Here Toomer uses sounds and words from
several languages, such as French (‘‘mon sa me’’
[‘‘mon sommeil’’], ‘‘vite,’’ ‘‘tas,’’ ‘‘bas’’), Latin
(‘‘kor’’ and ‘‘soron’’), Spanish (‘‘me,’’ ‘‘el,’’ ‘‘dice,’’
‘‘tu,’’ ‘‘por’’), and Japanese (‘‘kirimoor’’), as well as
English, to open poetic avenues to thought, in the
tradition of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Laforgue.
An exercise in formalism and a lesson in the
mystical powers of language, this sound poem
also employs ‘‘-or’’ end rhymes, ‘‘-ire’’ internal
rhymes, repetition (‘‘Mon sa me el’’), parallelism
(‘‘Leet vire or sand vite’’ and ‘‘Tu tas tire or re sim
bire’’), and linguistic cognates to create the illu-
sion of meaning, while sounds guide us through
the process of poetry.
II
In the months between September of 1921 and
December of 1922, Toomer wrote the poems in
Cane, evocative of an empathetic union between
the spirit of the artist and the spirit of Afro-
American mysticism. Indeed, in describing the
formal design inCane, what he termed ‘‘the spi-
ritual entity behind the work,’’ Toomer indicated
that he viewed the book, at least retrospectively,
as a mandala: ‘‘From the point of view of the
spiritual entity behind the work, the curve really
starts with ‘Bona and Paul’ (awakening), plunges
into ‘Kabnis,’ emerges in ‘Karintha,’ etc. swings
upward into ‘Theater’ and ‘Box Seat,’ and ends
(pauses) in ‘Harvest Song.’’’ The mandala, a sym-
bol of integration and transmutation of the self
in Buddhist philosophy, is an arrangement of
images from the unconscious to form a constella-
tion. Usually a formalized, circular design con-
taining or contained by a figure of five points of
emphasis, each representing the chief objects of
psychic interest for the maker, a mandala func-
tions to unite the conscious intellectual percep-
tions of its creator with his or her unconscious
psychic drives and intuitions. A mandala, then, is
both an instrument of the self’s awakening and a
chart of its spiritual evolution. In accordance with
Toomer’s spiritual design, the poems which begin
this mandalic cycle—‘‘Reapers,’’ ‘‘November Cot-
ton Flower,’’ ‘‘Cotton Song,’’ ‘‘Song of the Son,’’
‘‘Georgia Dusk,’’ ‘‘Nullo,’’ ‘‘Conversion,’’ and
‘‘Portrait in Georgia’’—represent celebrations of
ancestral consciousness, whereas the ones
which end the cycle—‘‘Beehive,’’ ‘‘Prayer,’’
and ‘‘Harvest Song’’—chronicle the poet’s
loss of empathetic union with Afro-American
consciousness.
The poems which begin the cycle celebrate
Afro-American culture and lament its disappear-
ance. Written in iambic pentameter couplets,
‘‘Reapers’’ depicts black workers in a rural field
setting. The first half of the poem describes ‘‘the
sound of steel on stone’’ as the reapers ‘‘start their
silent swinging, one by one.’’ The second half con-
trasts this human activity with the sharp efficiency
of a mechanical mower, which kills a field rat with
machine-like precision and continues on its way.
The contrast between the human and the mechan-
ical emphasizes not only the displacement of black
workers by machines, but also the passing of an
era. The poem ends with a lament for the destruc-
tion of nature by the machine: ‘‘I see the blade,/
Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.’’
Also written in iambic pentameter couplets,
‘‘November Cotton Flower’’ is a variation of the
Italian sonnet. The octave images a late autumn
setting, the end of the cotton season. Drought
ravages the land as birds seek water in wells a
hundred feet below the ground. The sestet
describes the blooming of a November cotton
flower amid this arid and barren scene, an
event perceived to be supernatural by the local
inhabitants: ‘‘Superstition saw/Something it had
never seen before.’’ The concluding couplet
reveals the poem to be an extended metaphor,
completing the analogy of the flower’s mystery
and sudden beauty in terms of a beautiful and
spontaneous brown-eyed woman: ‘‘Brown eyes
that loved without a trace of fear/Beauty so
sudden for that time of year.’’ Like the Novem-
ber cotton flower, the woman is an anomaly
within her depressed and rustic environment.
‘‘Cotton Song’’ belongs to a subgenre of
Afro-American folk songs which captures the
agony and essence of slavery. The poet uses
music—the work song itself—to symbolize the
medium by which slaves transcended the vicissi-
tudes of slavery. Moreover, it is precisely spiri-
tual freedom which engenders thoughts of
political freedom:
Cotton bales are the fleecy way
Weary sinners bare feet trod,
Softly, softly to the throne of God,
We ain’t agwine t wait until th Judgement
Day!
‘‘Song of the Son’’ and ‘‘Georgia Dusk’’ are
swan songs for the passing Afro-American
folk spirit. ‘‘Song of the Son’’ develops in two
movements, with images of sight, sound, and
smell. The first movement invokes images ofStorm Ending