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Poems Published in "Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life," 1923-1928

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Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life was active in its first instance between 1923-1941. It was published by the National Urban League, under the editorship initially of Charles S. Johnson. 

Opportunity was most influential in African American literary circles for its literary contests, which ran between 1924-1927, and helped to strengthen the reputations of important writers like Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Sterling Brown, Arna Bontemps, and Countee Cullen. The contests were also accompanied by award dinners, which were often quite glamorous, and featured many writers, publishers, and patrons. Countee Cullen was closey involved as a literary editor during these years, and regularly published columns reviewing other poets' work. A fair amount of poetry white poets who were white was also published in these years.

In 1928, Charles Johnson was appointed as President of Fisk University, a Historically Black university. At that time, the editorship shifted, as did the priorities of the journal. After 1928, the magazine was more narrowly focused on sociology and race, and the literary emphasis diminished. 

Here, we have been in the process of digitizing the poems published in the 1920s in Opportunity based on facsimile copies available at Archive.org; those are collected below. We are also developing an Index of poems published in Opportunity during these years; that Index can be found here.

 

Contents of this tag:

  1. Langston Hughes, "The Weary Blues" (1925)
  2. Langston Hughes, "Our Land (Poem for a Decorative Panel)" (1923)
  3. Langston Hughes, "To Midnight Nan at Leroy's" (1926)
  4. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "To a Dark Girl" (1927)
  5. Angelina Weld Grimke, "The Black Finger" (1923)
  6. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Heritage" (1923)
  7. Countee Cullen, "Brown Boy to Brown Girl (Remembrance on a hill) (For Yolanda)" (1924)
  8. Langston Hughes, "The White Ones" (1924)
  9. Angelina Weld Grimke, "Little Grey Dreams" (1924)
  10. Angelina Weld Grimke, "Dusk" (1924)
  11. Angelina Weld Grimke, "I Weep" (1924)
  12. Helene Johnson, "The Road" (1926)
  13. Angelina Weld Grimke, "Death" (1925)
  14. Helene Johnson, "Fulfillment" (1926)
  15. Esther Popel, "Kinship" (1925)
  16. Donald Jeffrey Hayes, "Confession" (1927)
  17. Helene Johnson, "Fiat Lux" (1928)
  18. Gladys May Casey Hayford, "Rainy Season Love Song" (1927)
  19. Lewis Alexander, "Transformation" (1927)
  20. Richard Bruce (Bruce Nugent), "Shadow" (1925)
  21. Clarissa Scott Delany, "Solace" (1927)
  22. Eloise A. Bibb, "After Reading Bryant's Lines to a Waterfowl" (1924)
  23. Joseph S. Cotter, Sr., "The Way-Side Well" (or: "The Wayside Well") (1925)
  24. Arna Bontemps, "Golgotha Is a Mountain" (1926)
  25. Countee Cullen, "Lines to our Elders" (1926)
  26. Anne Spencer, "Rime For the Christmas Baby" (1927)
  27. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Hatred" (1926)
  28. Countee Cullen, "Confession" (1926)
  29. Helene Johnson, "Magalu" (1926)
  30. Helene Johnson, "Trees at Night" (1925)
  31. Countee Cullen, "A Song of Praise (For one who praised his lady's being fair)" (1924)
  32. Langston Hughes, "Lincoln Monument" (1927)
  33. Arna Bontemps, "The Return" (1927)
  34. Lucy Ariel Williams, "Northboun'" (1926)
  35. Sterling A. Brown, "When De Saints Go Ma'ching Home" (1927)
  36. Marie Brown Frazier, "In a Jar" (1928)
