CHAPTER V
THE NEW FORMS OF POETRY
The newer methods in poetry—free-verse, rhythmic strophes, polyphonic prose—have been tried with success by only a few Negroes. Of free-verse particularly not many noteworthy pieces have come from Negro poets. Well or ill, each may judge according to his taste. But the objection has been made that the Negro verse-makers of our time are bound by tradition, are sophisticated craftsmen. More independence, more differentness, seems to be demanded. But the conditions of their poetic activity seem to me in this demand to be lost sight of. They are as much the heirs of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury as their white contemporaries. And the Negro is said to be preëminently imitative—that is, responsive to environing example and influence. One requirement and only one can we lay upon the Negro singer and that is the same we lay upon the artists of every race and origin. However, for artistic freedom he has an authority older than free-verse, and that authority is not outside his own race. It is found in the old plantation melodies—rich in artistic potentiality beyond exaggeration.
I. FREE-VERSE
In Negro newspapers and magazines, rarely as yet in books, are to be found some free-verse productions of which I will give some specimens. From Will Sexton I shall quote here two brief poems in this form and in a later chapter another (p. 233). His Whitemanesque manner will be remarked. These brief pieces will suggest a poet of some force:
Songs of Contemporary Ethiopia
THE BOMB THROWER
Down with everything black!
Down with law and order!
Up with the red flag!
Up with the white South!
I am America’s evil genius.
THE NEW NEGRO
Out of the mist I see a new America—a land of ideals.
I hear the music of my fathers blended with the “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
I am the crown of thorns Tyranny must bear a thousand years—
I am the New Negro.
Another vers-librist of individual quality is Andrea Razafkeriefo. He is a prolific contributor to The Negro World, the newspaper organ of the Universal Negro Improvement Society. This paper regularly gives a considerable portion of a page of each issue to original verse contributions. One of Mr. Razafkeriefo’s recent free-verse poems is the following, in which the style seems to me to be remarkably effective: