The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946 (Race and American Culture)

301 Pages·1999·16.83 MB·English

by  James Edward Smethurst

The New Red Negro
RACE AND AMERICAN CULTURE
Arnold Rampersad and Shelley Fisher Fishkin
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The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946
James Edward Smethurst
The New Red Negro
The LITERARY LEFT and
AFRICAN AMERICAN POETRY, 1930-1946
James Edward Smethurst
NEW YORK OXFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1999
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1999 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smethurst, James Edward.
The new red Negro : the literary left and African American poetry,
1930-1946 / James Edward Smethurst.
p. cm. — (Race and American culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-I9-5I2054-X
1. American poetry—Afro-American authors—History and criticism,
2. Communism and literature—United States—History—20th century.
3. American poetry—20th century—History and criticism.
4. Political poetry, American—History and criticism. 5. Left and
right (Political science) in literature. 6. Afro-Americans—
Intellectual life—20th century. 7. Afro-Americans—Politics and
government. 8. Afro-Americans in literature. 9. Race relations in
literature. 10. United States—Race relations. I. Tide.
11. Series.
PS3IO.N4S64 1998
811'. 5209896073—dc21 98-17128
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 1 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Permissions
From Collected Poems by Langston Hughes. Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of
Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Extracts from the poetry of Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Harold
Ober Associates Incorporated. Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes.
Excerpts from "Southern Road," "Strong Men Gittin' Stronger," Maumee Ruth,"
"Mecca," "Effie," "Slim in Arkansas," "Sporting Beasley," "Tin Roof Blues,"
"Cabaret," "Children's Children," "Salutamus," "Side By Side," "Roberta Lee,"
"Legend," "Honey Mah Love" from The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown, edited by
Michael S. Harper. Copyright © 1980 by Sterling A. Brown. Reprinted by permission
of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
From This Is My Century: New and Collected Poems by Margaret Walker Alexander.
Copyright © 1989 by Margaret Walker Alexander. Reprinted by permission of the
University of Georgia Press.
Excerpt from "Spring and All, section XVII" by William Carlos Williams, from
Collected Poems: 1909-1939, Volume I. Copyright © 1938 by New Directions Publishing
Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
Excerpt from "Sullen Bakeries of Total Recall" by Bob Kaufman, from Solitudes
Crowded with Loneliness. Copyright © 1965 by New Directions Publishing Corp.
Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
Excerpts from "Black Mother Praying," "Circle One," and "Circle Two" from
Powerful Long Ladder by Owen Dodson. Copyright © 1973 by Owen Dodson.
Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Inc.
From A Gallery of Harlem Portraits by Melvin B. Tolson. Copyright © 1979 by The
Curators of the University of Missouri. Reprinted by permission of the University of
Missouri Press.
Extensive attempts have been made to contact additional copyright holders of mate-
rial quoted beyond the normal boundaries of fair use.
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for Edward William Smethurst Jr.
and Ludlow Bixby Smethurst,
and in memory of
Edward William Smethurst Sr.,
who took me to see Shakespeare
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Acknowledgments
Alany people have supported, influenced, and generally made possible this project.
As usual, all shortcomings are strictly my own and should not be attributed in any
way to the people listed here.
I am grateful to those scholars at Harvard, visiting and resident, who gave me a
broad view of American literature and culture and "ethnic studies," especially Dwight
Andrews, Sacvan Bercovitch, Juan Bruce-Novoa, King-Kok Cheung, Laurence de
Looze, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Maryemrna Graham, Phillip Brian Harper, the late
Nathan Huggins, Walter Jackson, Meredith McGill, and Jeffrey Melnick.
I am also indebted to many scholars outside Harvard who have encouraged me,
read drafts of my work, shared panels with me, commented on conference papers,
shared their own work, and provided invaluable material and / or advice for my pro-
ject. I am most grateful to Kenneth Rosen of the University of Southern Maine and
James De Jongh of CUNY who in various ways inspired the direction my work has
taken. Among the many other scholars to whom I owe thanks are Byrne Fone, John
German, Cheryl Greenberg, Leo Hamalian, Matthew Jacobson, Robin Kelley, Diana
Linden, Bill Maxwell, William McFeeley, Jim Miller, Bill Mullen, Richard Newman,
Susan Pennybacker, Paula Rabinowitz, Mark Solomon, Patricia Sullivan, Michael
Thurston, and Alan Wald (whose knowledge of literary radicalism is only surpassed
by his generosity in sharing that knowledge).
Much gratitude is due to those friends with whom I have shared (and argued
about) poetry, politics, food, music, and all the other things that make life worth liv-