by Melvin B. Tolson edited by Robert M. Farnsworth
University of Missouri Press, 1979 Paper: 978-0-8262-0280-2 | Cloth: 978-0-8262-0276-5 | eISBN: 978-0-8262-7313-0 Library of Congress Classification PS3539.O334G3 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.52
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
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.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
About the Author
Born in Moberly, Missouri, Melvin B. Tolson (1898-1966) was one of the outstanding poets of the twentieth century, the author of three books of poetry as well as several novels, dramas, one-act plays, and a newspaper column. A Professor of English and Drama at Langston University, Langston, Oklahoma from 1947 to 1965, Tolson's work won the Annual Poetry Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1966.
About the Editor
Robert M. Farnsworth is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He has published numerous scholarly articles and poems and is co-editor of Richard Wright: Impressions and Perspectives.
REVIEWS
"A very valuable contribution to the relatively sparse literary scholarship about a poet whom other poets have praised highly for his achievements in poetry, and about a poem for which there is far too little critical commentary."—MELUS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Chiaroscuro
Harlem
Gloomy Dean
Miss Eulaline Briffault
Diamond Canady
African China
Nig Grinde
Abraham Dumas
Deacon Phineas Bloom
Aunt Tommiezene
Reverend Thomas Brazeale
Senola Hurse
Sootie Joe
Fritz Rickman
Sadie Mulberry
Biffo Lightfoote
Lady Hope
Black Zuleika
Babe Quest
Francis Keats
Grand Chancellor Knapp Sackville
Editor Crum
Stillicho Spikes
Peg Leg Snelson
Frederick Judson
Chittling Sue
Doc Brockenbury
Poker Face Duncan
Sarah Ashton
Daddy Oldfield
Margaret Levy
Jacob Nollen
Miss Felicia Babcock
Grandma Lonigan
Sister Slemp
Silhouettes
Hester Pringle
David Letts
Rhoda Stacpoole
Napoleon Hanibal Speare
Par Frost
Lovie Long
Sparky Zigsmith
Enloe Penn
James Killmer
Noble Fetchit
Mommy Tyler
Prince Banmurji
Etchings
Joke Bunner
Pearl Tripplett
The Biggest Fool in Harlem
Faith Hanley
Carrie Green
Horace Allyn
Dr. Cram Mifflin
Uncle Rufus
Okay Katie
Mrs. Ernest Quirk
Grandma Grady
Richmond Hoover
Old Man Salem
Dr. Harvey Whyte
Victor Garibaldi
Lena Lovelace
Sergeant Tiffin
Augustus Lence
Zip Lightner
Old Pettigrew
Uncle Walt
Juarez Mary
Isidor Lawson
Chef Sam Logan
Hammuel Gutterman
Ferenc Glaspell
Laura Yost
Uriah House
Sidney Sippel
Mrs. Gertrude Beamish
Vergil Ragsdale
Jobyna Dear
Jack D'Orsay
Mrs. Josephine Wise
Willie Byrd
Flora Murdock
Maizelle Millay
Big Fred Railer
The Stranger
Damon Akerman
Black Moses
Uncle Gropper
Polly Trotter
Joshua Granite
Madame Alpha Devine
Mrs. Edith Parker
Officer John Cushwa
Steve Wordsworth
Jack Patterson
Big Bessie
Ralph Farrell
Pastels
Jesse Seegar
Dave Zachary
Tubby Laughton
Crip Mackay
Elbert Hartman
Festus Conrad
Bowyer Bragg
Winged Feet Cooper
Nutty Al Moon
Harold Lincoln
Ray Rosenfeld
Whirlwind Cotton
Big Shot Lacy
Percy Longfellow
Sterling Artist
Doctor James
Judge Crimpton
Nottley the Embalmer
Mrs. Marcella Loften
Richard Birch
Aunt Hagar
Little Nellie Patmore
Mother Vibbard
Miss Emile Housman
The Honorable Eutaw Lamb
Simon Southorn
Aunt Martha
Ivory Frysinger
Alexander Calverton
Silent Sam
Duke Huggins
Reverend Isaiah Cloud
Ezra Crane
Big Jim Casey
Freida Maynard
Xavier van Loon
Marzimmu Heffner
Gladys Zimmerman
Freemon Hawthorne
Laughing Jim
Goldie Keats
Hilmar Enick
Uncle Twitty
Bella Scarritt
Edna Borland
Slick Gunnar
Frank Fullilove
Nana Swancy
Uncle Lash
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Wu Shang
Tito Crouch
Sylvia Wiggins
Lionel Bushman
Stanley de Weerd
Michael Ramsey
Ted Carson
Guy Gage
Miss Hilda Angoff
Aunt Hilda
Jonah Emerson
Old Man Starks
Ben Shockley
Pops Foote
The Underdog
Appendix
Harlem
Joshua Granite
Marzimmu Heffner
Cato Snoddy
Illustrations
Afterword
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
by Melvin B. Tolson edited by Robert M. Farnsworth
University of Missouri Press, 1979 Paper: 978-0-8262-0280-2 Cloth: 978-0-8262-0276-5 eISBN: 978-0-8262-7313-0
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.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
About the Author
Born in Moberly, Missouri, Melvin B. Tolson (1898-1966) was one of the outstanding poets of the twentieth century, the author of three books of poetry as well as several novels, dramas, one-act plays, and a newspaper column. A Professor of English and Drama at Langston University, Langston, Oklahoma from 1947 to 1965, Tolson's work won the Annual Poetry Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1966.
