"Songs from the Wayside," by Clara Ann Thompson (1908)
Collection of Poems by Clara Ann Thompson. Self-published in Rossmoyne Ohio in 1908.
Clara Ann Thompson was born, possibly in 1868, in Rossmoyne, Ohio. Both of her parents were formerly enslaved people. According to Mary Anne Stewart Boelcskevy, she was a member of the YWCA, the NAACP and was active in the Baptist Church. While her collection, Songs from the Wayside was self-published, some of her poems were anthologized in prominent collections, including the Walter Clinton Jackson/Newman Ivey White collection An Anthology of Verse by American Negroes (1924).
This collection contains a significant number of poems using Black vernacular English, referred to at the time as "dialect poetry." Dialect poetry was quite popular in the time, as many writers were influenced by the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, who published several volumes of dialect poetry starting in the 1890s. However, for some writers and critics in the 1910s and 20s the use of dialect would be considered passe.
Contents of this path:
- To My Dead Brother
- Uncle Rube's Defense
- Memorial Day
- Johnny's Pet Superstition
- Hope
- The Dying Year
- His Answer
- Doubt
- The After-Glow of Pain (Clara Ann Thompson)
- If Thou Shouldst Return (Clara Ann Thompson)
- Mrs. Johnson Objects (Clara Ann Thompson)
- Parted (Clara Ann Thompson)
- An Opening Service (Clara Ann Thompson)
- The Christmas Rush (Clara Ann Thompson)
- An Autumn Day (Clara Ann Thompson)
- I'll Follow Thee (Clara Ann Thompson)
- The Easter Light (Clara Ann Thompson)
- Uncle Rube on the Race Problem (Clara Ann Thompson)
- Hope Deferred (Clara Ann Thompson)
- Church Bells
- She Sent Him Away
- Out of the Deep: a Prayer
- Uncle Rube to the Young People
- The Skeptic. Written on an Incident, Read in a Periodical
- A Lullaby
- The Empty Tomb.
- Drift-Wood
- Submission
- The Angel's Message
- The Old and the New
- Oh List To My Song!
- Not Dead, But Sleeping
- The Easter Bonnet
- Autumn Leaves
- The Watcher
