Lorraine Hansberry and in the fiction of
RICHARDWRIGHT.
Bronze: A Book of VerseGeorgia Douglas
Johnson(1922)
The second book of poetry by GEORGIADOUGLAS
JOHNSON. In 1941 she confessed to ARNABON-
TEMPSthat she had written Bronzeto silence those
critics who believed her incapable of writing about
race. Published by B. J. Brimmer Company in
BOSTON, it was a volume of poetry that she re-
garded as “entirely race conscious.” That convic-
tion was strengthened by the introduction to the
volume, written by W. E. B. DUBOIS, a scholar
whom Johnson respected and also the man with
whom she had had a passionate love affair. In his
comments, DuBois prepared readers for the myste-
rious, mystical work that they might encounter in
the collection. He recommended the book to
“Those who know what it means to be a colored
woman in 1922—and know it not so much in fact
as in feeling, apprehension, unrest and delicate yet
stern thought” and declared that it was these indi-
viduals who “must” read her work. “As a revelation
of the soul struggle of the women of a race it is in-
valuable,” DuBois concluded.
Johnson divided 65 poems into nine sections
with titles such as “Exhortation,” “Supplication,”
“Motherhood,” “Prescience,” “Exaltation,” and “Ap-
preciations.” In addition to new works, she included
poems that had appeared previously in OPPORTU-
NITYand the LIBERATOR.As Claudia Tate notes in
her preface to a recent collection of Johnson’s
works, while there was a racial veneer on many of
the poems, Johnson seemed to be writing more di-
rectly about love, loss, and sadness. Her “Author’s
Note” reinforces this notion. Johnson described
Bronzeas “the child of a bitter earth-wound.” She
then described her experiences as a writer in direct
and spiritual language. “I sit on the earth and sing—
sing out, and of, my sorrow,” she shared. She contin-
ued and provided an increasingly encouraging
message to her readers: “Yet, fully conscious of the
potent agencies that silently work in their healing
ministries, I know that God’s sun shall one day
shine upon a perfected and unhampered people.”
The three poems in “Exhortation” were “Son-
net to the Mantled,” “Sonnet to Those Who See
but Darkly,” and “Brotherhood.” As a whole, the
poems constitute a vibrant exhortation of those
who find themselves oppressed and weighed down.
“Like joyful exiles swift returning home,” Johnson’s
speaker imagined mantled figures shedding their
cumbersome cloaks and emerging “Erect, and
strong, and visioned, in the day / That rings the
knell of Curfew o’er the sway / Of prejudice.” The
dominant images here recall the well-known
Tuskegee University statue by sculptor Charles
Keck, unveiled in 1922, in which Booker T. Wash-
ington stands over a former slave who is crouching
before him. Washington holds a mantle in his hand,
but depending on one’s perspective on accommo-
dationism and Washington’s politics in general, it is
possible to argue that he is pulling the cloak away
in order to speed the slave’s emancipation and
progress or keeping it in place so that freedom re-
mains a qualified state for some and an opportunity
for power for others. Johnson maintained her focus
on the uplift of the masses in the next sonnet. It
imagined “Those Who See but Darkly” as individu-
als whose “gaze uplifting from shoals of despair... /
Surge to the piping of Hope’s dulcet lay, / Souled
like the lily, whose splendors declare / God’s mazéd
paradox—purged of all blight, / Out from the quag-
mire, unsullied and fair.”
“Supplication” represents a noticeable shift in
agency from that in the preceding group of poems.
There, the poems tend to feature first-person nar-
rations, revealing a speaker who is desperate for
protection and endurance. “Let me not lose my
dream,” pleads one speaker, “Hold me, and guard,
lest anguish tear my dreams away!” Yet, the pos-
ture of “Supplication” eventually gives way in
“Calling Dreams.” The speaker reasserts herself, re-
alizing that she cannot just ask but must demand
of life “The right to make my dreams come true” so
that she can “stride into the morning-break!”
The third section, “Shadow,” introduces an ob-
servant and world-weary speaker, one struck by the
oppression that permeates one’s waking and dream
life. She exists in a world full of “mad mocking
strife” and the “venomed prick of probing knife, /
The baleful subtle leer of scorn / That rims the
world from morn to morn.” The poem “Laocoon” is
an additional meditation on the aggressive silencing
that individuals endure. “This spirit-choking atmo-
sphere / With deadly serpent-coil / Entwines myBronze: A Book of Verse 65