African American Poets Part II

October 15, 2026

For my next post highlighting African American poets, we’ll look at another anthology from 1923, titled Negro Poets and Their Poems, compiled and edited by Robert T. Kerlin, a civil rights activist and educator who was fired from three jobs in a row for the audacity of activism. In addition to highlighting some excellent poets, this volume includes commentary and discussion of the poets themselves, rather than just collecting the work. In this aspect, the volume also highlights some of the problems inherent in examining the work of African American artists in the public domain. As mentioned in the last post, the language and attitude of white anthologists–even an activist like Kerlin–reflects the strongly racist opinions of the time. At times, discerning Kerlin’s appreciation and admiration for the poets and their works is almost a translation project, while in other places he is effusively positive and his respect for the artists shines through. As a historical object, the book is fascinating in its way; taken at face value from a modern perspective, it is blatantly offensive. So if you check out the anthologies linked here, bear this in mind.

A black-and-white portrait of Angelina Weld Grimke. She is dressed in a black garment with a high neck. Her hair is parted down the middle and drawn back into a pony tail, and she is looking slightly downward with a contemplative expression

Angelina Weld Grimke

Angelina W. Grimke was born in Boston to mixed-race parents. (And not to be confused with Angelina Emily Grimke Weld, who was a white Southern abolitionist and also Angelina Weld Grimke’s aunt.) Of her poetry, Kerlin says, “I am certain that more vivid imaging of objects has not been done in verse by any contemporary.”

Grimke was also a playwright, penning Rachel, a play that spoke against lynching and racial violence, for the NAACP, and a second play, Mara, which was only partially published. She never married; some of her letters and poems strongly imply that she was a lesbian.

DAWN

Grey trees, grey skies, and not a star;

Grey mist, grey hush;

And then, frail, exquisite, afar,

A hermit-thrush.

A WINTER TWILIGHT

A silence slipping around like death,

Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh, a breath;

One group of trees, lean, naked and cold,

Inking their crests ’gainst a sky green-gold;

One path that knows where the corn flowers were;

Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir;

And over it softly leaning down,

One star that I loved ere the fields went brown.

THE WANT OF YOU

A hint of gold where the moon will be;

Through the flocking clouds just a star or two

Leaf sounds, soft and wet and hushed,

And oh! the crying want of you.

EL BESO

Twilight—and you,

Quiet—the stars;

Snare of the shine of your teeth,

Your provocative laughter,

The gloom of your hair;

Lure of you, eye and lip;

Yearning, yearning,

Languor, surrender;

Your mouth,

And madness, madness,

Tremulous, breathless, flaming,

The space of a sigh;

Then awakening—remembrance,

Pain, regret—your sobbing ;

And again quiet—the stars,

Twilight—and you.

A sepia-toned photo of Alice Dunbar Nelson, in three-quarter portrait looking to the right. Her bare shoulders are visible, and she is wearing a chain necklace. Her hair is parted down the middle and has a ribbon in the back, but it is not drawn back flat--her hair is a bit poofy in a stylish, controlled way. She is looking to the left, eyes slightly lifted, mouth in a line. Her expression seems to imply defiance.

Alice Dunbar Nelson

Alice Dunbar Nelson was a poet, diarist, and journalist. Her first husband Paul Laurence Dunbar, mentioned in the previous post. He was abusive, and she finally left him, but not until he beat her nearly to death. They never officially divorced; after his death, she remarried to physician Henry A. Callis, whom she divorced after six years. Her third marriage, to poet and educator Robert J. Nelson, lasted until her death in 1935. She was bisexual and engaged in affairs with women throughout her life.

In addition to her poetry, Nelson wrote for and edited several newspapers and journals, as well as plays and short stories. She was active with the NAACP and other activist groups, promoting equal rights and women’s suffrage.

As a poet, Nelson was extraordinary. Of “Violets,” presented below, Kirlin says, “A sonnet … from Mrs. Dunbar-Nelson to which I think Mrs. Browning or Christina Rossetti might have appended her signature without detriment to her fame.”

I SIT AND SEW

I sit and sew—a useless task it seems,

My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams—

The panoply of war, the martial tread of men,

Grim-faced, stern-eyed, gazing beyond the ken

Of lesser souls, whose eyes have not seen Death,

Nor learned to hold their lives but as a breath—

But—I must sit and sew.

I sit and sew—my heart aches with desire—

That pageant terrible, that fiercely pouring fire

On wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things

Once men. My soul in pity flings

Appealing cries, yearning only to go

There in that holocaust of hell, those fields of woe—

But—I must sit and sew.

The little useless seam, the idle patch;

Why dream I here beneath my homely thatch,

When there they lie in sodden mud and rain,

Pitifully calling me, the quick ones and the slain ?

You need me, Christ ! It is no roseate dream

That beckons me—this pretty futile seam,

It stifles me—God, must I sit and sew ?

VIOLETS

I had not thought of violets of late,

The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet

In wistful April days, when lovers mate

And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.

The thoughts of violets meant florists’ shops,

And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;

And garish lights, and mincing little fops,

And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine.

So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,

I had forgot wide fields and clear brown streams;

The perfect loveliness that God has made—

Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams

And now unwittingly, you’ve made me dream

Of violets, and my soul’s forgotten gleam.

Robert T. Kirlin also collected excerpts from contemporary African American newspapers, which he compiled and published as The Voice of the Negro in 1919.

SOURCES/FURTHER READING

ANTHOLOGIES

https://archive.org/details/negropoetstheirp00kerl/page/n7/mode/2up

https://ia800107.us.archive.org/19/items/negropoetstheirp00kerl/negropoetstheirp00kerl.pdf

https://archive.org/details/voiceofnegro191900kerl/page/n11/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/negrofolkrhymes00tallgoog referenced in the Kirlin book

Angelina Weld Grimke

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelina_Weld_Grimk%C3%A9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelina_Grimk%C3%A9

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Angelina-Weld-Grimke

https://wams.nyhistory.org/modernizing-america/activism-and-the-progressive-era/life-story-angelina-weld-grimke/

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/grimke-angelina-weld-1880-1958/