| Melvin Beaunorus Tolson is an African-American | | | | and European-American history. |
| Modernist poet, educator, columnist, and playwright | | | | In 1944 Tolson published his first poetry collection, |
| whose work concentrated on the experience of | | | | Rendezvous with America, which includes Dark |
| African- Americans and includes several poetic | | | | Symphony produced at the request of the editor of |
| histories. He lived during the Harlem Renaissance and, | | | | Atlantic Monthly upon moving to Dodd Mead. The book |
| although he was not a participant, his work reflects its | | | | quickly went through three editions from 1944 |
| influences. | | | | onwards. |
| Tolson's year at Columbia University from 1931 to 1932 | | | | The Washington Tribune hired Tolson to write a |
| on a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship put him in | | | | weekly column, Cabbage and Caviar, in which he |
| Harlem at the end of the Harlem Renaissance thus his | | | | attacked the class pretensions and lack of racial pride |
| becoming friendly with many of the writers who were | | | | of the black middle class after he left his teaching |
| associated with it most notably Langston Hughes and | | | | position at Wiley in the late 1940s. |
| got inspired to develop his poetic talent. | | | | Tolson began teaching at Langston University in |
| In many of his poems, therefore, Tolson would revisit | | | | Langston, Oklahoma, in 1947. He also served as a |
| the atmosphere of Harlem in the 1930's. Inspired by the | | | | dramatist and director of the Dust Bowl Theater there. |
| achievements of people like Hughes who were around | | | | One of his students there, Nathan Hare, the black |
| him Tolson resolved to contribute to the proud legacy | | | | studies pioneer, later became the founding publisher of |
| black writers were establishing. | | | | The Black Scholar |
| His earlier collection Rendezvous and Gallery reflects | | | | Another major work of his is Libretto for the Republic |
| the early influence of Walt Whitman, Edgar Lee | | | | of Liberia (1953). Written in the form of an epic poem, it |
| Masters and Langston Hughes thus highlighting Tolson's | | | | is perhaps the poet's most ambitious work. It was |
| proletarian convictions and optimistic spirit. This later | | | | commissioned that year and completed in 1953 for the |
| became evident in his interest in the themes of black | | | | 1956 Liberian centennial. |
| dignity as in his elaboration of multiracial diversity in | | | | The eight-sectioned Libretto for the Republic of Liberia |
| America...These must have led to the West African | | | | marks the intersection of several disparate strands - |
| Republic of Liberia declaring him its poet laureate in | | | | modernist stylistics superimposed on an English pindaric |
| 1947. | | | | ode about an African political moment by an |
| Born in 1900 in Moberly, Missouri, Melvin Tolson was the | | | | African-American artist. Though it has a Negro subject, |
| son of a Methodist minister and an Afro-Greek mother | | | | this poem could be said to be about the world of men |
| who was a seamstress. He was thus raised in a | | | | as well. And this subject is not merely asserted, it is |
| Methodist Episcopal household with his father a | | | | embodied in a rich and complex language and realized |
| reverend who had taught himself classical languages. | | | | in terms of the poetic imagination. It gives an initial clue |
| He moved around a circuit of small mid-western towns | | | | to its meaning by allusive indirection. But it marks |
| along with his parents between various churches in the | | | | Tolson's increasing poetic ambition through such a long, |
| Missouri and Iowa area until finally settling in the Kansas | | | | complex and allusive in some places and filled with |
| City area. He lived in a home of contradictions. His | | | | surreal dream-visions in others. However, it remains an |
| father who had an eighth grade education was | | | | under-read poem by a Negro |
| sceptical of the value of college education, but he still | | | | That year, Liberia declared Tolson its poet laureate |
| instilled in his son a strong desire for knowledge. | | | | who was subsequently admitted to the Liberian |
| As a boy he enjoyed painting but was forced to give it | | | | Knighthood of the Order of the Star of Africa. The |
| up by his mother's disapproval of a bohemian artist | | | | 1950's and 90's brought him increasing successes. He |
| who wanted to take him along with him to Paris. So | | | | won poetry prizes and honorary doctorates. He then |
| turning to poetry, he found an appropriate outlet for his | | | | got a chair at Tuskegee Institute. He won the Arts and |
