Paul Laurence Dunbar
(1872 - 1906)

To possess the distinct writing voices of standard English of the classical poet and the evocative dialect of the turn-of-the-century black community in America, is an uncanny gift that set Paul Laurence Dunbar apart from even the great poets. Born in Dayton, Ohio in 1872, Paul was the son of Joshua and Matilda Dunbar, both natives of Kentucky.

Having heard poems read by the family she worked for when she was a slave, Matilda loved poetry and encouraged her children to read. Dunbar was inspired by his mother, and he began reciting and writing poetry as early as age 6. The only African-American in his class at Dayton Central High, Dunbar, rose to great heights in school. He was a member of the debating society, editor of the school paper and president of the school’s literary society. He published an African-American newsletter in Dayton, the Dayton

Tattler, with the help of Orville and Wilbur Wright.

His first public reading, arranged by a former teacher, came on his twentieth birthday. His work often addressed the difficulties encountered by members of his race and the efforts of African-Americans to achieve equality in America. He was praised both by the prominent literary critics of his time and his literary contemporaries. An excellent illustration of his skill with dialect in poetry comes in, Negro Love Song:

Seen my lady home las' night,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hel' huh han' an' sque'z it tight,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hyeahd huh sigh a little sigh,
Seen a light gleam f'om huh eye,
An' a smile go flittin' by ''
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hyeahd de win' blow thoo de pine,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Mockin'-bird was singin' fine,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
An' my hea't was beatin' so,
When I reached my lady's do',
Dat I could n't ba' to go ''
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Put my ahm aroun' huh wais',
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Raised huh lips an' took a tase,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Love me, honey, love me true?
Love me well ez I love you?
An' she answe'd, " 'Cose I do" ''
Jump back, honey, jump back.

Dunbar published his first collection of poems, Oak and Ivy in 1892. Dunbar’s second book propelled him to national fame. Dodd Mead and Co., combined Dunbar’s first two books and published them as "Lyrics of a Lowly Life.

Dunbar had a short lived marriage to Alice Ruth Moore. He worked at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It is believed the library’s dust contributed to his worsening case of tuberculosis. He died at the young age of 33 at his mother’s home in Dayton 1906.Frederick Douglass called Dunbar, "the most promising young colored man in America." Dunbar Author Biography written by Scott Haskins author of Sasha's Way

 

The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar [Illustrated]
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Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first great Black poet; Booker T. Washington called him the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race". Dunbar, the son of ex-slaves, grew up in Dayton, OH, where he was friendly with the Wright Brothers. He had a successful high school career--founding editor of the school paper and elected class president of the predominantly white school--but upon graduation, he was forced to work as an elevator operator. His second book of poetry was praised by William Dean Howells and by age 24, he was one of the most renowned Black literary figures in America.

WE WEAR THE MASK

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
    We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
    We wear the mask!

 

Lyrics of a Lowly Life
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ISBN: 0806509228
Format: Paperback, 224pp
Pub. Date: November 1984
Publisher: Carol Publishing Group
 

It is both poignant and ironic that Lyrics of Lowly Life, Paul Laurence Dunbar's third volume of poems and the one to gain him a national reputation, should also contain the two poems that would most clearly represent him and reflect the artistic conflict that would torment him throughout his life.

The conflict that tormented Dunbar, one that remained unresolved throughout his short life (he died at age thirty-three), involved his reputation as a poet: While he longed to be taken seriously and to be acknowledged for his poems in standard English, the racial proscription of the country would allow him place only for his mastery of "Negro dialect." A good deal of nineteenth-century white America's love of his dialect poetry was based on his benign images of laughing "darkies" and "coons" eatin' and fishin' and dancin' on the plantation.

But in his standard poems, Dunbar showed a more philosophic bent, musing in the Romantic tradition about the natural world and life itself. And while his dialect poems seem to indicate a counterrevolutionary Tom, his standard poems reveal a man with an evolved racial consciousness that, on rare occasions, borders on militance. Poems such as "We Wear the Mask" and "Frederick Douglass" remain sublime testimonies to the difficulties of black life in America. Fortunately, in the century since Dunbar's death, his reputation has come to rightly rest with these and others of his challenging and lyrical standard English poems.

 

The Heart of Happy Hollow: A Collection of Stories by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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ISBN: 0767919815
Format: Paperback, 176pp
Pub. Date: February 2005
Publisher: Broadway Books

First published in 1904, The Heart of Happy Hollow features sixteen short stories that provide rare glimpses into the lives of African Americans after the Civil War. Through characters ranging from schemers to preachers, Paul Laurence Dunbar crafted a rare snapshot of long-lost communities and their poignant sensibilities.