Before I resumed reading poetry from The Well-Educated Mind list, I had not heard of Paul Laurence Dunbar. But now, I consider him one of my favorite poets. Why? Because every single poem I read from the selected list produced a similar satisfaction.

His topics ranged from life, love, joy, hardship, family, race, traditions, progress, and triumph. He wrote impartially and honestly about African American experiences and traditions of the late 1800s. But the tone was all very kindred. His poems were pragmatic, true, and often cheerful. And best of all, they were musical.

Dunbar wrote many of these poems in the African American dialect, and I found it even more pleasant to hear someone else read them than for me to read them myself. In that way, they become like songs.

His life was fascinating. Born in Ohio, to two former slaves (from Kentucky), he took an interest in writing from his youth. He was the only black student of his high school class and became president of the school literary society, editor of the school newspaper, and the class poet. Orville Wright was his classmate, and helped him print a separate publication, in which Dunbar also contributed poems.

After graduation, and due to the praise from teachers and newspaper editors, Dunbar gained access to the literary world and had some of his work published. Even Orville Wright later helped finance his friend. An admiring attorney offered to pay for his college, but Dunbar rejected the offer to pursue his writing career. Thus, the attorney helped Dunbar publish a second collection of poems. (That's how promising he was. Everyone who knew his work wanted him to succeed.)

Dunbar became America's first prominent African American poet and was an international sensation. His verse dialect was actually preferred by white audiences. In other words: they liked it! He also wrote short stories, novels, and essays, which I would be interested in reading, as well.

Unfortunately, Dunbar suffered from health complications and died at the young age of 33. Gratefully, today, we still have his works, which have only gained in popularity over time. If you are interested, read a poem or two from Paul Laurence Dunbar. You will not be disappointed.

These are the selected poems I read. Favored favorites are in blue:

A Negro love Song
An Ante-Bellum Sermon
At the Tavern
Colored Band
The Debt
Douglass
Little Brown Baby
Ode to Ethiopia
The Old Front Gate
The Poet and His Song
The Seedling
Signs of the Times
Sympathy
We Wear the Mask
When Malindy Sings
When de Co'n Pone's Hot
When Dey 'Listed Colored Soldiers ( )

Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio, to a Mother who had been a slave
and a Father who served in The Union Army.

Known widely as The Father of Black Poetry, he traveled extensively to give well-loved recitals.

His marriage to Alice moved from pure and compassionate and passionate love
to Alice nearly dying from being kicked by him.
She thankfully left, never to return or communicate with him,
learning of his death while reading a newspaper. ( )

I received The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar as an ARC, and my first reaction was, "what have I done to myself?" It's not a slim volume. Though he died early of tuberculosis at age 33, he left quite a legacy. An African-American, his poetry had the blessing of The New York Times and was popular as the 19th century turned into the 20th. He now appears to be mainly remembered for his powerful poem "Sympathy", from which Maya Angelou took the title of her classic memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings:

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!

He invented his own way of conveying Negro dialect in poetry, and wrote many in that style. I found it easy enough to read, but somewhat discomfiting from a 21st century perspective. Maybe that's a good thing, as it's thought-provoking in looking back at his time. Here's a short example, excerpted from his poem, "A Banjo Song":

Now, de blessed little angels,
Up in heaben, we are told,
Don't do nothin' all dere lifetime
'Ceptin' play on ha'ps of gold.
Now I think heaben'd be mo' homelike
Ef we'd hyeah some music fall
F'om a real ol'-fashioned banjo,
Like dat one upon the wall.

He was observant and insightful about our frailties, hypocrisies and absurdities. I liked one of his called "The Lawyer's Way", which described first one lawyer who "smeared {the defendant's} reputation/ With the thickest kind of grime" and then the defendant's lawyer who assured us the opposite, that the defendant had "Every blessed human grace/Till i saw the light o' virtue/Fairly shinin' from his face," After this he concludes:

Then I own I was puzzled
How sich things could rightly be;
An' this aggervatin' question
Seems to keep a-puzzlin' me.
So, will someone please inform me,
An' this mystery unroll-
How an angel an' a devil
Can persess the same soul?

He is amusingly acerbic in several poems. Commenting on a lofty contemporary dilettante ("The Dilettante: A Modern Type") he says:

He looms above the sordid crowd -
At least through friendly lenses;
While his mamma looks pleased and proud,
And kindly pays expenses.

All in all, a sterling collection from a poet who deserves to be better-remembered. He'd probably tell us not to worry about that. From his poems it appears that he was a firm believer in God and the afterlife. This is his poem "When All is Done":

When all is done, and my last word is said,
And ye who loved me murmur, "He is dead,"
Let no one weep, for fear that I should know,
And sorrow too that ye should sorrow so.

