Harlem Renaissance Poetry: Georgia Douglas Johnson and Langston Hughes
Georgia Douglas Johnson and Langston Hughes are two well-known figures and very important personalities during the Harlem Renaissance. Langston Hughes was a young poet in Washington, D.C. when Georgia Douglas Johnson also lived there. She was married with two children still she made time to hold weekly get-togethers for young black writers in her home.
Georgia Douglas Johnson was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1886. Young (2001) reported “She was the first black female to receive national recognition as a poet since Frances E. W. Harper, the abolitionist writer, whose last poems were published in 1872” (p. 25). Johnson was published in Voice of the Negro and other periodicals starting in her early 20s. In 1918 she published her first book The Heart of a Woman; the year she was 32 years old. The poems in the book were read most often as romantic poems, but she was identified as a feminist poet at the time (Bloom, p. 120). In 1922 she published Bronze: A Book of Verse and for these poems she gained more readers. Bloom (1996) writes about Bronze, “These poems are marked by a clear development of racial consciousness and a focus on black history” (p. 120). Her third most well-known book of poems An Autumn Love Cycle was published in 1928. She started writing her award-winning dramatic plays about the Negro situation, especially lynching in America. (Bloom, 1996, pp. 120-34)
Johnson hosted a Literary Salon in D.C. every Saturday evening “for local and out- of-town literati of both races” (Young, 2001, p. 25). Langston Hughes was one of her guests as were Zora Neal Hurston and Jessie Fasset. Later the literary center moved to Harlem and the artists followed.
Langston Hughes was a prolific writer and wrote wonderfully. He also wrote with confidence as a “New Negro” with no ties to the old slavery. In 1926 he wrote an essay titled “The Negro artist and the Racial Mountain” which marked a break for the young artists from the older generation’s felt need to write about race and living in a White world. According to Nelson (1999) Hughes “declared their artistic autonomy. In style, theme, and form, they would write to suit themselves” (p. xvii). The essay was the manifesto for the Harlem Renaissance (Wallace, p. 67).
The Harlem Renaissance was a happening in New York City like never before for African-Americans. Nelson (1995) describes the exciting atmosphere of the New York black renaissance scene,
“Intelligent, proud, militant, urbane, and independent the “New Negro” symbolized
the zeitgeist of the Harlem Renaissance movement of the 1920s and 1930s. A time of
reclamation of African heritage and celebration of the folk roots of African-American
culture, the Harlem Renaissance movement incited a virtual burgeoning of the black
cultural expression” (p. xvii).
Double-consciousness was a state-of-mind identified by Du Bois and a dilemma for the black artist (Nelson, p. xix). The dilemma was about which identity the artist should address in their work – the African world of their ancestors and the authority of Whites or their own world in contemporary America.
Johnson was writing during the time when laws were still being made in the South to prevent interracial marriages. Her generation was the generation that had to live with the burden of white domination.
Langston Hughes being younger was not as anxious about that kind of dominance. As a young poet he felt he could express himself any way he wanted. Negro writers did not always have to write within the constraints of addressing the issue of race. (Nelson, 1995)
The poems from Johnson’s first book of poetry are short and have a sadness underlying the use of the romantic tone. The first poem of the book, “The Heart of a Woman” (see Appendix A) touches lightly but poignantly on the issue of “home.” She describes the heart of a woman as having wings to roam “in the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.” If she has to travel to her home flying like a bird, then maybe her real home is Africa. In the second stanza after the night she “enters some alien cage” which doesn’t sound like love to me; it seems like she is talking about having to live in a society where she has certain boundaries.
In the second Johnson poem, The Dreams of the Dreamer (Apendix A), she refers again to the heart, heartbreak and to time. The last two lines of the poem are “The cry of the heart ‘Til it ceases to beat.” A dreamer dreams but the dreams never come to pass and in the end the broken heart dies.
The poem Harlem [2] (see Appendix A) by Langston Hughes also refers to dreams. “What happens to a dream deferred?” This is a poignant question. The poem ends with a surprising dynamism “Or does it explode?” I think he is referring to the rage that people feel when they have abilities that are ignored or pushed to the side because the person has dark colored skin.
