After Winter: The Art and Life of Sterling A. Brown

by John Edgar Tidwell (Editor), Steven C Tracy (Editor)

Overview

John Edgar Tidwell and Steven C. Tracy have brought together for the first time a book-length collection of critical and theoretical writings about Sterling A. Brown that recovers and reasserts his continuing importance for a contemporary audience. Exploring new directions in the study of Brown's life and work, After Winter includes new and previously published essays that sum up contemporary approaches to Brown's multifaceted works; interviews with Brown's acquaintances and contemporaries; an up-to-date, annotated bibliography; and a discography of source material that innovatively extends the study and teaching of Brown's acclaimed poetry, especially his Southern Road, focusing on recordings of folk materials relevant to the subject matter, style, and meaning of individual poems from his oeuvre.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199710898
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/02/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

John Edgar Tidwell is Professor of English at the University of Kansas. Steven C. Tracy is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Table of Contents

Contributors xvii

Chronology Sterling A. Brown xxiii

Introduction: Sterling A. Brown's Odyssey into the Heart of Blackness John Edgar Tidwell Steven C. Tracy 3

Part I Revelations

Introduction to Southern Road (1932) James Weldon Johnson 21

Sterling Brown: The New Negro Folk-Poet Alain LeRoy Locke 23

The Heavy Blues of Sterling Brown: A Study of Craft and Tradition Stephen E. Henderson 31

Review of The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 59

Part II "A Nachal Man": Formal and Vernacular Aesthetic Theories

"When de Saints Go Ma'chin' Home": Sterling Brown's Blueprint for a New Negro Poetry Robert Burns Stepto 69

Two Writers Sharing: Sterling A. Brown, Robert Frost, and "In Dives" Dive," John Edgar Tidwell 81

Listen Br'er Sterling: The Critic as Liar [A Pre(r)amble to Essays on Sterling Brown] Kimberly W. Benston 95

Two Lost Sonnets by Sterling A. Brown Edited and Introduced John Edgar Tidwell Ted Genoways 105

Worrying the Lines: Versification in Sterling Brown's Southern Road Michael Tomasek Manson 111

Part III Folk-Say and Living-People-Lore

"Game to the Heart": Sterling Brown and the Badman Robert G. O'Meally 139

Slim Greer, Sterling A. Brown, and the Art of Tall Tale John Edgar Tidwell 149

The New Negro Poet and the Nachal Man: Sterling Brown's Folk Odyssey John S. Wright 157

Authenticity and Elevation: Sterling Brown's Theory of the Blues Lorenzo Thomas 167

Part IV Unhistoric History: American and African American Cultures

Sterling A. Brown and the Afro-Modern Moment Mark A. Sanders 179

Sterling Brown: An Ethnographic Odyssey Beverly Lanier Skinner 185

Sterling Brown's Southern Strategy: Poetry as Cultural Evolution in Southern Road David R. Anderson 193

In Defense of African American Culture: Sterling A. Brown, Gunnar Myrdal, and An American Dilemma John Edgar Tidwell 209

Part V "Running Space": Legacies and Continuities

Sterling A. Brown's Literary Essays: The Black Reader in the Text Robert G. O'Meally 227

"A Brown Study": Sterling Brown's Legacy of Compassionate Connections John F. Callahan 239

The Professor and the Activists: A Memoir of Sterling Brown Ekwueme Michael Thelwell 255

An Integer Is a Whole Number Michael S. Harper 273

Part VI "Steady and Unaccusing": Interviews

"Let Me Be with Ole Jazzbo": An Interview with Sterling A. Brown Charles H. Rowell 287

A Symposium on the Life and Work of Sterling Brown David L. Smith 311

"Steady and Unaccusing": An Interview with Sterling A. Brown John Edgar Tidwell John S. Wright 353

Br'er Sterling and the Blues: An Interview with Michael S. Harper Graham Lock Michael S. Harper 365

Clarifying Philosophy: Sterling A. Brown and the Nonviolent Action Group John Edgar Tidwell 379

A Conversation with John H. Bracey, Esther Terry, and Mike Thelwell Steven C. Tracy 397

Part VII "On This I Stand": A Bibliography

An Annotated Bibliography of the Works of Sterling A. Brown Robert G. O'Meally 431

Part VIII "A Geography of Poetry and Song": A Discography

"Fear Did Not Catch His Tongue and Throttle His Breath": A Discography of Recordings by and Related to Sterling A. Brown Steven C. Tracy 445

Vernacular Recordings Relevant to the Study of Sterling A. Brown's Southern Road Steven C. Tracy 449

Index 457

Editorial Reviews

"The mind, the lore, and the legacy of Sterling A. Brown emerge in robust voices in After Winter. Brown's bold intellectualism and rich cultural style inspired the essays that John Edgar Tidwell and Steven C. Tracy meticulously collected here, and Brown's blues spirit quickens each page."-Joanne V. Gabbin, author of Sterling A. Brown: Building the Black Aesthetic Tradition

From the Publisher