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kaatiba's review against another edition
5.0
Only read the Harlem Gallery section. Loved it even if most of the content flew right over my head. The notes included in this edition are super helpful.
astrelfrog's review
5.0
Melvin B. Tolson is the best African-American poet of the 20th century you've never heard of. Born in Moberly, MO in 1898, Tolson attended Fisk University, got a BA from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, and an M.A. at Columbia University, New York. He taught at Wiley College, Langston University, was mayor of Langston, OK and appointed Poet Laureate of Liberia in 1947. In 1965 he was appointed Avalon Poet at the Tuskegee Institute, where he passed away of cancer in 1966.
This book consists of his three major collections: Rendezvous with America, Libretto for Liberia, and Harlem Gallery Part 1, plus several 'fugitive poems" well known work not otherwise collected.
Tolson won numerous awards, but probably because he spent his life teaching at historically Black colleges and universities, he never crossed over into popular literary anthologies. "I will visit a land unvisited by Mr. Eliot," the intro by Rita Dove begins.
The poems live where classical reference and patterned verse crash into free verse and the Black American experience. Unlike better known Harlem Renaissance and big city Black poets, Toulson inhabited another, more rural orbit. In short, his poems are an interesting mashup, utilizing classical and contemporary modes and means to tell about the world as he found it along with distinctly African inspired verse forms and cultural images.
Tolson really deserves to be included in more high school and college anthologies, as well as Black Studies aimed at white Americans. A very good book of poems, just a tragic shame he died with his masterwork uncompleted.
This book consists of his three major collections: Rendezvous with America, Libretto for Liberia, and Harlem Gallery Part 1, plus several 'fugitive poems" well known work not otherwise collected.
Tolson won numerous awards, but probably because he spent his life teaching at historically Black colleges and universities, he never crossed over into popular literary anthologies. "I will visit a land unvisited by Mr. Eliot," the intro by Rita Dove begins.
The poems live where classical reference and patterned verse crash into free verse and the Black American experience. Unlike better known Harlem Renaissance and big city Black poets, Toulson inhabited another, more rural orbit. In short, his poems are an interesting mashup, utilizing classical and contemporary modes and means to tell about the world as he found it along with distinctly African inspired verse forms and cultural images.
Tolson really deserves to be included in more high school and college anthologies, as well as Black Studies aimed at white Americans. A very good book of poems, just a tragic shame he died with his masterwork uncompleted.
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