Alice Dunbar Nelson - 5 Short Poems (1895-1929)
Forgotten Poems #104
—: If I Had Known (1895) :— If I had known Two years ago how drear this life should be, And crowd upon itself all strangely sad, Mayhap another song would burst from out my lips, Overflowing with the happiness of future hopes; Mayhap another throb than that of joy. Have stirred my soul into its inmost depths, If I had known. If I had known, Two years ago the impotence of love, The vainness of a kiss, how barren a caress, Mayhap my soul to higher things have soarn, Nor clung to earthly loves and tender dreams, But ever up aloft into the blue empyrean, And there to master all the world of mind, If I had known.
—: I Sit And Sew (1923) :— I sit and sew—a useless task it seems, My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams— The panoply of war, the martial tread of men, Grim-faced, stern-eyed, gazing beyond the ken Of lesser souls, whose eyes have not seen Death, Nor learned to hold their lives but as a breath— But—I must sit and sew. I sit and sew—my heart aches with desire— That pageant terrible, that fiercely pouring fire On wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things Once men. My soul in pity flings Appealing cries, yearning only to go There in that holocaust of hell, those fields of woe— But—I must sit and sew. The little useless seam, the idle patch; Why dream I here beneath my homely thatch, When there they lie in sodden mud and rain, Pitifully calling me, the quick ones and the slain? You need me, Christ! It is no roseate dream That beckons me—this pretty futile seam, It stifles me—God, must I sit and sew?
—: You! Inez! (1921) :— Orange gleams athwart a crimson soul Lambent flames; purple passion lurks In your dusk eyes. Red mouth; flower soft, Your soul leaps up—and flashes Star-like, white, flame-hot. Curving arms, encircling a world of love, You! Stirring the depths of passionate desire!
—: Music (1925) :— Music! Lilting, soft and languorous, Crashing, splendid, thunderous, Blare of trumpets, sob of violins, Tinkle of lutes and mandolins; Poetry of harps, rattle of castanets, Heart-break of cellos, wood-winds in tender frets; Orchestra, symphony, bird-song, flute; Coronach of contraltos, shrill strings a-mute. Sakuntala sobbing in the forest drear, Melisande moaning on crescendic fear; Splendor and tumult of the organs roll, Heraldic trumpets pierce the inner soul; Symphonic syncopation that Dvorak wove, Valkyric crashes when the Norse gods strove; Salome’s triumph in grunt obscene, Tschaikowsky peering through forest green; Verdi’s high treble of saccharine sound, Celeste! Miserere! Lost lovers found. Music! With you, touching my finger-tips! Music! With you, soul on your parted lips! Music—is you!
—: The Proletariat Speaks (1929) :— I love beautiful things: Great trees, bending green winged branches to a velvet lawn, Fountains sparkling in white marble basins, Cool fragrance of lilacs and roses and honeysuckle. Or exotic blooms, filling the air with heart-contracting odors; Spacious rooms, cool and gracious with statues and books, Carven seats and tapestries, and old masters Whose patina shows the wealth of centuries. And so I work In a dusty office, whose grimed windows Look out in an alley of unbelievable squalor, Where mangy cats, in their degradation, spurn Swarming bits of meat and bread; Where odors, vile and breathtaking, rise in fetid waves Filling my nostrils, scorching my humid, bitter cheeks. I love beautiful things: Carven tables laid with lily-hued linen And fragile china and sparkling iridescent glass; Pale silver, etched with heraldries, Where tender bits of regal dainties tempt, And soft-stepped service anticipates the unspoken wish. And so I eat In the food-laden air of a greasy kitchen, At an oil-clothed table: Plate piled high with food that turns my head away, Lest a squeamish stomach reject too soon The lumpy gobs it never needed. Or in a smoky cafeteria, balancing a slippery tray To a table crowded with elbows Which lately the bus boy wiped with a grimy rag. I love beautiful things: Soft linen sheets and silken coverlet, Sweet cool of chamber opened wide to fragrant breeze; Rose-shaded lamps and golden atomizers, Spraying Parisian fragrance over my relaxed limbs, Fresh from a white marble bath, and sweet cool spray. And so I sleep In a hot hall-room whose half opened window, Unscreened, refuses to budge another inch; Admits no air, only insects, and hot choking gasps, That make me writhe, nun-like, in sack-cloth sheets and lumps of straw. And then I rise To fight my way to a dubious tub, Whose tiny, tepid stream threatens to make me late; And hurrying out, dab my unrefreshed face With bits of toiletry from the ten cent store.
Alice Dunbar Nelson (1875-1935)—teacher, author, and sociologist—was born in New Orleans, and after graduating from Straight University in 1892, worked as a teacher at Old Marigny Elementary, and studied art and music. Published her first collection of short-stories and poems, Violets & Other Tales (1895), before moving to Boston, and then New York, where she continued teaching. In 1898 married the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, but left him in 1904 largely due to his alcoholism and abusive behavior. Nelson was openly bisexual, and had numerous affairs with women during this time as well.
In the early-1900s moved to Wilmington, Delaware, and alongside teaching took up journalism, “contributing to many publications and newspapers in the field of the short story and essay.” (The Southern Workman, 1928) In 1916 married her third husband, poet and civil rights activist Robert J. Nelson. In the early-1920s was the associate editor of the Wilmington Advocate, a progressive black newspaper, and later wrote for the Washington Eagle and The Messenger, among others; “She is regarded by most newspaper folk as one of the ablest columnists in the United States.” (The Messenger, 1927)
“Organize, organize, and again organize. Then vote for those who are friends to the race, irrespective of party or political superstition. And let the organization of our own race be so strong and compact that it will be felt as a force wherever the Negro has the vote.” (Alice Dunbar Nelson, The Crisis, 1923)
Nelson was also a tireless civil rights activist. Served on the Executive Committee of the Anti-Lynching Crusaders while living in New York—“a million women united to suppress lynching”—alongside poet and novelist Jessie R. Fauset; co-founded a school for African American girls while living in Delaware; and was a prominent leader in the mobilization of black women for the anti-war effort, among other initiatives. A significant forerunner to poetry of the Harlem renaissance, alongside Fenton Johnson, et al.
Illustration by Harlem renaissance artist Hale Woodruff (The Crisis, 1928).
—: After Alice Nelson :— by Dick Whyte between drifting clouds patches of sky, like wounds that never healed— everything else moves
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didn't plan to start the day in tears but YOUR POEM
Wow. “I Sit and Sew”: amazing. I’m in awe. I don’t know if this poem is widely shared (I haven’t seen it before) but it should be. Thank you for posting the work and bio of this extraordinary woman.