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Yet Do I Marvel

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind

And did He stoop to quibble could tell why

The little buried mole continues blind,

Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,

Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus

Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare

If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus

To struggle up a never-ending stair.

Inscrutable His ways are, and immune

To catechism by a mind too strewn

With petty cares to slightly understand

What awful brain compels His awful hand.

Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:

To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

**

Test your knowledge first:

Reading Questions

1. The poem consists of three sentences and, as is customary with poetry, the normal word order is sometimes changed for rhythm and emphasis. Rearrange these sentences as you read so that you understand the underlying syntax. Look up words which you do not fully understand ("quibble," "baited," "caprice," "inscrutable," "catechism," or "awful," for example).

2. What is the poet asking of God? How does he portray his own understanding of God's ways?

3. The poet speaks personally, but does not reveal that he might be black until the final line. How does the withholding of this affect your reading of the poem? How would you have read the poem if you thought that the speaker was not black but was sympathetic to the plight of black poets?

**

This poem speaks to the paradox of the Black artist, to have a message and talent, but to also be confined and obligated to address himself to the plight of the black man in America.

The black artist like his white contemporaries, saw the injustices happening to black people around him and used his art form to deliver the protest message to the American people. In many cases relaying this message was not intentional but rather an expression of feelings. The Renaissance artists attempted to express what the masses of the black race were feeling. Some of the poets tried to escape race in their poems, but race is always implied in their writings. The motivation of the artist comes directly from an understanding that the black artist reflects his own frame of reference which is the black experience.

The Harlem Renaissance literature begins with the poem “If We Must Die...” by Claude McKay. This poem was a direct retaliation to the plight of the black man, with particular regard to the Chicago race riots of 1919. The poem would seemingly advocate violent actions; however, it is more than just advocating violence, it is stressing that if death is inevitable, because of the situations surrounding blacks, then death must occur in a proud and honorable fashion.

Countee Cullen is a lyric poet. The two lines in sonnet form in which he speaks of the paradoxes of life expresses his faith that God can solve and answer all of the mysteries of life, shows the irony, bitterness, and pathos of a tragedy. Cullen felt that good poetry is a lofty thought expressed beautifully and romantically. However, some of the best poetry of Cullen comes from his race consciousness. Other Cullen poems which still echo the racial consciousness theme are part of his second book of poems Copper Sun (1927), and his poetic narrative, The Black Christ (1929).

Langston Hughes, one of the most popular Renaissance writers, also reflected on the outcast or paradoxical role of the black American. In his poem, “I Too Sing America,” Hughes is addressing the black audience and a white audience and says that he also is beautiful and has a song to sing. He tells blacks to grow and cherish their beauty, and that eventually their beauty will be recognized. It is a Cinderella discovery, that when “company comes” blacks will be noticed and appreciated. This is the paradoxical and uncomfortable situation of not being accepted by white society.

In some of his poetry Hughes uses subjects that might be considered unpoetic and then implies race in them. An example of such a poem is “Brass Spittoons.” In this poem he tells of a black porter who has the task of cleaning brass spittoons, an unlikely topic for a poem but nonetheless bringing the message of race to his audience at the very end of the poem. Hughes was able to show in this poem as well as in his other works a talent for combining wit and satire and anger in such a way as not to offend anyone, but still to make his message clear and understood.

Hughes, McKay, and Cullen were only some of the writers of this era who expressed their feelings on the moment in black history and on the American way of life. The Harlem Renaissance was an important event in black literature, and perhaps if the writers did not address themselves the way they did and on the topics that they chose, we would not have the powerful writers of the sixties with their free expression of thought.

Some of the other writers of the Harlem Renaissance who should be mentioned are Rudolph Fisher, Jean Toomer, Arna Bontemps, and James Weldon Johnson. They should, certainly, be a part of any comprehensive study of black literature of the 1920’s.

Good luck