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Poems Published in "The Crisis" 1910-1926

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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:

  1. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "A Sonnet: to the Mantled" (1917)
  2. Langston Hughes, "To the Black Beloved" (1925)
  3. Langston Hughes, "Summer Night" (1925)
  4. Langston Hughes, "Disillusion" (1925)
  5. William Pickens, "'The Crisis'" (1914)
  6. Carrie Williams Clifford, "The New Year" (1920)
  7. Alice Dunbar-Nelson, "Sonnet" (1919)
  8. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "Shakespeare" (1915)
  9. James Weldon Johnson, "Brothers" (1916)
  10. Countee Cullen, "Bread and Wine" (1923)
  11. Langston Hughes, "Aunt Sue's Stories" (1921)
  12. Angelina Weld Grimke, "To the Dunbar High School (A Sonnet)" (1917)
  13. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Race Dreams" (1920)
  14. Jessie Redmon Fauset, "Rondeau" (1912)
  15. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Armageddon" (1925)
  16. Arna Bontemps, "Hope" (1924)
  17. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Gossamer" (1916)
  18. Cora J. Ball Moten, "A Lullaby" (1914)
  19. Waverly T. Carmichael, "'Taint No Need O' Women Worrin' "(1918)
  20. Jessie Fauset, "Here's April" (1924)
  21. Arna Bontemps, "Nocturne at Bethesda" (1926)
  22. Carrie Williams Clifford, "Spring" (1915)
  23. Joseph S. Cotter, "To Bishop Hood" (1919)
  24. Lucian B. Watkins, "Paul Laurence Dunbar--Poet" (1917)
  25. Langston Hughes, "Poem (To F.S.)" (1925)
  26. Jessie Fauset, "Rain Fugue" (1924)
  27. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "The Teacher" (1911)
  28. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Mocking Bird" (1923)
  29. Edward S. Silvera, "Happiness" and "Death" (1926)
  30. L.A. Proctor, "My Little Love Salome" (1911)
  31. Effie Lee Newsome (Mary Effie Lee), "O Autumn, Autumn!" (1918)
  32. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Quatrain" (1923)
  33. Countee Cullen, "Night Rain" (1925)
  34. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Motherhood" / "Black Woman" (1922)
  35. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Certainty" (1914)
  36. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Father Love" (1919)
  37. Countee Cullen, "Three Hundred Years Ago" (1925)
  38. W.E.B. Du Bois, "Song of the Smoke" (1907)
  39. Lucian Watkins, "Greatness" (1916)
  40. Claude McKay, "The Void" (1924)
  41. James D. Corrothers, "At the Closed Gate of Justice" (1913)
  42. Langston Hughes, "The Poppy Flower" (1925)
  43. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Courier" (1926)
  44. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Easter" (1923)
  45. Robert W. Justice, "The Heart's Desire" (1911)
  46. Countee Cullen, "If Love be Staunch" (1925)
  47. Langston Hughes, "My Beloved" (1924)
  48. Langston Hughes, "The Ring" (1926)
  49. Walter Everette Hawkins, "Ethiopian Maid" (1917)
  50. Ida B. Luckie, "Retribution" (1916)
  51. B.B. Church, "Africa" (1924)
  52. William H.A. Moore “Here in the Time of the Winter Morn” (1912)
  53. Clara G. Stillman, "Dark Dream" (1923)
  54. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Heritage" (1917)
  55. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Soul's Easter" (1925)
  56. James Weldon Johnson, "The White Witch" (1915)
  57. Langston Hughes, "A Song to a Negro Wash-woman" (1925)
  58. Countee Cullen, "Lament" (1925)
  59. Clara G. Stillman, "Mysterious Land" (1924)
  60. W.E.B. Du Bois, "Unrest" (1920)
  61. Countee Cullen, "Dad" (1922)
  62. Frank Horne, "My Words" (1926)
  63. Lillian B. Witten, "Youth Passes" (1920)
  64. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Fame" (1916)
  65. Langston Hughes, "Prayer Meeting" (1923)
  66. Countee Cullen, "Thoughts in a Zoo" (1926)
  67. James Weldon Johnson, "Father, Father Abraham" (1913)
  68. Harriette Shadow Butcher, "The Memory of Colonel Charles Denton Young" (1925)
  69. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Calling Dreams" (1920)
  70. W.E.B. Du Bois, "Joseph Pulitzer" (1911)
  71. Arna Bontemps, "Dirge" (1926)
  72. Effie Lee Newsome (Mary Effie Lee), "Morning Light" (1918)
  73. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "My Little One" (1916)
  74. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "To Your Eyes" (1924)
  75. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Peace" (1916)
  76. Langston Hughes, "Shadows" (1923)
  77. Otto Bohanan, "Paean" (1915)
  78. Willis Richardson, "The After Thought" (1923)
