testable desire to move on: “Ain’t no call at all,
sweet woman / Fo’ to carry on—/ Jes’ my name and
jes’ my habit / To be Long Gone.”
Southern Roadis powerful for its moving and
illuminating profiles of everyday people doing their
best to maintain their families, to become spiritu-
ally enriched, and to support each other in times of
crisis. It also offers striking portraits of lives in dis-
repair and fraught with emotional tension. In
“Seeking Religion,” a man named Jim saves Lulu, a
woman desperate to become religious. Jim finds
Lulu in a “dusky graveyard” where she “[f]ought
her fears and sat among ghostlike stones. / Waiting
for her visions,” ultimately offers her love that re-
deems her, and allows her to “[find] religion in a
chubby baby boy.” Other poems, like “Bessie,”
chronicle the decline that can wreak havoc on in-
nocence and beauty. “Who will know Bessie now
of those who loved her,” asks the narrator as he in-
troduces “Bess... this woman, gaunt of flesh and
painted / Despair deep bitten in her soft brown
eyes.” She is one of many who “left behind the
stupid, stifling shanties, / And took her to the
cities to get her share of fun.” Bessie no longer is
“Bessie with her plaited hair, / Bessie in her ging-
ham, / Bessie with her bird voice, and laughter like
the sun,” and the narrator gives thanks that her
parents died without seeing the state of their “dar-
ling,” the girl whom they “talked of... at night,
and dreamt dreams so.” Other works, like “Pard-
ners,” profile the kinds of difficulties that arise as
men and women attempt to forge relationships.
The realities of urban decay, corrupted innocence,
and the toll that both take on the victim and her
family are reminiscent of works by MARITABON-
NER,JESSIE FAUSET,RUDOLPHFISHER,CLAUDE
MCKAY, and others who assessed the toll that mi-
gration and distance from family could have upon
individuals, communities, and the nation.
The collection also cultivates the image of the
African-American observer, a marginalized but in-
valuable figure with clear appreciation of racial hi-
erarchies, white power, and African-American
legacy. Works like “Strong Men,” which begins
with a quote from Carl Sandburg, provide a
graphic account of enslavement, racial oppression,
and modern-day segregation and racial violence.
Brown recounts this history in italics and thus un-
derscores its unspeakable, haunting, and nightmar-
ish nature. This daunting narrative is punctuated
by a refrain printed in plain text. Over the course
of the poem, the refrain “The strong men keep a’-
comin on / The strong men git stronger,” evolves
and intensifies, and the poem ends with the words
“The strong men... comin’ on / The strong men
gittin’ stronger. / Strong men.... / Stronger.” The
last lines suggest African-American resilience even
as they also signal, through Brown’s use of ellipses,
utter weariness in the face of relentless predation.
Brown also honors the optimism and earnest hopes
of the many who work the land in an effort to se-
cure domestic stability for their families. In one of
the volume’s most moving poems, “After Winter,”
he profiles a nameless farmer who “snuggles his fin-
gers / In the blacker loam” and “[t]hough he stands
ragged / An old scarecrow” thinks about how the
land will enable him to plant favorite crops for his
womenfolk and provide “[r]unnin’ space” for “de
little feller” in their family. The poem contains a
catalog of vegetables and other plants, all of which
are part of the farmer’s plan to host his neighbors
and to sustain his family during the seasons to
come. It is on the “[t]en acres unplanted” that this
farmer attempts “[t]o raise dreams” as he comforts
himself with the refrain, “Butterbeans fo’ Clara /
Sugar corn fo’ Grace / An’ fo’ de little feller / Run-
nin’ space.”
James Weldon Johnson, who penned the in-
troduction for the first edition of the work, sug-
gested that Brown was among the elite group of
five poets of color who had cultivated a national
reputation for themselves. Johnson proposed that
Brown and Claude McKay, JEANTOOMER,COUN-
TEECULLEN, and LANGSTONHUGHESwere part of
what he deemed a group of “younger poets” who
were “on the whole newer in their response to
what still remains the principal motive of poetry
written by Negroes—race.” He went on to note
that this pioneering group of talented poets were,
“[i]n their approach to ‘race’... less direct and
obvious, less didactic or imploratory; and, too, they
are less regardful of the approval or disapprobation
of their white environment” (Johnson, xxxvi).
Contemporary literary critics continue to exam-
ine Brown’s deft presentations of African-American
life and his articulations of the blues and folk tradi-
tions. As Stephen Henderson notes, “The hallmark
of Sterling Brown’s poetry is its exploration of theSouthern Road 487