soaring-upwardness / And chains me to the soil,”
the tormented speaker reveals. Her frustration,
however, is intense not because of the limitations
but because of the intensity of her desire to soar.
“[W]hy these glowing forms of hope / That scintil-
late and shine,” she asks, “If naught of all that bur-
nished dream / Can evermore be mine?” The
resilience that began to emerge in “Supplication”
now takes hold as the speaker reveals her outrage.
“My every fibre fierce rebels / Against this servile
role,” she exclaims, “And all my being broods to
break / This death-grip on my soul.”
The section entitled “The Mother” includes
poems that range from portraits of melancholy
mothers to inspired mantras about the destiny of
future generations. Poems such as “The Mother,”
the title poem, “Maternity,” and “Black Woman”
are heart-wrenching for their laments about the
pain of the world and the bleak outlook that exists
for innocent babes. Yet, in “Shall I Say, ‘My Son
You’re Branded’,” a forceful maternal speaker re-
jects the notion that she become complicit with
the world’s oppression. Instead, she tells her son
plainly and “with love prophetic” to “dauntlessly
arise / Spurn the handicap that clogs you, taking
what the world denies.” The section ends on a
more conventional note, with “Benediction,” a
poem with a set of straightforward wishes for a suc-
cessful life. Yet, the poem underscores the un-
breakable link between a child and its mother. “Go
forth, my son, / Winged by my heart’s desire,” in-
structs the confident female figure who narrates
the poem.
Johnson’s often-anthologized poem “Credo” is
the lead poem in the section entitled “Prescience.”
The manifesto is magnificent and stately, an elo-
quently expressed code by which to live. “I believe
in the ultimate justice of Fate; / That the races of
men front the sun in their turn; / That each soul
holds the title to infinite wealth / In fee to the will
as it masters itself,” declares the self-possessed
speaker in the opening portion of the 10-line
poem. The volume closes with a set of moving trib-
utes to past and current leaders, friends, and
heroes. Johnson honors historical figures such as
John Brown and some of her contemporaries such
as DuBois, EMILIE BIGELOW HAPGOOD,MARY
CHURCHTERRELL,RIDGELYTORRENCE,WILLIAM
STANLEYBRAITHWAITE, and RICHARD WRIGHT.
The last poem is a tribute to ATLANTAUNIVER-
SITY, the institution with which she was affiliated
during her high school years in Georgia.
Johnson assembled Bronzewhile fully aware of
the scrutiny that it would attract. She responded
to the call for “race poems” in a dignified manner
and preserved her own creative integrity. The
poems represent a steady and thoughtful set of per-
spectives on personal ambition, the will to succeed,
and the immunity that can be acquired through
self-expression.Bibliography
Tate, Claudia. “Introduction.” In Georgia Douglas John-
son: The Selected Works of Georgia Douglas Johnson.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Jennifer Burton, eds.
New York: G. K. Hall & Company, 1997.Brooks, Johnathan Henderson(1905–1945)
A minister from Mississippi who showed early
promise as a poet and fiction writer. In the autobi-
ographical essay that he contributed to CAROLING
DUSK, the 1927 anthology edited by COUNTEE
CULLENand in which three of his poems appeared,
Brooks recounted his family’s disintegration due to
divorce, the economic hardships that he and his
mother faced as sharecroppers working for an un-
ethical white farmer, and his mother’s heroic ef-
forts to educate her son. Her economy and
fortitude enabled Brooks to attend LINCOLNUNI-
VERSITY, from which he graduated from the high
school division in 1925 with “salutatory honors,”
and Tougaloo College.
Brooks’s earliest works were religious in na-
ture, and this trend continued in his later writings,
most of which he published during his year of min-
istry in Southern churches. “The Resurrection,”
“The Last Quarter Moon of the Dying Year,” and
“O Paean,” the three Brooks poems in Caroling
Dusk,were earnest testaments to God’s love and
celebratory tributes to nature.Brooks, Van Wyck(1886–1963)
A white writer who published American literary
histories and was known for his commentaries
on American cultural affairs. With LANGSTON
HUGHES, he was one of the signatories for the66 Brooks, Johnathan Henderson