Jean Toomer

The poetry that I like to write about is the kind that makes me feel emotions - hope, sadness, happiness, etc. I mean, if we don't feel anything, we're just reading words on paper. A lot of what makes poetry nice to read, in my opinion at least, is really vivid and colorful vocabulary. And I don't mean cursing at people. (Although that can be nice too sometimes :) ). When a poet can take their natural talent with words to craft scenes, feelings, and situations, and combine that with a greater societal purpose, those poets elevate their works to transcend just poetry. Instead, they contribute to a greater movement through their words ad their ability to reach a wide audience.

So, today I'm writing about a poet who was relevant in a time that, if you're like me, you witness the effects of daily but may not know much about it. I'm talking about the Harlem Renaissance.  Between the end of WWI and the mid 1930's, Harlem was an epicenter for an absolute explosion of black culture, art, and music. This time period inspired many famous poets, artists, and musicians to escape the oppression previously placed upon them and used their combined experiences and collective spirit to skyrocket the culture to a new level.

Taken from http://www.robinurton.com/history/20th%20c/American/BeardenJammingAtSavoy.jpg

You'll probably recognize popular names from the Harlem Renaissance like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston (who I fell in love with when reading in high school) and Jean Toomer. Last semester I discussed Hughes in detail, who transposed the black culture into words that captured the struggles and overcoming of obstacles that many black people had faced. However, Jean Toomer, whose poetry I will briefly discuss today, focused more on capturing the struggles in a way that lent strength to the black community, especially in the context of slavery.

Taken from http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/toomer/toomer.htm

One of Toomer's poems that I have recently become acquainted with is called "Cotton Song"

Cotton Song
Come, brother, come. Lets lift it;
come now, hewit! roll away!
Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day
But lets not wait for it.
God's body's got a soul,
Bodies like to roll the soul,
Cant blame God if we dont roll,
Come, brother, roll, roll!
Cotton bales are the fleecy way,
Weary sinner's bare feet trod,
Softly, softly to the throne of God,
"We aint agwine t wait until th Judgment Day!
Nassur; nassur,
Hump.
Eoho, eoho, roll away!
We aint agwine to wait until th Judgment Day!"
God's body's got a soul,
Bodies like to roll the soul,
Cant blame God if we dont roll,
Come, brother, roll, roll! 

There are a couple things about this poem that really stuck out to me and made this poem unique and different than really any other I have ever read. He utilizes religious allusions and visual and tactile imagery to further emphasize the idea that hard work in the cotton fields would be the one and only way for the enslaved people to reach Heaven. 

The speaker of the poem at some points speakers in colloqial language.  The lines are in quotes, so the speaker is quoting another character or facet of himself who speaks with a dialect. These lines begin with the the line “We aint agwine t wait until th Judgement Day!”  This line, which restates the idea that the characters are not going to wait for Judgement Day to be good souls, is written phonetically in an African-American slave dialect, which both draws the reader’s eye to this section and also forces them to spend more time to understand it.  The next line, “Nassur; nassur” is a phonetic spelling of No sir, no sir, and after than, “Hump.” greatly resembles the exclamation “Humph!” The following line, “Eoho, eoho, roll away!” also uses onomatopoeia to express the shouts that are part of the song, and the section of colloquial language ends with the speaker restating the line “We aint agwine to wait until th Judgement Day!” 

Through these different visual interest points and auditory tricks, Toomer creates a unique poem that captures the complexities of a seemingly simple song that the slaves used during the days to help pass the time. It's so interesting to me how people can transpose such horrible pain into a beautiful poem that conveys so much emotion and intelligence in very few words, and now I feel like I need to try a little harder!