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Poetry for Children

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Poetry intended for children is a small but growing part of the collections on this site. The majority of the materials linked to below are from The Brownies' Book, a magazine published in 1920-1921 by W.E.B. Du Bois, with Jessie Fauset as the Managing Editor. In the near future, we also intend to include poems published in The Crisis, on the "Little Page," a page edited and typically authored by Effie Lee Newsome. "The Little Page" was a feature of The Crisis through much of the mid-1920s, and reflects an awareness of how the magazine was typically read in African American communities.

Alongside The Brownies' Book and "The Little Page" in The Crisis, we are also including a plain text version of an anthology called The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer published in 1920, which is marketed to "youthful" readers (though it is not exactly "children's literature"). 

In 1932, Langston Hughes would publish a volume intended for children, The Dream Keeper and other poems, which contained some of his early writing in The Brownies' Book as well as poems written later. (That collection is currently still in copyright.) 

 

Contents of this tag:

  1. Alice Dunbar-Nelson, "The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer" (1920)
  2. "The Upward Path: A Reader For Colored Children" (1920)
  3. Annette Browne, "Little Brown Boy" (1921)
  4. Annie Virginia Culbertson, "The Origin of White Folks" (1920)
  5. Effie Lee Newsome, "Mattinata" (1927)
  6. Annette Brown, "The Wishing Game" (1920)
  7. Lucian B. Watkins, "Little Black Boy" (1921)
  8. Carrie Williams Clifford, "A Kindergarten Song" (1920)
  9. Langston Hughes, "Fairies" (1921)
  10. Wendell Phillips Gladden, Jr. "May-Queen" (1920)
  11. Langston Hughes, "An April Rain Song" (1921)
  12. Jessie Fauset, "Spring Songs" (1920)
  13. Carrie Williams Clifford, "Poems" (1921)
  14. Jessie Fauset, "After School" (1920)
  15. Effie Lee Newsome, "A Black Boy Dreams" (1927)
  16. Madeline G. Allison, "Children of the Sun" (1920)
  17. Langston Hughes, "The Gold Piece: A Play that Might be True" (1921)
  18. James Weldon Johnson, "The Tale of a Kitten" (1920)
  19. Effie Lee Newsome, Poems from "The Little Page" in "The Crisis" (1927)
  20. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Brown Eyes" (1920)
  21. Langston Hughes, "The Laments of a Vanquished Beau" (1921)
  22. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Recruit" (1920)
  23. Cecelia Elizabeth, "The Lay of the Nile" (1920)
  24. Langston Hughes, "Autumn Thought" (1921)
  25. Jessie Fauset, "Dedication (The Brownies' Book)" (1920)
  26. Priscilla Jane Thompson, "To a Little Colored Boy" (1900)
  27. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Children's Manual" (1920)
  28. Langston Hughes, "Those Who Have No Turkey" (1921)
  29. Jessie Fauset, "The Story of George Washington" (1920)
  30. Carrie Williams Clifford, "Ideals" (1920)
  31. Langston Hughes, "Thanksgiving Time" (1921)
  32. Yetta Kay Stoddard, "E Pluribus Unum" (1920)
  33. Jessie Fauset, "Two Christmas Songs" (1920)
  34. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Foreword" to the "Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer" (1920)
  35. Jessie Fauset, "At the Zoo" (1920)
  36. Langston Hughes, "Winter Sweetness" (1921)
  37. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Ancestor" (1920)