Quatrains
1
Brushes and paints are all I have
To speak the music in my soul—
While silently there laughs at me
A copper jar beside a pale green bowl.
2
How strange that grass should sing—
Grass is so still a thing …
And strange the swift surprise of snow
So soft it falls and slow.
Such fluid verse, bringing as it does a feeling of peace and reflection. That these quatrains should come from the young African American artist/writer, Gwendolyn Bennett, toward the beginning of the Twentieth Century seems somehow incongruous. Our normal historical lexicon doesn’t usually evoke this type of daily event.
Those of this century don’t think of the Roaring Twenties as being a particularly progressive social time in history. We recall the Crash of 1929, which plunged us into the Great Depression. We smile at the antics of the “flappers” and the spat-wearing gents who frequented speak-easies, but we don’t consider the social shift occurring in education and in racial opportunities.
These opportunities meant a career previously unexpected for ones like poet/writer/artist Gwendolyn Bennett. During the 1920’s Black American arts movement, otherwise referred to as the Harlem Renaissance, and which led to the formation of the Harlem Artists Guild in the 1930’s, a determined lady moved to the forefront in the explosion of the arts scene in New York.
For a score of years Bennett worked within New York City’s African American arts community as both a graphic artist and an arts activist. She found herself torn between her art and her ambition to be a proficient and effective writer. Success came on both fronts, but especially during the period between 1923-1928 when her writing of short stories and poetry demanded attention and recognition.
That recognition came with the endorsement she and her work received from respected writer/poet/political attaché James Weldon Johnson who referred to her as “as lyric poet of some power.” This pronouncement established her credentials within the arts movement and the surrounding social environment. The young girl who’d graduated from Brooklyn’s Girls’ High was someone to be reckoned with.
The timing of her life coincided with the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance. She took her dreams of a good education to Columbia University’s Department of Fine Arts. She remained there for two years before transferring out to Pratt Institute from which she graduated.
She sought artistic outlets for her burgeoning design talents in local journals like the NAACP’s Crisis and the Urban League’s Opportunity. Her illustrations appeared on covers and her poems graced inner pages. Her poetry garnered as much excitement and recognition as her prose and design work.
Though she never gathered her poetry into a published collection, it flowered on the pages of literary journals, newspapers, and poetry anthologies that belonged to the likes of some of the biggest names of the time; names such as Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, and William Stanley Braithwaite. Her verse reflected themes of celebration surrounding racial pride, recognition of Black music and dance, and a rediscovery of Africa, as well as romantic lyrics.
While she worked on the social front, she also acted as a hub for younger writers and artists. Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, and Wallace Thurman were examples of her influence. Mutual support and encouragement among their group brought them acknowledgment and recognition of established writers such as Essie Fauset, Alain Locke, and others. Bennett was heard to say, “nothing like this particular life in which you saw the same group of people over and over again. You were always glad to see them. You always had an exciting time when you were with them.”
Her life and her talents took Bennett to Paris to study art for a year in 1925. Upon her return, she took up reins of a different sort. She joined the likes of Thurman Nugent and others to form the editorial board of Firell, a quarterly journal that served younger African American artists.
Though Bennett continued her teaching at Howard, as well as producing a literary and arts news column for two years in the journal Opportunity, she never took up writing full-time. The Great Depression had altered the landscape of the arts scene. Her own artistic sensibilities shifted from exuberant/whimsical to public advocacy for artists in the community.
Even as she looked to her own creative pursuits, she mentored others as before. When she joined the Harlem Artists Guild, she directed its Harlem Community Art Center, which was the largest of the federally funded art projects. There she served on the Board of the Negro Playwright’s Guild and directed the development of the Geo. Washington Carver Community School. Within this capacity Bennett nurtured countless young artists.
Gwendolyn Bennett may never become a household name in today’s literary world, but I doubt that was ever one of her desires. Given that she spent the majority of her adult life mentoring younger artists and writers, it looks as if working toward the establishment of others in the arts, and their recognition within that community, was the main thrust of her life’s purpose. She was a teacher, one who thought more about the recognized futures belonging to others than she the one she was living each day.
This lady poet, artist, and writer influenced an entire generation of African American artists. Her life was filled with excitement, creativity, action, and personal fulfillment. That accomplishment, during that historical period, was perhaps her greatest legacy.
Fantasy
I sailed in my dreams to the Land of Night
Where you were the dusk-eyed queen,
And there in the pallor of moon-veiled light
The loveliest things were seen …
A slim-necked peacock sauntered there
In a garden of lavender hues,
And you were strange with your purple hair
As you sat in your amethyst chair
With your feet in your hyacinth shoes.
Oh, the moon gave a bluish light
Through the trees in the land of dreams and night.
I stood behind a bush of yellow-green
And whistled a song to the dark-haired queen …
Sonnet 1
by Gwendolyn Bennett
He came in silvern armour, trimmed with black—
A lover come from legends long ago—
With silver spurs and silken plumes a-blow,
And flashing sword caught fast and buckled back
In a carven sheath of Tamarack.
He came with footsteps beautifully slow,
And spoke in voice meticulously low.
He came and Romance followed in his track…
I did not ask his name—I thought him Love;
I did not care to see his hidden face.
All life seemed born in my intaken breath;
All thought seemed flown like some forgotten dove.
He bent to kiss and raised his visor’s lace…
All eager-lipped I kissed the mouth of Death.
Written by Gwendolyn Bennett (1902-1981)
Related articles
- Le seize- Countee Cullen and his sting on Racism (westinnarration.wordpress.com)
- A Short History of Tea In Harlem (harlemworldmag.com)
- A’Lelia Walker’s Dark Tower in Harlem (harlemworldmag.com)
- Rudolph Fisher, the Best Harlem Renaissance Writer You’ve Never Heard Of (harlemworldmag.com)
- Yet do I Marvel (lightship-traffic.org)
