The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-07-19

A Negro Poet.
No matter how much ability. or genius.
one may possess. somebody has got TO
| discover him and Introduce him TO the
! public before he ever amounts TO much
william Dean Howells has performed this
office for the first American negro poet
There have been numerous writer's OF dog
gerel among the negroes. and there IS
scarcely a preacher or exhOrter Of the
race but can improvise a hymn on short
| lfotice II not upon the spur OF the mo-
ment that viii set his congregation to
sWaying and shouting" In religious
| ecstacy. But they are not poets. Their
efforts r-ay sound sonorous and pleas
ing, when chanted or sung by the "be-
LEVERS" but when put into cold print
they lose their charm. The poet Mr..
Howells has discovered is able to stand
the test OF type and ink. He has. indeed.
| published volume OF his works, which
volume Is the basis Of a commendatory.
not to say lauditory, review by Mr. How
ellis in Harper's Weekly. The reviewer
was one of those persons who had about
despaired Of the races ability to produce
4 poet Hs7had regarded the black race
as so alien and distinct from the white
that he imagined they must have thought
black and felt black" The new poet.
however. has convinced him that an IN
fusion OF Aryan blood is not absolutely
necessary to the awakening of whatever
poetic or artistic instincts may lie dor
mant in the race.
The negro poets name is Paul Lawrence
Dunbar and his book is called Majors
and Minors" The majors" are poems
in pure English, and the minors" are
poems in negro dialect. OF the two classi-
hcations. the works in the latter will
probably attract the more attention. We
have had many attempts-the majority OF
them very poor-of the white man to
write the negro dialect We shall now
see how the competent negro handles il.
Here is a sample from Dunbar's book.
1t is called, when de Con Pone's Hot"
Dey is times in life when Nature
Seems to slip a cog an go,
Jes a-rattlin' down creation,
LAX an oceans overflow;
When de wOrl jes stahts a-spinnin'
Lake a picaninny's top,
An yo cup o. Joy is brimmin'
Twell II seems about TO slop,
An you feel jes lax a racah
Dat is tranin' flu to trot-
When yo' nanny ses de blessin'
An de con pones hot.
Ma
An I've heerd o lots o. prayers,
An I've listened to some singin'
Dat has TUX me up de stairs
| OF de Glory-Lan' an set me
Jes' below he Mahster's th'one,
| An have lef' my hawt a-singin
! In a happy aftah tone,
But dem wuds 50 sweetly rnurmured
Seem TO tech de softes' spot,
| When my nanny ses de blessin
| An de con pone's hot.
1t cannot be denied that the dialect is
relatively as good as the Hoosier dialect
of James Whitcomb Riley or the Cracker
dialect of Frank Stanton. 1t is an i'm
provement upon the dialect of Uncle Re
mus" though 1t would appear that Dun
bar had got his idea of the negro dialect
from Uncle Remus" rather than from
| the plantations at first hands. The
writer of this has been more or less as
ISOLATED with plantation negroes for more
than thirty years, and he does not recall
ever having heard one of them say, "twslr'
for until, or for any other word, for that
matter.
The poet. however, has got very close
to negro nature. The fault noted with
regard to the dialect is very small one
in comparison with the merit of the idea
and the, expression. Dunbar demon
strates mat he knows negro nature and
characteristics. in the following as well
as in the foregoing;
Amt you nevah heer'd Malindy?
| Blessed soul. take up de crossl
Look heah, amt you jokin', honey?
| Well, you don't know what you los
| Yought to heah dat gal ava bling;
Robins, laks. an all dem things
Heish dey moufs an hides dey faces
When Melindy sings.
She Jest spreads huh mouf an holahs
Sinnahs' trenholm steps an voices.
Timid-like a-drawin' neah;
Den she tu'ns TO Rock of Ages"
Simply to de cross she clings,
An you fin yo' teahs a-drappin'
When Melindy sings.
Three different stories of the manner of
the death of Jose Maceo have been told
in the Havana dispatches within a week.
One said he had been ambushed and as
sassinated by his own men. as a result of