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Melvin B. Tolson, 1898-1966
In this biography of Tolson, Robert M. Farnsworth has gathered much new information on the poet from family papers; from reminiscences of friends, acquaintances, and relatives; and from scholarly analyses of his work to create a clarifying and insightful account of the poet's life. The events and preoccupations of Tolson's life in turn provide a useful context for examining Tolson's major poems. Moreover, Farnsworth has determined the chronology of most of Tolson's writings, many of which were before either unknown or known only through obscure references. --University of Missouri Press.
Caviar and Cabbage
Melvin B. Tolson is best known as the poet who wrote The Harlem Gallery and Libretto for the Republic of Liberia. He received national acclaim only toward the end of his life, but early in his career he achieved considerable recognition as a challenging speaker and activist within the black American community. Tolson wrote a weekly column for the Washington Tribune from October 9, 1937, to June 24, 1944, entitled "Caviar and Cabbage." As the title suggests, the subjects he treated were various. He perceived the problems of the black world of the late thirties and early forties with the insight of an intellectual and the verbal richness and rhythms of a poet heavily influenced by a strong pulpit tradition. This combination makes the columns valuable both as literature and as cultural history. Robert Farnsworth has selected and edited these columns. His introduction describes their cultural and biographical context. He has arranged the columns according to subject: "Christ and Radicalism," "Race and Class," "World War II," "Random Shots," "Writers and Readings," and "Reminiscences." The background material and the arrangement of the works underline their significance.
From Vagabond to Journalist
Beginning with Snow's youthful ambition to travel the globe and concluding with his notable, if unobtrusive, role in the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between America and China, Farnsworth weaves a spellbinding narrative. Snow's adventure in Asia began in Yokohama, where he landed as a stowaway from Hawaii. Then, just steps ahead of Japanese port police, he made his way to China, where he soon empathized with the suffering of the Chinese people and became curious about the role Communism might play in the rebellion against colonialism. As he traveled throughout the continent during the next thirteen years, Snow established contacts with many important people and won extraordinary personal access to the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. In 1936 he became the first Western journalist to visit the Chinese Red forces and report on a detailed interview with Mao Tse-tung after the completion of the epic Long March.
A Gallery of Harlem Portraits
A Gallery of Harlem Portraits is Melvin B. Tolson's first book-length collection of poems. It was written in the 1930s when Tolson was immersed in the writings of the Harlem Renaissance, the subject of his master's thesis at Columbia University, and will provide scholars and critics a rich insight into how Tolson's literary picture of Harlem evolved. Modeled on Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology and showing the influence of Browning and Whitman, it is rooted in the Harlem Renaissance in its fascination with Harlem's cultural and ethnic diversity and its use of musical forms. Robert M. Farnsworth's afterword elucidates these and other literary influences. Tolson eventually attempted to incorporate the technical achievements of T.S. Eliot and the New Criticism into a complex modern poetry which would accurately represent the extraordinary tensions, paradoxes, and sophistication, both highbrow and lowbrow, of modern Harlem. As a consequence his position in literary history is problematical. The publication of this earliest of his manuscripts will help clarify Tolson's achievement and surprise many of his readers with its readily accessible, warmly human poetic portraiture.
Post-bellum, Pre-Harlem
The years between the collapse of Reconstruction and the end of World War I mark a pivotal moment in African American cultural production. Christened the “Post-Bellum-Pre-Harlem” era by the novelist Charles Chesnutt, these years look back to the antislavery movement and forward to the artistic flowering and racial self-consciousness of the Harlem Renaissance. Post-Bellum, Pre-Harlem offers fresh perspectives on the literary and cultural achievements of African American men and women during this critically neglected, though vitally important, period of our nation's past. Using a wide range of disciplinary approaches, the sixteen scholars gathered here offer both a reappraisal and celebrat...
African-American Poets
This volume focuses on the principal African-American poets from colonial times through the Harlem Renaissance, paying tribute to a heritage that has long been overlooked. Works covered in this text include poems by Phillis Wheatley, widely recognized as
The New Black Politician
Looks at the 2002 Newark mayoral race between Cory Booker and the more established black incumbent Sharpe James, which articulated how moderate black politicians are challenging civil rights veterans for power.
Outside Literary Studies
A timely reconsideration of the history of the profession, Outside Literary Studies investigates how midcentury Black writers built a critical practice tuned to the struggle against racism and colonialism. This striking contribution to Black literary studies examines the practices of Black writers in the mid-twentieth century to revise our understanding of the institutionalization of literary studies in America. Andy Hines uncovers a vibrant history of interpretive resistance to university-based New Criticism by Black writers of the American left. These include well-known figures such as Langston Hughes and Lorraine Hansberry as well as still underappreciated writers like Melvin B. Tolson an...
