Flowers For Socrates

by NONA BLYTH CLOUD

There are over 40 poets on the May birthday list, and I already knew the work of of 27 of them, and the names of several others, before I began to look them up.

So May is an outstanding month for the birth of poets. Is it the spring air?

Whatever the reason, I’ve decided to do round-ups of the poets born in each week of the month. It’s unlikely that all of them are My Kind of Poet, so some may not appear here, but it will be fun to see how many I can cover in four Fridays.

This week’s list is the shortest:

• Sterling A. Brown, born May 1
• Thomas Kinsella, born May 4
• Randall Jarrell, born May 6
• Ariel Dorfman, also born May 6

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Sterling Allen Brown (1901-1989), was born on the campus of Howard University in Washington D.C., where his father, Sterling N. Brown, a former slave, was a prominent minister and professor at the Howard Divinity School. His mother Grace Adelaide Brown, valedictorian of her class at Fisk University, taught in D.C. public schools for more than 50 years. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Williams College, and a master’s degree from Harvard University, Sterling Brown was employed as a teacher at the Virginia Seminary and College in Lynchburg until 1926, where his interest in Southern Black dialect took root. Three years later, Brown began teaching at Howard University and in 1932 his first book, Southern Road, was published. The Depression made it hard to find a publisher for his next collection of poetry, so he concentrated on writing essays and on his career at Howard, where he taught until his retirement in 1969. He finally published his second book of poetry, The Last Ride of Wild Bill, in 1975.

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This poem was published in Poetry magazine’s July 1938 issue. A more conventional poem than much of his other work, it contains few words from the black dialect he often used. The struggle of African American sharecroppers in the rural South to make ends meet still comes through very clearly.

The Young Ones

With cotton to the doorstep
No place to play;
No time; what with chopping cotton
All the day.

In the broken down car
They jounce up and down
Pretend to be steering
On the way to town.

It’s as far as they’ll get
For many a year;
Cotton brought them
And will keep them here.

The spare-ribbed yard-dog
Has gone away;
The kids, just as hungry,
Have to stay.

In the two-roomed shack
Their mammy is lying,
With a new little brother
On her arm, crying.

Another mouth to feed
Another body to bed,
Another to grow up,
Underfed.

But their pappy’s happy
And they hear him say:
“The good Lord giveth,
And taketh away.

“It’s two more hands
For to carry a row;
Praise God from whom
All blessings flow.”

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