Book Morgue Discards: American Negro Poetry (1969)

With ye old library card intact; last date borrowed: 1984!

There is a thin line between “bibliophile” and “hoarder.” When I happen across a bag, box, or table of library discards, the line blurs even further. A few years ago my school’s library was purging itself of older, out-of-date editions, and I could not resist rescuing a few titles from wherever books go to return to the earth. As often happens, however, they were saved from one dusty shelf (or more specifically from a plastic bag in the book room), only to settle onto another. Last week, with a few spare moments before classes ended and Presidents Week Recess began, I pulled a few volumes from the shelf of former discards for a closer look…

Edited by Arna Bontemps.

American Negro Poetry edited by Arna Bontemps was first published in 1963 and the edition I have was put out in 1969 (the year I was born). Other than the slightly dated title, the poetry therein remains vibrant and relevant these many years later. As she notes in her excellent introduction, Bontemps poses an excellent question that drives her selection of poetry: “What happened after the death of Phyllis Wheatley to the impulse represented by her poetry?” As the most prominent early African American poet, Wheatley serves as a familiar starting point with which to guide readers through both recognizable names (at least by contemporary standards) Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks as well as those who are less well known but equally worthy of our time. Bontemps offers fascinating biographical information about many of the writers which places them in the historical continuum of the genesis of African-American poetics. The introduction introduced me to a number of poets with whom I had no previous experience but were identified by Bontemps as being prominent.

Claude McKay, for example, is referred to here by Bontemps as the “strongest voice” in “United States Negro poetry” since Dunbar (who is still widely anthologized in high school textbooks—with good reason). Prior to reading Bontemps’ anthology, I was unfamiliar with McKay and his writing. His poem “Outcast” begins with the powerful lines, “For the dim regions whence my fathers came/My spirit, bandaged by the body longs.” Those lines, in addition to the five poems included here, inspires me to seek out more. The possibility of discovering new authors for further exploration is just one of the great values of anthologies, even one that has been previously discarded. 

A second draw of poetry anthologies like American Negro Poetry is finding that authors with whom one is familiar in one genre have also found success in another. Take novelist Richard Wright for example. While I, like most, have read Wright’s novel Native Son, this text introduced me to Wright the poet. Wright’s “Hokku Poems,” in particular, piqued my interest. On the page, the visual structure of the series of eight three line stanzas reveals the influence of Japanese haiku. While the opening line of stanza 1, “I am nobody,” suggest the political tone often associated with Wright, the content of stanzas that follow are much more playful and fun. Stanza 2, in particular, is a personal standout: “Make up your mind snail!/You are half inside your house/And halfway out!”

The complete "Hokku Poems" as it appears in text.

Bontemps continued to revise and update American Negro Poetry for decades with the most current edition (I could find online) coming out in 1995. As I think about the events that lead to this particular text being set aside, this understanding does provide me hope this older, worn edition was retired in favor of a more current one. The poetry in this anthology remains vital and relevant, while continuing to resonate.