We’ve had Edward Thomas and Henry Vaughn waxing medicinal about autumn and affliction, and now it’s time to head back across the Atlantic to see what metaphor American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar brings to the season. By coming to prominence in the 19th century, decades before James Weldon Johnson’s 1922 Book of American Negro Poetry … Continue reading Dunbar’s October
Here’s a piece using an outwardly modest poem by a modest poet, Anne Spencer. It spoke so quietly to me, that at first I overlooked it when I was reading James Weldon Johnson’s seminal “The Book of American Negro Poetry” anthology, which included it. Just a few weeks later I saw a small story online … Continue reading Dunbar
This project has gone on so long and produced so many pieces, so before February ends I thought I’d highlight five of the most popular pieces we’ve presented in past years that deal with Afro-American experience or history. The bold-faced start of each listing is a link to take you to the original Parlando Project … Continue reading Some past Parlando Project pieces relating to Black History Month
A hundred years ago, a teenager is riding on a train to Mexico. He’s just left his high school in Ohio. He’s Black. Most of the school was white. When he was in Junior High, the class was asked to elect a class poet. The teacher suggested it should be someone who understood rhythm, and … Continue reading A Negro Speaks of Rivers
Let me write a post about something that I experienced recently, just like a real blog would do. Early this month I attended a virtual symposium Sonnets from the American organized by Dora Malech and Laura T. Smith.* I’ve heard “Zoom Fatigue” is a thing now, but I found it energizing. I’m still integrating things … Continue reading I’m not a scholar, but I play one on the Internet
There used to be a thing, back in the Seventies when “The Sixties” were being established as a retrospective era: “The Beatles or The Stones?” The idea was that this choice, which was supposed to be somehow exclusive, was an “opener,” a what’s your (astrological) sign query that would tell the questioner who you were—or … Continue reading On the Grasshopper and the Cricket
Continuing on with our countdown of the most popular pieces here this past spring, I find a few things that break the usual patterns. So let’s get on with it and see what we find that were the most liked and listened to since March 1st. The bold-face titles are links to the original post … Continue reading Spring 2020 Parlando Top Ten, numbers 4-2
Back now to our recounting of the pieces that you, our readers and listeners, most liked and listened to this past winter. Let’s jump back in as we count them down. 7. “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. This one is remarkable in that it was released on February 24th, very late in … Continue reading Winter 2020 Parlando Top Ten, numbers 7-5
Today I present the other widely anthologized Paul Laurence Dunbar poem: “We Wear the Mask.” I was going to put a “now” qualifier in front of “widely” above, but that made for an awkward sentence. I think it’s worth burning at least another sentence to note that. In looking for some more Dunbar information, I … Continue reading We Wear the Mask
The last two times I presented poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar here I went out on a limb on subtexts that might be present in those poems. “October” is on the surface a harvest “Happy Autumn” poem, but there’s an element in it of the personified rich harvest’s carefree possession of wealth. Just a handy … Continue reading Sympathy (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
