Clouds and SunshineSarah Lee Brown Fleming
(1920)
A collection of poems by SARAH LEE BROWN
FLEMING, the first African-American schoolteacher
in Brooklyn. Published in Boston by the Cornhill
Press, the volume included dialect poetry, race po-
etry, and standard English forms.
Bibliography
Roses, Lorraine Elena, and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph.
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies
of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900–1945.Boston: G.
K. Hall & Co., 1990.
Coal DustShirley Graham(1930)
A one-act play by SHIRLEYGRAHAM, who later be-
came the second wife of W. E. B. DUBOIS. The
Karamu Theatre staged this unpublished work in
1938.
Bibliography
Roses, Lorraine Elena, and Ruth Elizabeth Randolph.
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond: Literary Biographies
of 100 Black Women Writers, 1900–1945.Boston: G.
K. Hall & Co., 1990.
Cohen, Octavus Roy (1891–1959)
A white writer whose inflammatory stereotypes of
African Americans and use of dialect in his fiction
enraged writers like STERLINGBROWN, who saw
that these denigrations of black identity made it
necessary for African-American writers to provide
corrective and ennobling versions of black life and
authentic portraits of African Americans.
Bibliography
Kramer, Victor, and Robert Russ, eds. The Harlem Re-
naissance Re-Examined.Troy, N.Y.: Whitson, 1997.
Coleman, Anita Scott (1890–1960)
A Mexican-born writer who grew up in the Ameri-
can Southwest. The child of a Cuban father and a
formerly enslaved mother who gained her freedom
when her husband bought her, Coleman went on to
publish short stories, essays, and poems in a number
of prominent Renaissance-era periodicals such as
THECRISISand The MESSENGER.She published
one volume of poetry, SMALLWISDOM(1937), but
did so under the pseudonym of Elizabeth Stapleton
Stokes. Her writing was especially evocative in style
and voice. In works such as “Unfinished Master-
pieces,” a short story published in the March 1927
issue of The Crisis,she used the second person to
create arresting narratives that engaged her readers
and purported to tell their stories.ColorCountee Cullen(1925)
The first published volume of poetry by COUNTEE
CULLEN. The volume, which was published by
HARPER&BROTHERS, prompted extremely posi-
tive critical reviews and enthusiastic outpourings
from members of his Harlem Renaissance circle.
Cullen dedicated the work to his adoptive parents,
the Reverend FREDERICKCULLEN and his wife
Carolyn. The volume included a number of previ-
ously published works culled from a diverse array
of journals that testified to Cullen’s prodigious
publication record. The journals in which works
had already appeared included THEAMERICAN
MERCURY, The Bookman, CRISIS, Folio, Poetry: A
Magazine of Verse, THEMESSENGER, The South-
western Christian Advocate, SURVEYGRAPHIC,THE
WORLDTOMORROW,and VANITYFAIR.
Cullen divided the volume into four sections.
The first, entitled “Color,” included the frequently
anthologized sonnet “Yet Do I Marvel” and “Her-
itage,” the lengthy meditation on origins, migra-
tion, and memory, as well as “Brown Boy to Brown
Girl,” “Black Magdalens,” “Simon the Cyrenian
Speaks,” “Saturday’s Child” and “Pagan Prayer.”
The second section, “Epitaphs,” included an array
of poems dedicated to a range of people. Cullen of-
fered tributes to his grandmother, influential writ-
ers such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Joseph
Conrad, and individuals who represented specific
perspectives or moods. The latter poems bore
rather generic titles such as “For a Fool,” “For a
Philosopher,” “For a Skeptic,” and “For a Wanton.”
The third and fourth sections of the book, which
were the two shorter sections in the volume, were
entitled “For Love’s Sake” and “Varia,” respec-
tively. In “For Love’s Sake,” Cullen included eight
poems including “If You Should Go,” “To One
Who Said Me Nay,” and “Spring Reminiscence.”84 Clouds and Sunshine