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"The Crisis": a Collection of Poems

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The Crisis was a monthly magazine published by the NAACP, which began publication in 1910. Throughout its early years, the magazine was edited by W.E.B. Du Bois. Between 1919-1926, Jessie Fauset served as its Literary Editor. 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 Crisis, including Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, as well as Fauset herself. In addition to poetry, the newspaper frequently published criticism and reviews 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 1911 and 1926, the magazine published more than 150 poems by a wide range of authors. Below, you'll find the poems we have collected thus far that appeared in the magazine. 

Source: Many of the poems collected on this page were discovered via the digital repostiory of The Crisis at Modernist Journals Project. Others (mainly poems published after 1922) have been sourced from digital versions of The Crisis found on sites like Archive.org and HathiTrust. 

Acknowledgments: This page has benefited from the efforts of Christian Farrior, a Graduate Research Assistant who assisted in retyping and formatting poems from page image format in the summer of 2022. 

 

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  1. Welcome: African American Poetry--a Digital Anthology Amardeep Singh

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  1. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Certainty" (1914) Amardeep Singh

Contents of this tag:

  1. Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1921)
  2. Anne Spencer, "Dunbar" (1922)
  3. James D. Corrothers, "The Road to the Bow" (1913)
  4. Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., "A Sonnet to the Negro Soldiers" (1918)
  5. James Weldon Johnson, "Brothers" (1916)
  6. Carrie Williams Clifford, "The New Year" (1920)
  7. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "A Sonnet: to the Mantled" (1917/1922)
  8. A Sonnet in Memory of John Brown by Georgia Douglas Johnson
  9. Alice Dunbar-Nelson, "Sonnet" (1919)
  10. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "The Freedom of the Free" (1913)
  11. Countee Cullen, "Three Hundred Years Ago" (1925)
  12. Benjamint Griffith Brawley, "Shakespeare" (1915)
  13. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Certainty" (1914)
  14. James D. Corrothers, "The Black Man's Soul" (1915)
  15. L.A. Proctor, "My Little Love Salome" (1911)
  16. Andrea Razafkeriefo, "In Flanders Fields..." (1920)
  17. C. Bertram Johnson, "Soul and Star" (1919)
  18. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Armageddon" (1915)
  19. Waverly T. Carmichael, "'Taint No Need O' Women Worrin' "(1918)
  20. The Hegira by Georgia Douglas Johnson
  21. W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Quadroon" (1911)
  22. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "The Teacher" (1911)
  23. William Pickens, "'The Crisis'" (1914)
  24. Langston Hughes, "Poem (To F.S.)" (1925)
  25. Virginia P. Jackson, "Africa" (1919)
  26. Jessie Fauset, "Song for a Lost Comrade (To O.B.J.)" (1922)
  27. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Gossamer" (1916)
  28. Countee Cullen, "Bread and Wine" (1923)
  29. Cora J. Ball Moten, "A Lullaby" (1914)
  30. Jessie Redmon Fauset, "Rondeau" (1912)
  31. Angelina W. Grimke, "To the Dunbar High School (A Sonnet)" (1917)
  32. J.W. Work, "It's Great to Be a Problem" (1920)
  33. Lucian B. Watkins, "Paul Laurence Dunbar--Poet" (1917)
  34. Otto Bohanan, "Villanelle" (1915)
  35. Countee Cullen, "Night Rain" (1925)
  36. Katherine Gillard, "Just a Little Tired" (1916)
  37. B. Harrison Peyton, "Lo, the Dusk-Born Daughter!" (1916)
  38. Otto Bohanan, "God Gave Us Song" (1918)
  39. Otto Bohanan, "The Awakening" (1914)
  40. Otto Bohanan, "Paean" (1915)
  41. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "My Boy" (1917)
  42. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "My Little One" (1916)
  43. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Snow" (1920)
  44. W.E.B. Du Bois, "A Hymn to the Peoples" (1911)
  45. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Afterglow" (1920)
  46. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Heritage" (1917)
  47. Robert J. Laurence, "The Christmas Sermon" (1912)
  48. Ethel Caution Davis, "A Man" (1916)
  49. Lucian B. Watkins, "The Black Madonna And Her Babe" (1918)
  50. Jasper Ross, "King Cotton and the Negro" (1914)
  51. Esther A. Yates “Fettered Liberty” (1915)
  52. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Guardianship" (1917)
  53. Lottie Burrill Dixon, "A Rainy Day" (1916)
  54. Profiles of William Stanley Braithwaite in "The Crisis": "Resurrection" (1911)
  55. W.E.B. Du Bois, "In God's Gardens" (1912)
  56. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Again it is the Vibrant May" (1918)
  57. James Weldon Johnson, "To America" (1917)
