Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/250

228 talent, it is the main medium. Among this few, Carmichael has been named; S. Johathan Clark, of Dublin, Mississippi, and Theodore Henry Shackelford, of Jamaica Plains, New York, are others.

Shackelford, with little schooling, displays a versatility of talent. His own pen has illustrated with interesting realistic sketches his book entitled My Country and Other Poems, and for some of his lyrics he has written music. A large proportion of his pieces are in dialect, much in the spirit of Dunbar. His best productions in standard English are ballads. He tells a tale in verse with Wordsworthian simplicity and feeling. Mr. Clark is a school principal, with the education that implies. He has not yet published a book.