of death and Johnson’s steadfast conviction that
only love can preserve human dignity” [Tate, lx].
Indeed, the play is one of several Johnson dramas
that underscore the complexity of family life and
the ways in which African Americans grapple with
conflicting social expectations, grief, and loss.
Bibliography
Hull, Gloria. Love, Sex, and Poetry: Three Women Writers
of the Harlem Renaissance.Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1987.
Johnson, Georgia Douglas. The Selected Works of Georgia
Douglas Johnsonwith an introduction by Claudia
Tate. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1997.
Tate, Claudia. Introduction to The Selected Works of
Georgia Douglas Johnson.Boston: G. K. Hall, 1997.
Poems Sarah Collins Fernandis(1925)
One of the books that the poet, teacher, and ac-
tivist SARAH COLLINS FERNANDISpublished in
- Poemsincluded a number of celebratory race
poems and writings on nature and on urban life.
Works such as “The Torch Bearer,” written in
honor of BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, founder of
TUSKEGEEINSTITUTEand a proponent of accommo-
dationism, reveal Fernandis’s penchant for flowery
and romantic imagery. Written after Washington’s
death, the poem imagines him as a “dusky, untried
youth,” who went on to enjoy a “rich life spent to
uplift a race / With self-effacement, and achieve-
ment rare!”
Other poems, such as “A Blossom in an Alley,”
combine classical prose with contemporary obser-
vations about urban life. The somewhat jarring
juxtaposition of narrative styles reveals the clash
between the natural world and the uncaring world
of the city.
Fernandis, whose poetry appeared in the jour-
nal SOUTHERNWORKMAN,included a number of
those published poems in her 1925 collection.
Poet and Other Poems, The Raymond
Dandridge(1920)
The second of three volumes of poetry that RAY-
MONDDANDRIDGEpublished in his lifetime. Dedi-
cated to Oscar William Dandridge, his deceased
brother, the volume included works in dialect and
in standard prose. Dandridge, a paralyzed writer
living in Cincinnati, saw his work published by a
local publisher, Powell and White. The volume in-
cluded more than 60 poems, ranging from deliber-
ate tributes to historic figures to playful dialect
poems.
In his foreword to the volume. Winston Mor-
row assured readers that the “fame of the author
has exceeded the limits of his boyhood suburb and
his new book will no doubt add many new friends
and admirers.” Morrow provided a moving descrip-
tion of the poet, noting that he was “[s]hut in
within four walls by a strange decree of nature for
many long years, racked at times by the most ex-
cruciating pains, denied free intercourse among his
fellow-men and handicapped in a thousand other
ways.” He also insisted that Dandridge was “a true
product of Cincinnati” and that his writing more
than earned him “a prominent place among the
poets of the Ohio valley and a commanding posi-
tion among the literary minded of his race.“
The collection included patriotic and national-
istic poems such as “Roosevelt” and “Toussaint L’Ou-
verture” and religious musings such as “Old Glory”
and “Eternity.” Dandridge revealed his uncompro-
mising vision in religious poems such as “To an Un-
hanged Judas,” a harsh castigation of a “blasphemer
of sacred trust,” a “Cannibalistic vulture, / Grown fat
upon [his] brother’s blood.” In stirring race poems
such as “Time to Die” he encouraged all “Black
Brother[s]” to “If necessary, your life give / For some-
thing, ere in vain you die.” The dialect poems, scat-
tered throughout the volume, tend to focus on
situational crises and folk character. In “Sprin’
Fevah,” Dandridge’s narrator confesses to “a lazy,
sortah hazy / Feelin’ ” that “grips me, thoo an’ thoo”
and wonders about the “thief dat steals embition in
de win’.”
The Poet and Other Poemswas an eclectic mix
of narrative styles and subjects. Overall, however,
the collection clearly established Dandridge in the
role of outspoken social critic and uncompromising
race man.Poetic PearlsCarrie Law Morgan Figgs(1920)
The first of two collections of poetry by CARRIE
LAWMORGANFIGGS, a writer who also enjoyed
success as a children’s playwright. According to426 Poems