Heroine of the Harlem Renaissance and Beyond

Belinda Wheeler is Associate Professor of English at Claflin University and the editor of several books, most recently A Companion to Australian Aboriginal Literature.Louis J. Parascandola is Professor of English at Long Island University, Brooklyn, and the editor of several books, most recently Amy Jacques Garvey: Selected Writings from the Negro World, 1923–1928.

• ContentsForeword by Maureen HoneyAcknowledgments Note on the TextBennett TimelineIntroductionPublished WorkPoetryIntroductionNocturne (1923)Heritage (1923)To Usward (1924)Song (1925)Street Lamps in Early Spring (1926)Hatred (1926)Lines Written at the Grave of Alexander Dumas (1926)Moon Tonight (1926)Dear Things (1926)Advice (1927)Fantasy (1927)Quatrains (1927)Secret (1927)To a Dark Girl (1927)Epitaph (1934)ArtIntroductionPaintingUntitled [River Landscape] (1931)Magazine CoversPipes of Pan (March 1924)Untitled (January 1926)Untitled (July 1926)Short StoriesIntroductionWedding Day (1926)Tokens (1927)EditorialsIntroductionThe Ebony Flute (August 1926)The Ebony Flute (April 1927)The Ebony Flute (July 1927)The Ebony Flute (September 1927)The Ebony Flute (April 1928)ReviewsIntroductionHeartbreak and North Carolina Sunshine: The Lonesome Road— by Paul Green (1926)Blue-Black Symphony: Home to Harlem, by Claude McKay (1928)Banjo, by Claude McKay (1929)Plum-Bun, by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1929)The Emperors Jones (1930)Cultural and Social ArticlesIntroductionThe Future of the Negro in Art (1924)The American Negro Paints (1928)The Plight of the Negro Is Tragic (1934)I Go to Camp (1934)The Harlem Artists Guild (1937)Unpublished WorkPoetryIntroductionTwo Poems (1925)Thin Laughter (1928)Train Monotony (1928)Dirge for a Free Spirit (1933)Fulfillment (1935)000[Give me your hand, beloved] (1935)I Build America (1938)Sweat (1938)Wise Guys (1938)The Hungry Ones (1938)Threnody for Spain (1939)[Across a room when other ones are there] (n.d.)[Rapacious women who sit on steps at night] (n.d.)[So this is how it is] (n.d.)Unfinished NovelIntroductionChapter Outline for the Unfinished Novel The Call (n.d.)Excerpts from The Call (1928–1932)EssaysIntroductionMy Father’s Story (n.d.)[Ward Place] (1941)Lancaster, Pa. (n.d.)Let’s Go: In Gay Paree! (n.d.)25 (n.d.)[Life as a Javanese] (n.d.)[Ku Klux Klan Rides] (n.d.)Last Night I Nearly Killed My Husband! (n.d.)[Harlem Reflection] (n.d.)Diaries IntroductionFranceJune 26, 1925July 26, 1925August 2, [1925]August 8, [1925]September 27, [19]25September 28, 1925April 29, 1926United States[April 7,] 1936April 8, 1936April 9, 1936April 18, 1936May 7, 1936January 3, 1937June 19, 1985January 3, 1937June 19, 1958Correspondence Introduction Literary FriendsTo W. E. B. Du Bois (January 19, 1925)To Countee Cullen (August 28, 1925)To Langston Hughes (December 2, 1925)To Countee Cullen (January 14, 1926)To Harold Jackman (February 23, 1926)To Langston Hughes (1926)To Claude McKay (February 25, 1937)To James Weldon Johnson (January 4, 1938)To Alain Locke (May 11, 1939)To Richard Wright (March 3, 1940)To Alain Locke (November 30, 1941)To Langston Hughes (May 13, 1942)Family and AssociatesTo Joshua Bennett and Marechal Neil Bennett (January 5, 1925)To Marechal Neil Bennett (March 24, 1925)To Joshua Bennett (May 17, 1925)To Marechal Neil Bennett (July 27, 1928)To James Vernon Herring (September 9, 1937)To Mayme (Abernathy) Pizarro (August 31, 1938)To Flora Dugan (October 6, 1947)To Everyone (September 27, 1968)NotesBibliographyIndex

“This superbly edited collection will introduce many readers to a more versatile and accomplished Gwendolyn Bennett than they have known before. It includes the unpublished political poetry that extends her range and impact, making her a key figure of the 1930s.”—Cary Nelson, author of Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry and the Politics of Cultural Memory, 1910–1945