Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/219

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In Negro newspapers and magazines, rarely as yet in books, are to be found some free-verse productions of which I will give some specimens. From Will Sexton I shall quote here two brief poems in this form and in a later chapter another (p. 233). His Whitemanesque manner will be remarked. These brief pieces will suggest a poet of some force:

Down with everything black! Down with law and order! Up with the red flag! Up with the white South! I am America’s evil genius.

Out of the mist I see a new America—a land of ideals. I hear the music of my fathers blended with the “Stars and Stripes Forever.” I am the crown of thorns Tyranny must bear a thousand years— I am the New Negro.

Another vers-librist of individual quality is Andrea Razafkeriefo. He is a prolific contributor to The Negro World, the newspaper organ of the