  58. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Prejudice" (1919)
  59. Lucian Watkins, "Two Points of View" (1916)
  60. Effie Lee Newsome (Marry Effie Lee), "O Autumn, Autumn!" (1918)
  61. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Hope" (1917)
  62. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Mate" (1916)
  63. William Stanley Braithwaite, "The Vision" (1911)
  64. W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Burden of Black Women" (1914)
  65. Countee Cullen, "If Love be Staunch" (1925)
  66. Lucian B. Watkins, "These" (1917)
  67. William H.A. Moore “Here in the Time of the Winter Morn” (1912)
  68. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Attar" (1920)
  69. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Essence" (1916)
  70. Bertha Johnston, "I Met A Little Blue-Eyed Girl" (1912)
  71. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Potency" (1919)
  72. Robert J. Laurence, "The Christmas Sermon" (1912)
  73. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Mother" (1917)
  74. Will N. Johnson, "The Call" (1916)
  75. W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Christmas Prayers of God" (1914)
  76. Countee Cullen, "Lament" (1925)
  77. James Weldon Johnson, "Father, Father Abraham" (1913)
  78. James D. Corrothers, "At the Closed Gate of Justice" (1913)
  79. Kelsey Percival Kitchel, "Slave's Song" (1916)
  80. Robert W. Justice, "The Heart's Desire" (1911)
  81. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Let Me Not Lose My Dream" (1917)
  82. Edwin J. Morgan, "Rhapsody" (1917)
  83. B.B. Church, "Maybe" (1923)
  84. W.E.B. Du Bois, "Unrest" (1920)
  85. Anne Spencer, "White Things" (1923)
  86. Alston Burleigh, "The Brave Son" (1919)
  87. James D. Corrothers, "Up! Sing the Song" (1913)
  88. James D. Corrothers, "In the Matter of Two Men" (1915)
  89. Lucian Watkins “Song of the American Dove”   (1916)
  90. Carrie Williams Clifford, "An Easter Message" (1920)
  91. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Shall I Say 'My Son, You Are Branded'?" (1919)
  92. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Final Strain" (1917)
  93. Carrie Williams Clifford, "An Easter Message" (1920)
  94. Angelina W. Grimke, "To Keep The Memory of Charlotte Forten Grimke" (1915)
  95. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Desert-Bound" (1918)
  96. William H.A. Moore, "That One Might Live in the Sunlight Glad" (1913)
  97. James Weldon Johnson, "The Black Mammy" (1915)
  98. Otto Bohanan, "The Washer-Woman" (1916)
  99. Rosalie Jonas, "The Octoroon Ball" (1911)
  100. Lucian Watkins, "Frederick Douglass-Orator" (1917)
  101. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Father Love" (1919)
  102. W.E.B. Du Bois, "Joseph Pulitzer" (1911)
  103. Anne Spencer, "Before the Feast of Shushan (Esther I)" (1920)
  104. Fenton Johnson, "War Profiles" (1918)
  105. James D. Corrothers, "A Song of May and June" (1914)
  106. Lucian Watkins, "Greatness" (1916)
  107. Carrie Williams Clifford, "Spring" (1915)
  108. Fenton Johnson, "Children of the Sun" (1913)
  109. Lucian Watkins, "Samuel Coleridge Taylor--Musician" (1917)
  110. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "In the Still Night" (1917)
  111. Josephine T. Washington, "Cedar Hill Saved" (1919)
  112. Yetta Kay Stoddard, "For a Rose" (1922)
  113. Arthur Tunnell, "On Segregation" (1914)
  114. James D. Corrothers, "Listen, O Isles!" (1914)
  115. Ida B. Luckie, "Retribution" (1916)
  116. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Rain-Mist" (1920)
  117. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Vision of a Lyncher" (1912)
  118. Countee Cullen, "Threnody for a Brown Girl" (1925)
  119. Jessie Fauset, "Again It is September" (1917)
  120. Amedee Brun, "The Pool" (translated by Jessie Fauset, 1921)
  121. Lucian B. Watkins, "Ballade to Paul Laurence Dunbar" (1918)
  122. Jessie Fauset, "Douce Souvenance" (1920)
  123. William Stanley Braithwaite, "Scintilla" (1915)
  124. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Peace" (1916)
  125. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Fame" (1916)
  126. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Shadows" (1920)
  127. James Weldon Johnson, "The White Witch" (1915)
  128. Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Black Samson of Brandywine"
  129. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Passing of the Ex-Slave" (1918)
  130. B.B. Church, "In This Hour" (1919)
  131. Lucian B. Watkins, "Star of Ethiopia" (1918)
  132. William Stanley Braithwaite, "Laughing it Out" (1915)
  133. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Tears and Kisses" (1917)
  134. Lucian B. Watkins, "To Our Friends" (1916)
  135. Charles Bertram Johnson, "Race Dreams" (1920
  136. W.E.B. Du Bois, "Easter-Emancipation 1863-1913 (1913)
  137. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "Calling Dreams" (1920)
  138. Roscoe C. Jamison, "Negro Soldiers" (1917
  139. Rosalie Jonas, "Brother Baptis' On Woman Suffrage" (1912)