DENS:POEMS OFOUTDOORS ANDINDOORS FOR
SECONDGRADEREADERS(1940). The renowned
artist Lois Maillou Jones provided the illustrations
for this volume.
Newsome’s work merited recognition and was
selected for inclusion in two highly regarded an-
thologies of the Harlem Renaissance. COUNTEE
CULLENpublished eight Newsome poems in his
1927 collection entitled CAROLINGDUSK.In 1941
ARNABONTEMPSselected seven of her works for
inclusion in Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro
Poetry for Young Readers.The biographical note in-
cluded in the Bontemps collection reflected New-
some’s engaging character. “Mary Effie Lee
Newsome would rather not talk about how long it
has been since she was a child,” it reads before not-
ing that with her sister, Consuelo, she developed a
love of reading, writing, and illustrating. As chil-
dren, reports the profile, the Newsome sisters “sent
their work to children’s pages of magazines, and
before long they were winning prizes.”
Newsome’s writings are part of the substantial
canon of African-American children’s literature
that emerged during the Harlem Renaissance era.
Her contemporaries in this field included JESSIE
FAUSET, the literary editor of The Crisis,Arna Bon-
temps, NELLALARSEN, and ROSELEARYLOVE.
Bibliography
Bontemps, Arna. Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro
Poetry for Young Readers.New York: Harper & Row,
1941.
Newsome, Effie Lee. Gladiola Gardens: Poems of Outdoors
and Indoors for Second Grade Readers.Washington,
D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1940.
New Song, A Langston Hughes(1938)
A collection of poems by LANGSTONHUGHES. Its
publication was sponsored by the International
Workers Order (IWO). The organization was a fra-
ternal order based in NEW YORKCITY, and its
membership was made up primarily of immigrants
and individuals from numerous ethnic groups. A
New Songwas the first literary pamphlet in the se-
ries that the IWO hoped to publish in the coming
years.
The foreword to A New Songnoted that the
organization “publishes these poems in the desire
to make available literature which would otherwise
be out of the reach of wage earners.” Gold also
noted that the selection of Hughes was prompted
by the IWO’s desire to “create a better under-
standing and closer solidarity between nationali-
ties.” The preface, penned by Michael Gold, noted
that the initial publication run was 10,000 copies,
“a rare and startling figure in the American poetry
world.” Gold encouraged the 140,000 members of
the IWO to embrace the work, noting that if they
as “members can create a great people’s audience
for poetry here, [the IWO] will have contributed
mightily to the rise of that democratic culture of
which Walt Whitman prayed and dreamed.” Gold
praised Hughes for articulating “the hopes, the
dreams, and the awakening of the Negro people”
and for doing so “naturally, like a bird in the
woods.”
A New Song,published as a modest booklet,
contained 17 poems, among them “Let America
Be America Again,” “Chant for May Day,” “Ballad
of Lenin,” “Lynching Song,” and “Open Letter to
the South.” Some of the works, like “A New Song,”
had been published previously in well-read journals
of the Harlem Renaissance such as OPPORTUNITY.
Hughes’s poems reiterated themes established
in his earlier works. The lament about exile within
America pervaded works like “Let America Be
America Again.” In this earnest piece, the speaker
takes on the identity of oppressed peoples in
America, including “the poor white, fooled and
pushed apart,” “the Negro bearing slavery’s scars,”
“the red man driven from the land,” and the “im-
migrant clutching... hope.” The poem also in-
cluded the moving parenthesized aside and
confession that “America never was America to
me.” Other works like “Park Bench” underscored
the class divide that separated individuals in the
same city and environment. “I live on a park
bench. / You, Park Avenue” declared the speaker
before making the acerbic observation “Hell of a
distance / Between us two.” The volume included
militant poems like “Pride” and “The Ballad of
Ozie Powell,” a moving piece that chronicled the
hate-filled LYNCHINGof a young man in Alabama.
This piece and “Lynching Song” were compelling
laments for justice denied to young men of color
and the unchecked mob violence that was allowed
to reign in America. The volume also includedNew Song, A 385