Poems Published in "The Crisis" 1910-1926
The Crisis was a monthly magazine published by the NAACP, which began publication in 1910. Throughout its early years (1910-1934), the magazine was edited by W.E.B. Du Bois, who exerted a strong editorial influence over the magazine's contents. The magazine published poetry, fiction, and even drama throughout its run alongside conventional journalistic articles and opinion. By 1919, The Crisis had a large national subscription base, with as many as 100,000 subscribers, greater than The New Republic. The literature published in the magazine -- including poetry, fiction and drama -- was widely read, and critics have noted that the magazine had an important impact on the literary culture of the Harlem Renaissance that emerged in the early 1920s. Between 1919 and 1926, Jessie Redmon Fauset served as Literary Editor for The Crisis. During that period of time, many young writers who would later be mainstays of the Harlem Renaissance began publishing poetry and criticism in the pages of the magazine, including Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Anne Spencer, as well as Fauset herself. In addition to poetry, the newspaper frequently published criticism and reviews of books of poetry by Black poets. The most influential of these might be William Stanley Braithwaite's 1919 essay, "The Negro in American Literature" (a revised version of that essay was later reprinted in Alain Locke's The New Negro: an Interpretation).
Between 1910 and 1926, the magazine published more than 250 poems by a wide range of authors. Below, you'll find a fairly complete collection of poems by African American authors who published in the magazine. (It's admittedly a large collection, and in the months to come we hope to find ways to organize it to make it more accessible...)
Contents of this tag:
- Langston Hughes, "Summer Night" (1925)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "A Sonnet: to the Mantled" (1917)
- Langston Hughes, "To the Black Beloved" (1925)
- Langston Hughes, "Aunt Sue's Stories" (1921)
- Countee Cullen, "Bread and Wine" (1923)
- Angelina Weld Grimke, "To the Dunbar High School (A Sonnet)" (1917)
- Charles Bertram Johnson, "Race Dreams" (1920)
- Langston Hughes, "Disillusion" (1925)
- William Pickens, "'The Crisis'" (1914)
- Carrie Williams Clifford, "The New Year" (1920)
- Alice Dunbar-Nelson, "Sonnet" (1919)
- Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "Shakespeare" (1915)
- James Weldon Johnson, "Brothers" (1916)
- Charles Bertram Johnson, "Mocking Bird" (1923)
- Leslie Pinckney Hill, "The Teacher" (1911)
- L.A. Proctor, "My Little Love Salome" (1911)
- Edward S. Silvera, "Happiness" and "Death" (1926)
- Effie Lee Newsome (Mary Effie Lee), "O Autumn, Autumn!" (1918)
- Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Quatrain" (1923)
- Countee Cullen, "Night Rain" (1925)
- Fenton Johnson, "War Profiles" (1918)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Motherhood" / "Black Woman" (1922)
- Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Certainty" (1914)
- W.E.B. Du Bois, "Song of the Smoke" (1907)
- Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Father Love" (1919)
- Countee Cullen, "Three Hundred Years Ago" (1925)
- Jessie Redmon Fauset, "Rondeau" (1912)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Armageddon" (1925)
- Arna Bontemps, "Hope" (1924)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Gossamer" (1916)
- Cora J. Ball Moten, "A Lullaby" (1914)
- Waverly T. Carmichael, "'Taint No Need O' Women Worrin' "(1918)
- Jessie Fauset, "Here's April" (1924)
- Arna Bontemps, "Nocturne at Bethesda" (1926)
- Carrie Williams Clifford, "Spring" (1915)
- Joseph S. Cotter, "To Bishop Hood" (1919)
- Lucian B. Watkins, "Paul Laurence Dunbar--Poet" (1917)
- Jessie Fauset, "Rain Fugue" (1924)
- Langston Hughes, "Poem (To F.S.)" (1925)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Finality" (1926)
- William Stanley Braithwaite, "The Vision" (1911)
- Lucian B. Watkins, "Two Poems: War and Peace" (1919)
- Lucian Watkins, "Two Points of View" (1916)
- Jessie Fauset, "Here's April" (1924)
- William Stanley Braithwaite, "Scintilla" (1915)
- Effie Lee Newsome (Mary Effie Lee), "Sunset" (1921)
- Edwin J. Morgan, "Rhapsody" (1917)
- George Reginald Margetson, "The Surge of Life" (1925)
- Countee Cullen, "Sweethearts" (1923)
- Langston Hughes, "To Beauty" (1926)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Essence" (1916)
- Langston Hughes, "Song for a Suicide" (1924)
- William Stanley Braithwaite, "Laughing it Out" (1915)
- Effie Lee Newsome, "The Bronze Legacy (To a Brown Boy)" (1922)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Final Strain" (1917)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Mother" (1917)
- Countee Cullen, "Threnody for a Brown Girl" (1925)
- Jessie Fauset, "Rencontre" (1924)
- Langston Hughes, "Monotony" (1923)
- B.B. Church, "Maybe" (1923)