When all is done and in the oozing clay,
Ye lay this cast-off hull of mine away,
Pray not for me, for, after long despair,
The quiet of the grave will be a prayer.

For I have suffered loss and grievous pain,
The hurts of hatred and the world's disdain,
And wounds so deep that love, well-tried and pure,
Had not the pow'r to ease them or to cure.

When all is done, say not my day is o'er,
And that thro' night I seek a dimmer shore:
Say rather that my morn has just begun,--
I greet the dawn and not a setting sun,
When all is done. ( )

The Complete Poems of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

Encased in a sturdy and stylish paperback, The Complete Poems of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, exhibit Mint Editions handling of an early African American poet. Dunbar (1872 – 1906) lived a brief life, “published his first collection of poems as a teenager. While working as an elevator operator, Dunbar released and personally distributed his works to earn extra money.” He died “at age 33 due to tuberculosis.” Like Rimbaud, his life was like a comet, briefly shining before being prematurely extinguished.

Complete Poems has many, many poems. These include the collections Lyrics of Lowly Life, Lyrics of the Hearthside, Humour and Dialect, Lyrics of Love and Laughter, Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow, and ending with “Miscellaneous.” What Dunbar managed to do involved capturing his unique human experience and expressing it in several different voices. A good poet has a specific “voice.” An Allen Ginsberg poem sounds like an Allen Ginsberg poem. The same goes for poetry by Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, Algernon Swinburne, Charles Baudelaire, and many others. Other poets are multivocal, containing multitudes. Ezra Pound immediately comes to mind, with his poems and translations of Chinese poets, Provencal troubadours, and Old English seafarers. Dunbar’s poems contain many voices, from the lowly vernacular to the high-toned classical mythology.

In “If” he speaks of:

A barren, barren world were this
Without one saving gleam;
I’d only ask that with a kiss
You’d wake from the dream.

In contrast to this stately quatrain, he writes poetry in the African American dialect. They can be humorous and depict plantation life. Born in 1872, the Civil War and slavery would be fresh in the minds of recenly freed blacks. He would come of age as the Reconstruction Era fizzled and failed against Southern legislative obstructionism, terrorism, and lynch mob rule. Dunbar chronicled this life in his poetry.

An example of his “dialect poems” is “Temptation”:

I done shuk my fis’ at Satan, an’ I ’s gin de worl’ my back;
I do’ want no hendrin’ causes now a-both’rin’ my track;
Fu’ I ’s on my way to glory, an’ I feels too sho’ to miss.
Wy, dey ain’t no use in sinnin’ when ‘uligion ’s sweet ez dis.

It seems a bit strange on the page, but Dunbar’s poetry was meant to spoken. When said aloud, the dialect shines through. The unfamiliar can become familiar. Complete Poems has numerous poems written in dialect as well as many others in more refined registers. The collection provides an embarrassment of riches.

What makes Mint Editions different is that “books are only printed when a reader orders them, so natural resources are not wasted. […] [N]ever manufactured in excess and exist only in the exact quantity they need to be read and enjoyed.” Because of the present environmental crisis instigated by human activity, some companies have doubled down in the bad old ways while others have innovated. Innovation is always a risk, but Mint Editions have found a way to exploit the opportunities previous used by “print-on-demand” technology. Still used by self-published authors, print-on-demand usually showed its low-budget roots. The books, even by authors with the best intentions, remained cheap looking.

Judging a book by its cover is a cliché, but also very true. The consumer’s first impressions are everything. But this reviewer was impressed by Mint Edition’s production of Complete Poems. It managed to enact business practices which positively benefit the environment and look good doing it. Complete Poems is the full package: slick design, forward thinking business model, and wonderful poetry. My only quibble, albeit minor, is that the volume had a more in-depth introduction. The present volume has a paragraph of author biography. It seems scant, given Dunbar’s considerable output.

https://driftlessareareview.com/2021/06/19/the-complete-poems-of-paul-lawrence-d... ( )

The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar was first published as a collection in 1913. That it has been republished now by Mint Editions is important on a number of different levels. Dunbar (1872-1906) is said to have written his first poem at six and, by the time of his death to tuberculosis at the age of 33, he was an important novelist, playwright, and poet. He was known as the poet laureate of the Negro race. For a young African American man, born of previously enslaved parents, to have left such a lasting legacy is a testament to his creative powers.

This particular edition is noteworthy as well. Mint Edition Books are printed (beautifully I might add) on demand, so only when a customer orders a book is it printed. No wasted paper, no wasted trees. Kudos to Mint Editions. Pick up a copy. Dunbar's poems will delight you for years to come.