| creativity. At the age of 14 he had his first poem "The | | | | Letters Award in literature from the American |
| Wreck of the Titanic" published in the local newspaper | | | | Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He also |
| of Oskaloosa, Iowa. Next at Kansas City in 1911 he got | | | | entered local politics and was elected mayor of the |
| elected senior class poet. | | | | town of Langston for four consecutive terms from |
| He graduated from Lincoln High School in Kansas City | | | | 1954 to 1960. |
| in 1919 and enrolled in Fisk University but transferred to | | | | In 1965, Tolson's final work to appear in his lifetime, the |
| Lincoln University that year for financial reasons. There | | | | long poem Harlem Gallery, was published. This last |
| he met Ruth Southall and married her on the 29th of | | | | poem consists of several sections, each beginning with |
| January 1922. Tolson graduated with honors in 1924, | | | | a letter of the Greek alphabet and concentrates on |
| then moved to Marshall, Texas, to teach speech and | | | | exploring African American life. It is as a whole a |
| English at Wiley College. | | | | drastic departure from his first works. |
| While at Wiley, Tolson built up a string of epoch-making | | | | In 1965, Tolson was appointed to a two-year term at |
| extra-curricula activities like his coaching the junior | | | | Tuskegee Institute, where he was Avalon Poet. But he |
| varsity football team, directing the theater club, | | | | did not live long enough to finish his term here. For, he |
| co-founding the black inter-collegial Southern | | | | died in the middle of his appointment after undergoing |
| Association of Dramatic and Speech Arts as well as | | | | cancer surgery in Dallas Texas, on August 29, 1966. |
| organizing the Wiley Forensic Society, an | | | | He was buried in Guthrie,Oklahoma. |
| award-winning debating club that earned a national | | | | The poems he wrote in New York were published |
| reputation by breaking the color bar throughout the | | | | posthumously in 1979 as A Gallery of Harlem Portraits |
| country and meeting with unprecedented success as | | | | in a mixture of various styles as well as free verse. |
| when during their tour in 1935, they competed against | | | | The racially diverse and culturally rich community |
| the University of Southern California upon which the | | | | presented in A Gallery of Harlem Portraits may be |
| Oprah Winfrey- produced film The Great Debaters, is | | | | based on or intended to be Marshall, Texas. His poems |
| based, released on 25 December 2007 (although in the | | | | have been characterized by their allusive, complex, |
| movie, they debate Harvard, not USC). The film was | | | | modernist style and their long poetic sequences. |
| directed by Denzel Washington. | | | | Tolson a man of impressive intellect created poetry |
| Tolson mentored many students at Wiley encouraging | | | | that was "funny, witty, humoristic, slapstick, rude, cruel, |
| them not only to be well-rounded but also to always | | | | bitter, and hilarious," as Karl Shapiro had said of the |
| stand up for their rights, even though it was quite a | | | | Harlem Gallery. Langston Hughes described him as "no |
| controversial position to take in the U.S. South in the | | | | highbrow. Students revere him and love him. Kids from |
| early and mid-20th century. | | | | the cotton fields like him. Cow punchers understand |
| From 1930 on, Tolson began writing poetry. He took a | | | | him ... He's a great talker." In New York Tolson met |
| leave of absence to earn a Master's degree in | | | | important figures such as literary critic and editor |
| comparative literature from Columbia University in | | | | V.F.Calverton, who described him as "A bright vivid |
| 1930-31, but didn't complete it until 1940 with the writing | | | | writer who attains his best effects by understatement |
| of a thesis on the Harlem Renaissance and the writing | | | | rather than overstatement and who captures in a line |
| of his first book of poems Gallery of Harlem Portraits, | | | | or a stanza what most of his contemporaries have |
| poems from which appeared in Arts Quarterly, | | | | failed to capture in pages or volumes." |
| Modern Quarterly and Modern Monthly. | | | | Tolson's fearless attitude towards controversy and his |
| In 1941, Dark Symphony, often considered his greatest | | | | spirited defense of his religious and social views drew |
| work winning first place in a 1939 national poetry | | | | not only fire, but also an invitation to publish in the |
| contest, was published in Atlantic Monthly. Dark | | | | Pittsburgh Courier. |
| Symphony compares and contrasts African-American | | | | |