- Kelsey Percival Kitchel, "Slave's Song" (1916)
- Langston Hughes, "Fascination" (1924)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Let Me Not Lose My Dream" (1917)
- Jasper Ross, "King Cotton and the Negro" (1914)
- Lucian Watkins, "Samuel Coleridge Taylor--Musician" (1917)
- Arna Bontemps, "Spring Music" (1925)
- Langston Hughes, "Lullaby" (1926)
- B.B. Church, "In This Hour" (1919)
- Roasalie M. Jonas, "Crowded Out" (1924)
- Leslie Pinckney Hill, "In the Still Night" (1917)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Decay" (1926)
- Edwin Garnett Riley, "A Nation's Greatness" (1920)
- Otto Bohanan, "The Washer-Woman" (1916)
- Langston Hughes, "Poem" ("I am waiting for my mother...") (1924)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Shall I Say 'My Son, You Are Branded'?" (1919)
- Langston Hughes, "Minstrel Man" (1925)
- Charles Bertram Johnson, "Old Things" (1923)
- Jessie Fauset, "Again It is September" (1917)
- Claude McKay, "A Daughter of the American Revolution to Her Son" (1926)
- Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Vision of a Lyncher" (1912)
- Langston Hughes, "The Poppy Flower" (1925)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Courier" (1926)
- Lucian Watkins, "Greatness" (1916)
- Claude McKay, "The Void" (1924)
- James D. Corrothers, "At the Closed Gate of Justice" (1913)
- Robert W. Justice, "The Heart's Desire" (1911)
- Charles Bertram Johnson, "Easter" (1923)
- Langston Hughes, "The Ring" (1926)
- Walter Everette Hawkins, "Ethiopian Maid" (1917)
- Countee Cullen, "If Love be Staunch" (1925)
- Langston Hughes, "My Beloved" (1924)
- William H.A. Moore “Here in the Time of the Winter Morn” (1912)
- Ida B. Luckie, "Retribution" (1916)
- B.B. Church, "Africa" (1924)
- James Weldon Johnson, "The White Witch" (1915)
- Langston Hughes, "A Song to a Negro Wash-woman" (1925)
- Clara G. Stillman, "Dark Dream" (1923)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Heritage" (1917)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Soul's Easter" (1925)
- Frank Horne, "My Words" (1926)
- Countee Cullen, "Lament" (1925)
- Clara G. Stillman, "Mysterious Land" (1924)
- W.E.B. Du Bois, "Unrest" (1920)
- Countee Cullen, "Dad" (1922)
- Langston Hughes, "Prayer Meeting" (1923)
- Countee Cullen, "Thoughts in a Zoo" (1926)
- James Weldon Johnson, "Father, Father Abraham" (1913)
- Lillian B. Witten, "Youth Passes" (1920)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Fame" (1916)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Calling Dreams" (1920)
- Harriette Shadow Butcher, "The Memory of Colonel Charles Denton Young" (1925)
- Arna Bontemps, "Dirge" (1926)
- Effie Lee Newsome (Mary Effie Lee), "Morning Light" (1918)
- W.E.B. Du Bois, "Joseph Pulitzer" (1911)
- Langston Hughes, "Shadows" (1923)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "My Little One" (1916)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "To Your Eyes" (1924)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Peace" (1916)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Afterglow" (1920)
- Otto Bohanan, "Paean" (1915)
- Willis Richardson, "The After Thought" (1923)
- Arna Bontemps, "Holiday" (1926)
- Charles Bertram Johnson, "Rain-Mist" (1920)
- Clara Burrill Bruce, "We Who Are Dark" (1918)
- Yetta Kay Stoddard, "For a Rose" (1922)
- Walter Everett Hawkins, "Child of the Night" (1924)
- Josephine T. Washington, "Cedar Hill Saved" (1919)
- William H.A. Moore, "That One Might Live in the Sunlight Glad" (1913)
- Charles Bertram Johnson, "Old Friends" (1921)
- Lottie Burrill Dixon, "A Rainy Day" (1916)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "My Son" (1924)
- Effie Lee Newsome, "Cantabile" (1925)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Again it is the Vibrant May" (1918)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Desert-Bound" (1918)
- Effie Lee Newsome, "Negro Street Serenade (In the South)" (1926)
- Charles Bertram Johnson, "Snow" (1920)
- Katherine Gillard, "Just a Little Tired" (1916)
- Charles Bertram Johnson, "True Wealth" (1924)
- Charles Bertram Johnson, "Rain-Mist" (1921)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Mate" (1916)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Escape" (1925)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "My Boy" (1917)
- Bessie Brent Madison, "Down at the Feet of the Years" (1925)
- Alston Burleigh, "The Brave Son" (1919)
- Langston Hughes, "Ruby Brown" (1926)
- Profiles of William Stanley Braithwaite in "The Crisis": "Resurrection" (1911)
- Mary J. Washington, "Peace on Earth" (1919)
- Countee Cullen, "Icarian Wings" (1921/1924)
- Countee Cullen, "Road Song" (1923)
- Will N. Johnson, "The Call" (1916)
- Anita Scott Coleman, "The Colorist" (1925)
- Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Guardianship" (1917)
- E. Lucien Waithe, "To a Brown Child" (1925)
- Lucian B. Watkins, "Star of Ethiopia" (1918)