  79. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Afterglow" (1920)
  80. Yetta Kay Stoddard, "For a Rose" (1922)
  81. Walter Everett Hawkins, "Child of the Night" (1924)
  82. Josephine T. Washington, "Cedar Hill Saved" (1919)
  83. Arna Bontemps, "Holiday" (1926)
  84. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Rain-Mist" (1920)
  85. Clara Burrill Bruce, "We Who Are Dark" (1918)
  86. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Old Friends" (1921)
  87. Lottie Burrill Dixon, "A Rainy Day" (1916)
  88. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "My Son" (1924)
  89. William H.A. Moore, "That One Might Live in the Sunlight Glad" (1913)
  90. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Desert-Bound" (1918)
  91. Effie Lee Newsome, "Cantabile" (1925)
  92. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Again it is the Vibrant May" (1918)
  93. Katherine Gillard, "Just a Little Tired" (1916)
  94. Charles Bertram Johnson, "True Wealth" (1924)
  95. Effie Lee Newsome, "Negro Street Serenade (In the South)" (1926)
  96. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Snow" (1920)
  97. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Rain-Mist" (1921)
  98. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Mate" (1916)
  99. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Escape" (1925)
  100. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "My Boy" (1917)
  101. Fenton Johnson, "War Profiles" (1918)
  102. Bessie Brent Madison, "Down at the Feet of the Years" (1925)
  103. Alston Burleigh, "The Brave Son" (1919)
  104. Countee Cullen, "Icarian Wings" (1921/1924)
  105. Countee Cullen, "Road Song" (1923)
  106. Langston Hughes, "Ruby Brown" (1926)
  107. Profiles of William Stanley Braithwaite in "The Crisis": "Resurrection" (1911)
  108. Mary J. Washington, "Peace on Earth" (1919)
  109. Will N. Johnson, "The Call" (1916)
  110. Anita Scott Coleman, "The Colorist" (1925)
  111. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Guardianship" (1917)
  112. Lucian B. Watkins, "Star of Ethiopia" (1918)
  113. E. Lucien Waithe, "To a Brown Child" (1925)
  114. Lucian Watkins, "Two Points of View" (1916)
  115. Jessie Fauset, "Here's April" (1924)
  116. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Finality" (1926)
  117. William Stanley Braithwaite, "The Vision" (1911)
  118. Lucian B. Watkins, "Two Poems: War and Peace" (1919)
  119. Effie Lee Newsome (Mary Effie Lee), "Sunset" (1921)
  120. Edwin J. Morgan, "Rhapsody" (1917)
  121. George Reginald Margetson, "The Surge of Life" (1925)
  122. William Stanley Braithwaite, "Scintilla" (1915)
  123. Countee Cullen, "Sweethearts" (1923)
  124. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Essence" (1916)
  125. Langston Hughes, "Song for a Suicide" (1924)
  126. Langston Hughes, "To Beauty" (1926)
  127. Effie Lee Newsome, "The Bronze Legacy (To a Brown Boy)" (1922)
  128. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Final Strain" (1917)
  129. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Mother" (1917)
  130. William Stanley Braithwaite, "Laughing it Out" (1915)
  131. Countee Cullen, "Threnody for a Brown Girl" (1925)
  132. Jessie Fauset, "Rencontre" (1924)
  133. Kelsey Percival Kitchel, "Slave's Song" (1916)
  134. Langston Hughes, "Fascination" (1924)
  135. Langston Hughes, "Monotony" (1923)
  136. B.B. Church, "Maybe" (1923)
  137. Lucian Watkins, "Samuel Coleridge Taylor--Musician" (1917)
  138. Arna Bontemps, "Spring Music" (1925)
  139. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Let Me Not Lose My Dream" (1917)
  140. Jasper Ross, "King Cotton and the Negro" (1914)
  141. Roasalie M. Jonas, "Crowded Out" (1924)
  142. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "In the Still Night" (1917)
  143. Langston Hughes, "Lullaby" (1926)
  144. B.B. Church, "In This Hour" (1919)
  145. Otto Bohanan, "The Washer-Woman" (1916)
  146. Langston Hughes, "Poem" ("I am waiting for my mother...") (1924)
  147. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Decay" (1926)
  148. Edwin Garnett Riley, "A Nation's Greatness" (1920)
  149. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Old Things" (1923)
  150. Jessie Fauset, "Again It is September" (1917)
  151. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Shall I Say 'My Son, You Are Branded'?" (1919)
  152. Langston Hughes, "Minstrel Man" (1925)
  153. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Vision of a Lyncher" (1912)
  154. Claude McKay, "A Daughter of the American Revolution to Her Son" (1926)

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