The second poem by Hughes, Good Morning (See Appendix B) is the longest poem of the four. There is reference made to slavery in the poem because Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica were all slave transfer depots. The dreams of people arriving in the U.S. are happy because no one told them about “dreams deferred.” and “there’re bars At each gate”.
In the poem he has addressed the issue of the growing population of Blacks in New York City and the many more arriving with hope. I understand from the poem that it won’t be long until they are against the barricades that refuse to allow them to make their dreams come true.
I wrote the poem Harlem Renaissance Millennium below.
Harlem Renaissance Millennium
The piano refrain repeats again, again,
the feets start matchin’ rhythm
as . . .
the heart forgets the pain of break,
the head forgets the rage of blame.
All souls are free,
with beats and feets--
dancin’.
The beat of the drums--
melody shimmers--
OUR jazz!
Black Africa!
Black America!
Dance a new race!
I tried to introduce the idea of rhythms from Africa and from jazz. I think of Harlem Renaissance as being a place for dancing and listening to music. The theme of double-consciousness therefore is introduced in the words about music. Then I tied my poem to the poems of Johnson and Hughes by mentioning heart break. I also mentioned “the rage of blame” because I think when people cannot reach their dreams it can lead to rage. In the end I wanted to join Black Africa and Black America together in the music, the jazz.
References
Johnson, G. D. (1918). The heart of a woman and other poems. Boston, MA: The Cornhill Company. Retrieved from Internet Archives at http://www.arhive.org/
Hughes, L. (1995). The collected poems of Langston Hughes. A. Rampersand & D. Roessel (Eds.) New York, NY: First Vintage Classics Edition. Print.
Nash, W. R. (n.d.) Harlem Renaissance. Retrieved from Oxford University Press http://www.oup.com/us/pdf/americanlit/h_renaissance.pdf/
Nelson, E. S. (ed.). (1999). Contemporary African American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press
Shaduri, G. (2010). “Double Consciousness” and the poetry of Langston Hughes and on the example of The Weary Blues (1923). IBSU Scientific Journal. 4(1) 89-98. Retrieved from http://journal.ibsu.edu.ge/index.php/ibsusj/article/view/156/118/
Wallace, M. (2008). Writers and their works - Langston Hughes: The Harlem Renaissance. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark. Retrieved from http://www.questia.com/
Young, P. A. (2001). Acts of terrorism or violence on a Sunday morning in the South. MELUS. 26(4), 25+ Retrieved from http://www. Questia.com/
Appendix A
The Heart of a Woman by Georgia Douglas Johnson (Johnson, p. 1)
The heart of a woman goes forth with the
dawn,
As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,
Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam
In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.
The heart of a woman falls back with the night,
And enters some alien cage in its plight,
And tries to forget it has dreamed of the starts
While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering
bars.
The Dreams of the Dreamer by Georgia Douglas Johnson (Johnson, p. 2)
The dreams of the dreamer
Are life-drops that pass
The break in the heart
To the soul’s hour-glass.
The songs of the singer
Are tones that repeat
The cry of the heart
‘Till it ceases to beat.
Harlem [2] by Langston Hughes (Hughes, pp. 246)
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Apendix B
Good Morning by Langston Hughes (Hughes, pp. 246-7)
Good morning, daddy!
I was born here, he said,
watched Harlem grow
Until colored folks spread
from river to river
across the middle of Manhattan
out of Penn Station
dark tenth of a nation,
planes from Puerto Rico,
and holds of boats, chico,
up from Cuba Haiti Jamaica,
in buses marked New York
from Georgia Florida Louisiana
to Harlem Brooklyn the Bronx
but most of all to Harlem
dusky sash across Manhattan
I’ve seen them come dark
wondering
wide-eyed
dreaming
out of Penn Station –
but the trains are late.
The gates open –
Yet there’re bars
At each gate.
What happens
to a dream deferred?
Daddy, ain’t you heard?
