is only in a second reading that one begins to real-
ize the gem-like qualities of the recorded conversa-
tion and the artistic economy in the vividly intense
pictures of common life in the Negro quarters”
(NYT,15 March 1931, 61). The anonymous re-
viewer, who characterized Augie as “something of a
natural Byronic figure,” noted that the protagonist
was “too unreflective, however, and with too much
simplicity to be tortured for long at a time by the
melancholy introspection of supersensitive souls”
(NYT,15 March 1931, 61). Despite this gentle crit-
icism, however, the reviewer noted that “A fine un-
forced imagery flickers in and out of [the novel’s]
last pages lighting up a touchingly sympathetic por-
trait of Little Augie in his old age, clinging to the
memory of his days of grandeur, but content withal
in his indolent life if it were but lighted occasionally
by a touch of color or a remnant of beauty” (NYT,
15 March 1931, 61). The novel was the first of
many Bontemps works to feature what the author
himself referred to as the “lonesome-boy theme.”
Bontemps himself admitted to shying away from
first-person narratives but noted that he did invest
his writings with rich autobiographical details. The
novel’s publication in 1931 coincided with the
GREATDEPRESSIONand, as a result, did not bring
Bontemps great financial reward. Bontemps later
revisited God Sends Sundayand collaborated with
COUNTEE CULLEN on a musical version of the
work. The musical comedy St. Louis Woman,com-
pleted in 1945, was a hit.
Bibliography
Canaday, Nicholas. “Arna Bontemps: The Louisiana Her-
itage,” Callaloo(February–October 1981): 163–169.
Jones, Kirkland. Renaissance Man from Louisiana: A Biog-
raphy of Arna Wendell Bontemps.Westport: Green-
wood Press, 1992.
“‘The Good Earth’ and Other Recent Works of Fiction.”
New York Times,15 March 1931.
God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons
in Verse James Weldon Johnson(1927)
The 1927 collection of sermons written by JAMES
WELDON JOHNSON and illustrated by AARON
DOUGLASand published 12 years after AUTOBI-
OGRAPHY OF AN EX-COLOURED MAN (1912).
Johnson, an agnostic, reconstructed key events
and figures in the Bible. Several key experiences of
African-American sermons inspired Johnson’s vol-
ume, including a trip into rural Georgia during his
freshman year at ATLANTA UNIVERSITY during
which he encountered a minister whose voice re-
called a powerful trombone, and another, in 1918
to Kansas City, which influenced Johnson’s writing
of “The Creation.”
A long-standing interest in what Johnson de-
scribed as “the primitive stuff of the old-time
Negro sermon” led him to memorialize the power-
ful African-American sermon tradition. Johnson
realized that the incredible power of the addresses
lay not solely in their text but in their delivery. In
his preface, Johnson reminded readers that
“[t]hese poems would better be intoned than read.
But the intoning practiced by the old-time
preacher is a thing next to impossible to describe;
it must be heard, and it is extremely difficult to im-
itate even when heard.”
The volume includes an essay and eight sub-
stantial poems entitled “Listen, Lord—A Prayer,”
“The Creation,” “The Prodigal Son,” “Go Down
Death—A Funeral Sermon,” “Noah Built the
Ark,” “The Crucifixion,” “Let My People Go,” and
“The Judgement Day.” Written in free verse and in
standard English, the volume evoked the cadences,
spirit, and intensity of African-American churches.
The works are based on selections from the Bible
and offer evocative retellings of well-known bibli-
cal scenes and figures. In his sermon on the Cre-
ation, for instance, Johnson introduces readers to
an accessible God, one who “sat down— / On the
side of a hill where he could think; / By a deep,
wide river he sat down; / With his head in his
hands, / God thought and thought, / Till he
thought: I’ll make me a man!”
In addition to evocative images of the
Almighty, Johnson included sermons that personi-
fied and softened forces such as death that were
often regarded as predatory and unfeeling. In “Go
Down, Death,” Johnson depicted the thoughtful
collaboration between God and the angel of death.
God, whose “big heart was touched with pit, /
With the everlasting pity” at the sight of a suffering
mortal, summons “that tall, bright angel standing
at this right hand: / Call me Death!” The call goes
out, Death appears before God, and in response to
the command to “Go Down, Death, and bring her186 God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse