheim
Fellowship and was named poet laureate of the District
of Columbia in 1984.
Sterling Brown died in Takoma Park, Maryland, at the
age of eighty-seven on January 13th, 1989.
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Nat Turner was an African-American slave who led a
revolt in Southampton County, Virginia.
August 21, 1831, Nat Turner killed his slave owner and
family, jump starting the slave revolt.
The following days, Nat Turner and 75 others
murdered 60 whites in Southampton County.
Soon after, the slave revolt was sustained causing
Turner and his followers to be captured or killed.
Nat Turner was hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia on
November 11th.
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Theme:
-The poem is about African- Americans who visit Virginia to see where
Nat Turner commenced his slave revolt.
-Brown is trying to convey that African-Americans should learn about
their past to understand about other African-Americans legacy.
Tone:
-The mood of the poem is very uplifting, happy, and informal ; almost as
if the author wanted us to learn about Nat Turner.
-The feeling I get from this poem is historical, learning about the past can
help the present type vibe.
Technique:
- This poem has no form and it isn’t written like a normal poem; it’s
almost written like a story.
-Th poet uses second person, as if him and some friends went to Virginia.
Also, the poet uses the broken English again for the African-Americans.
-The poet uses allusion in the whole poem when talking about Nat Turner
and uses ellipsis in lines 11-14 when giving the African-Americans the
broken English accent.
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This poem is based off of “Frankie and Johnny” the
ballad.
Frankie is a sadist who isn’t very smart and has an
abusive father.
Johnny is a slave who works in a sugar corn field who
gets flirted on by Frankie.
When Frankie’s father finds out she’s in love with
Johnny, he lynches him while Frankie laughs in the
background.
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Theme:
-The poem, “Frankie and Johnny” by Sterling Brown is about a
black man and a white woman who fall in love and the
consequences that comes with it.
-The message Brown conveys is that slaves were treated unjustly
and white people during the time were cruel, malicious people.
Tone:
-The mood from this poem is very folk tale like, twisted and scary.
-The feeling I get from this poem would be creepy and disgusted
but also like I should learn something from it.
Technique:
-The poem is twenty eight lines long and uses rhyme scheme
through out the whole poem.
-The language Brown uses is simple but when he gets to Johnny,
he uses broken English to depict that Johnny has an accent.
-The poet uses connotation in line 1 with the n word because it
goes past it’s meaning and adds all the pain and suffering in
history that has to do with it. The poet also uses juxtaposition in
line 21 by making Frankie and Johnny lovers because during the
time of this poem, white and black people could never be seen
equals. Also, if a white and a black person were in love, it usually
ended with someone being killed.
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Sterling Brown was important to the Harlem Renaissance because
he pushed the African-American culture and knowledge to a
higher level. Sterling didn’t write about the typical love or
symbolism you’d see in other poems, he wrote about folk tales
and historical stories. Sterling Brown used the genre of poetry to
educate fellow African-Americans of other African-American
stories who have gone unrecognized through American history.
The Harlem Renaissance was a time to break free of the black
stereotypes and racism to create a new African-American. Without
Brown, the new African-American couldn’t have been formed
without retrospect.