About the Editor
Robert M. Farnsworth is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He has published numerous scholarly articles and poems and is co-editor of Richard Wright: Impressions and Perspectives.
REVIEWS
"A very valuable contribution to the relatively sparse literary scholarship about a poet whom other poets have praised highly for his achievements in poetry, and about a poem for which there is far too little critical commentary."—MELUS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Chiaroscuro
Harlem
Gloomy Dean
Miss Eulaline Briffault
Diamond Canady
African China
Nig Grinde
Abraham Dumas
Deacon Phineas Bloom
Aunt Tommiezene
Reverend Thomas Brazeale
Senola Hurse
Sootie Joe
Fritz Rickman
Sadie Mulberry
Biffo Lightfoote
Lady Hope
Black Zuleika
Babe Quest
Francis Keats
Grand Chancellor Knapp Sackville
Editor Crum
Stillicho Spikes
Peg Leg Snelson
Frederick Judson
Chittling Sue
Doc Brockenbury
Poker Face Duncan
Sarah Ashton
Daddy Oldfield
Margaret Levy
Jacob Nollen
Miss Felicia Babcock
Grandma Lonigan
Sister Slemp
Silhouettes
Hester Pringle
David Letts
Rhoda Stacpoole
Napoleon Hanibal Speare
Par Frost
Lovie Long
Sparky Zigsmith
Enloe Penn
James Killmer
Noble Fetchit
Mommy Tyler
Prince Banmurji
Etchings
Joke Bunner
Pearl Tripplett
The Biggest Fool in Harlem
Faith Hanley
Carrie Green
Horace Allyn
Dr. Cram Mifflin
Uncle Rufus
Okay Katie
Mrs. Ernest Quirk
Grandma Grady
Richmond Hoover
Old Man Salem
Dr. Harvey Whyte
Victor Garibaldi
Lena Lovelace
Sergeant Tiffin
Augustus Lence
Zip Lightner
Old Pettigrew
Uncle Walt
Juarez Mary
Isidor Lawson
Chef Sam Logan
Hammuel Gutterman
Ferenc Glaspell
Laura Yost
Uriah House
Sidney Sippel
Mrs. Gertrude Beamish
Vergil Ragsdale
Jobyna Dear
Jack D'Orsay
Mrs. Josephine Wise
Willie Byrd
Flora Murdock
Maizelle Millay
Big Fred Railer
The Stranger
Damon Akerman
Black Moses
Uncle Gropper
Polly Trotter
Joshua Granite
Madame Alpha Devine
Mrs. Edith Parker
Officer John Cushwa
Steve Wordsworth
Jack Patterson
Big Bessie
Ralph Farrell
Pastels
Jesse Seegar
Dave Zachary
Tubby Laughton
Crip Mackay
Elbert Hartman
Festus Conrad
Bowyer Bragg
Winged Feet Cooper
Nutty Al Moon
Harold Lincoln
Ray Rosenfeld
Whirlwind Cotton
Big Shot Lacy
Percy Longfellow
Sterling Artist
Doctor James
Judge Crimpton
Nottley the Embalmer
Mrs. Marcella Loften
Richard Birch
Aunt Hagar
Little Nellie Patmore
Mother Vibbard
Miss Emile Housman
The Honorable Eutaw Lamb
Simon Southorn
Aunt Martha
Ivory Frysinger
Alexander Calverton
Silent Sam
Duke Huggins
Reverend Isaiah Cloud
Ezra Crane
Big Jim Casey
Freida Maynard
Xavier van Loon
Marzimmu Heffner
Gladys Zimmerman
Freemon Hawthorne
Laughing Jim
Goldie Keats
Hilmar Enick
Uncle Twitty
Bella Scarritt
Edna Borland
Slick Gunnar
Frank Fullilove
Nana Swancy
Uncle Lash
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Wu Shang
Tito Crouch
Sylvia Wiggins
Lionel Bushman
Stanley de Weerd
Michael Ramsey
Ted Carson
Guy Gage
Miss Hilda Angoff
Aunt Hilda
Jonah Emerson
Old Man Starks
Ben Shockley
Pops Foote
The Underdog
Appendix
Harlem
Joshua Granite
Marzimmu Heffner
Cato Snoddy
Illustrations
Afterword
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE