#PoetryFriday 26_0410
Happy National Poetry Month!
I am celebrating Poetry Month by pairing quotes about poetry (Poetry is…) with images. I share one each day without commentary. Below are the first ten. But first I must share about a poet I recently learned about.
Paul Laurence Dunbar
1872-1906
Paul Dunbar is a little known poet. He was born to parents who had been enslaved prior to the Civil War, and as a child, he began writing stories and verse, publishing his first poems at the age of 16. Though his life was cut short by tuberculous at a young age, Dunbar became one of the first African-American writers to establish an international reputation.
Dunbar not only published a dozen books of poetry, but in addition, four books of short stories, and four novels. Dunbar also wrote the lyrics for In Dahomey, the first musical written and performed entirely by African Americans, produced on Broadway in 1903. I found it interesting that Dunbar wrote in the “Negro dialect” associated with the antebellum South, in the Midwestern dialect of James Whitcomb Riley, and in conventional English.
His poem “Sympathy” is a powerful, moving poem, an unforgettable metaphor. In it is a famous line often thought to have been written by Maya Angelou because she used the line as the title of her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Sympathy
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!
(In public domain)
The Gutenberg Project has digitized Dunbar’s writings. Read or download digital copies HERE
POETRY IS . . .
April 1
April 2
April 3
April 4
April 5
April 6
April 7
Below is one of my favorite quotes and photos.
My husband is reading the headstone with all the personal data.
The footstone, a much smaller stone, is to the right of the tree.
Notice that the tree has grown out of the grave.
This grave is from the early 1800s. We saw it as we were hunting
for graves of our ancestors from the 17th and 18th centuries.
April 8
April 9
April 10
This week’s Poetry Friday roundup
is at Jone Rush MacCull.
Thank you for hosting, Jone!
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