  37. George Leonard Allen, "To a Negro Musician" (1927)
  38. Langston Hughes, "Teacher" (1926)
  39. Frank Horne, "To a Persistent Phantom" (1926)
  40. Mae V. Cowdery (Mae Cowdery), "The Wind Blows" (1927)
  41. Helene Johnson, "Metamorphism" (1926)
  42. Allison Davis, "Fighters" (1928)
  43. Langston Hughes, "Liars" (1925)
  44. Langston Hughes, "Mona" (1927)
  45. Arna Bontemps, "God Give to Men" (1925)
  46. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Lethe" (1926)
  47. Helene Johnson, "Night" (1926)
  48. George Leonard Allen, "Portrait" (1927)
  49. Norma Hendricks, "The Mulatto" (1928)
  50. Antonio Jarvis, "Bamboula Dance" (1928)
  51. Esther Popel, "Theft" (1925)
  52. Edward S. Silvera, "On the Death of a Young Friend" (1926)
  53. James Edward McCall, "The New Negro" (1927)
  54. Waring Cuney, "A Triviality" (1927)
  55. Lewis Alexander, "Africa" (1924)
  56. Blanche Taylor Dickinson, "Fortitude" (1927)
  57. J. Alpheus Butler, "The City by the Sea" (1928)
  58. J. Taylor Stanley, "The Two Singers" (1928)
  59. Herschell Bek, "Moonlight" (1925)
  60. J. Alpheus Butler, "Dreamers" (1927)
  61. Arna Bontemps, "Here Is the Sea" (1926)
  62. Angelina Weld Grimke, "For the Candle Light" (1925)
  63. Anita Scott Coleman, "Definition" (1927)
  64. Paul Laurence Dunbar, "The Right to Die" (1899)
  65. Wesley Curtright, "Negro Woman" (1927)
  66. Sterling A. Brown (Sterling Brown), "Thoughts of Death" (1928)
  67. Helene Johnson, "Ah My Race" (1925)
  68. Arna Bontemps, "Homing" (1926)
  69. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Wind" (1924)
  70. Langston Hughes, "I Thought it was Tangiers I Wanter" (1927)
  71. J. Harvey L. Baxter, "Paint Me A God" (1927)
  72. James Edward McCall (J.E. McCall), "The Conjure Man" (1928)
  73. Helene Johnson, "Futility" (1926)
  74. Countee Cullen, "A Thorn Forever In the Breast" (1927)
  75. Arna Bontemps, "The Day-Breakers" (1926)
  76. Esther Popel, "Credo" (1925)
  77. Langston Hughes, "For an Indian Screen" (1927)
  78. Edward S. Silvera, "Fantasy in Black" (1928)
  79. Waring Cuney, "Interior Decoration" (1927)
  80. Arna Bontemps, "The Shattering" (March 1926)
  81. Robert H. Bonner, Jr, "A New Day" (1928)
  82. Countee Cullen, "From Life to Love" (1925)
  83. Langston Hughes, "Passing Love" (1927)
  84. J. Alpheus Butler, "A Traveller" (1928)
  85. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Lines Written at the Grave of Alexandre Dumas" (1926)
  86. Jonathan H. Brooks, "The Resurrection" (1927)
  87. Countee Cullen, "I Have a Rendezvous With Life" (1924)
  88. M.V. Cuthbert (Marion Cuthbert, Marion Vera Cuthbert), "Black Flute" (1928)
  89. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Purgation" (1925)
  90. Langston Hughes, "Day" (1927)
  91. Jonathan H. Brooks, "Still I am Marveling" (1928)
  92. Wallace Thurman, "God's Edict" (1926)
  93. Blanche Taylor Dickinson, "A Sonnet and a Rondeau" (1927)
  94. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Voyaging" (1923)
  95. Earl Bigelow Brown, "A Bridge" (1928)
  96. Langston Hughes, "Troubled Women" (1925)
  97. Langston Hughes, "America" (1925)
  98. George Leonard Allen, "The Negro Sings of Winds" (1928)
  99. Joseph S. Cotter, "The Tragedy of Pete" (1926)
  100. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Street Lamps in Early Spring" (1926)
  101. Countee Cullen, "Black Majesty" (1928)
  102. William H.A. Moore, "Sonnet" (1925)
  103. Anita Scott Coleman, "Wash Day" (1927)
  104. Langston Hughes, "Love Song for Lucinda" (1926)
  105. George Little, "The Black Man's Burden" (1928)
  106. Harry Levette, "The Aster" (1927)

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