Pure Thoughts: National Poetry Month (Pt. 4)

I’m sure you are familiar with the momentous anthem, “Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing.”

The composer, James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938) was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his leadership within the NAACP, as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and collections of folklore.

Born in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Helen Louise Dillet and James Johnson.  His brother was the composer John Rosamond Johnson. Johnson was first educated by his mother (a musician and a public school teacher—the first female, black teacher in Florida at a grammar school) and then at Edwin M. Stanton School.  His mother imparted to him her considerable love and knowledge of English literature and the European tradition in music.

At the age of 16, Johnson enrolled at Atlanta University, from which he graduated in 1894.  In addition to his bachelor's degree, he also completed some graduate coursework there.  He was also one of the first Black professors at New York University. Later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University.

In 1900, he wrote the song "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" on the occasion of Lincoln's birthday.  The song was immensely popular in the black community, and became known as the "Negro National Anthem." Johnson moved to New York in 1901 to work with his brother Rosamond, a composer.  After attaining some success as a songwriter for Broadway, he decided in 1906 to take a job as a U.S. Consul to Venezuela. While employed by the diplomatic corps, Johnson had poems published in The Century Magazine and The Independent.

Additionally, in 1912 Mr. Johnson, Johnson anonymously published his novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, the story of a musician who rejects his black roots for a life of material comfort in the white world.  The book explores the issue of racial identity in the twentieth century, a common theme for the writers of the Harlem Renaissance. 

His book of poetry God's Trombones (1927) was influenced by his impressions of the rural South, drawn from a trip he took to Georgia while a freshman in college. It was this trip that ignited his interest in the Black American folk tradition. 

Below is a video featuring one of his many poetic works, “THE CREATION:”

 

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Pure Thoughts: National Poetry Month, and Personal Thoughts

 POETRY!


Webster’s Dictionary denotes poetry as:

Literary works written in verse, in particular verse writing of high quality, great beauty, emotional sincerity or intensity, or profound insight!

In my opinion, the truth of where prolific expression actually started, and will always be, is in the Father’s Word.  Kings David and Solomon, for example, are poetic as well as beyond wise, spoke from the heart.  The first chapter starts with such a touch of romance, it reads like Shakespeare.

“Solomon's Song of Songs.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth-- for your love is more delightful than wine.  Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens love you!  Take me away with you--let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers. We rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine. How right they are to adore you!  Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon.  Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother's sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have neglected.  Tell me, you whom I love, where you graze your flock and where you rest your sheep at midday. Why should I be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of your friends?”

As I always want to project, “WORDS do have power,” especially when they are shared with those of us who can appreciate the expression of their heart.
In celebration of Poets and their expressed words, during the month of April, I would like to share one of my interpretations:
 

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Pure Thoughts: Poetry Month (Pt. 3)

Ms. Nikki Giovanni, an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator, whose primary focus is on the individual, and the power provided, to make a difference in oneself, and in the lives of others. 

Ms. Giovanni’s poetry expresses strong racial pride, respect for family, and her own experiences as a daughter, a civil rights activist, and a mother. She is currently a distinguished and prolifically-poignant professor of English at Virginia Tech.

The younger of two daughters, Yolande Cornelia Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1943, to Yolande Cornelia, Sr. and Jones "Gus" Giovanni, the blessings of a close-knit family, growing up in Lincoln, Heights, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio.

In 1960 she began her studies at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, her grandfather's alma mater, graduating in 1967 with honors, receiving a B.A. in History. Afterward, she went on to attend the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

By 1969, Ms. Giovanni had all her academic credentials straightened up. She took a job offer from the Rutgers University officials, in order to teach students a good thing or two about different subjects of vast interest. She did, however, receive recognition of nineteen doctorates, and honorary degrees from several institutes every once in a while, but none of them counts as an “actual” degree. But still, an honorary degree or a posthumous honor is a great way to make someone stand tall among others.

Since 1987, she has taught writing and literature at Virginia Tech, where she is a University Distinguished Professor. Recipient of a myriad of other awards, including "Woman of the Year" awards from three different magazines as well as the key to several different cities.

Included on her various list of prize-winning writings: Black Feeling-Black Talk (1967), Black Judgment (1968), Re: Creation (1970), My House (1972), Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day (1978), also co-authored “A Dialogue with James Baldwin” (1973) book. In addition, Ms. Giovanni’s work has extended to recorded form, for example, albums “LIKE A RIPPLE ON A POND,” and “TRUTH IS ON ITS WAY,” with New York Community Choir.

What an incredibly astute woman, continuing to guide through knowledgeable insight!

Below is another one of her familiar poetic works, of which I can relate personally, even though I’m not a male, My First Memory (Of Librarians):

This is my first memory:
A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky
wood floor
A line of green shades—bankers' lights—down the center
Heavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply
too short
For me to sit in and read
So my first book was always big
In the foyer up four steps a semi-circle desk presided
To the left side the card catalogue
On the right newspapers draped over what looked like
a quilt rack
Magazines face out from the wall
The welcoming smile of my librarian
The anticipation in my heart
All those books—another world—just waiting
At my fingertips.

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JAZZ IS… The Appreciation of The Mood!

JAZZ

– An American treasure, created in the bowels of African roots, also delivering syncopated rhythms, with touches of scatting “do and play what you feel” hospitality.

I remember how frequently our home was filled with some of the various genres, some of the best forms of melodic comfort, any time of the day. Gospel, Soul, Pop, even classical artists like Marian Anderson, Leontyne Price, and Maria Callas, constantly providing us with a sense of creative stance.

Just as Gospel has always provided that sense of deeply-rooted experience, in the field of Jazz, we were introduced to the Truth of “REAL” Music, by my father.  Not limited to, but including, the most prolifically-sound jazz artists, we grew up with that same mantra surrounding us. 

Jelly Roll Morton, Scott Joplin, Charles Mingus, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughn - the list is ongoing.

That complexity, determination, proficiency, individuality through improvisation, and heart-felt description, that those most seasoned musicians were engraved with, have always provided us with in-depth fervor.

In recognition of Jazz Appreciation Month, I want to share the clip below, featuring Kirk Whalum, contributing sounds from spiritual point of view.  Referring to the first chapter of John, also being highlighted is Tata Vega, and the late great George Duke.  Be blessed as you listen!

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HAPPY RESURRECTION, Today and ALWAYS!!!

Pure Thoughts: In Celebration of National Poetry Month (Pt. 2)

The next poet to spotlight, another one of my all-time favorites, is the incomparable Ms. Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (1979-2000)!

 

Ms. Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, though she spent most of her life on Chicago’s south side, whose Bronzeville neighborhood she memorialized in her poetry.  

She was interested in poetry from an early age, and published her first poem in American Childhood Magazine at 13. Starting in 1934, she joined the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper, and published nearly 100 poems in a weekly poetry column. 

Ms. Brooks received the Pulitzer Prize — the first African American so honored — for her second book of poems, “Annie Allen,” in 1950.  Moreover, at age 68, she became the first black woman appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.  Later she served as Poet Laureate of Illinois, personally funding literary award ceremonies and visiting grade schools, colleges, universities, prisons, hospitals, and drug rehabilitation centers.  

Ms. Brooks received many poetry awards and honors, and actively brought poetry classes and contests to young people in the inner city, as she was so devoted to encouraging young people to write.

Below is one of her most loved, as well as well-known, poems, “A Song in the Front Yard:”

I've stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back

Where it's rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.
I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.
The have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it's fine
How they don't have to go in at quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George'll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it's fine Honest, I do
And I'd like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stocking of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.