5 Poems by Dudley Randall
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Dudley Randall (1914- 2000)
Describing Dudley Randall's funeral service, Betty DeRamus writes, "They called him a friend, mentor, an inspiration, a Boy Scout troop leader, a calming influence during the 1967 riot, a Wayne County librarian, a poet-in-residence at University of Detroit and Detroit's poet Laureate." (1)
The son of a Congregational Minister (Arthur George Clyde,) and a teacher (Ada Vila,) Dudley Randall was born January 14, 1914 in Washington D.C. The family moved to Detroit when he was 6. (2) At thirteen, his first published poem was printed in the Detroit Free Press. (3) In 1949, after serving in the military during WWII, he earned a B.A. In English at Wayne State University. He received a Master's degree in Library Science at the University of Michigan in 1951. (4)
He worked as a librarian at Morgan State and Lincoln Missouri universities and at Wayne State Federated Library System before becoming librarian and poet in residence at the University of Detroit. (5)
In 1952 "Booker T. and W.E.B." was published. In the poem he explore the philosophical differences between Booker T Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. (6) He was gratified that W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) lived to see its publication.(7)
Randall translated from Russian poems of Aleksander Pushkin and Konstantin Simonov. (8)
In 1965 Randall founded Broadside Press and published other African American poets and writers.(9)
Randall sunk into a severe depression that lasted several years, however, he spent the time during his recovery productively. (10)
Dudley Randall died August 5, 2000.
===
Text of Poems:
The Profile on the Pillow
http://www.english.illinois.edu/ maps/poets/m_r/ randall/ onlinepoems.htm
Booker T. and W.E.B.
http://www.english.illinois.edu/ maps/poets/m_r/ randall/ onlinepoems.htm
On Getting A Natural (For Gwendolyn Brooks)
http://oldpoetry.com/ opoem/59442-Dudley- Randall-On-Getting- A-Natural--For- Gewndolyn-Brooks
Langston Blues
oldpoetry.com/ opoem/ 59466-Dudley-Randall -Langston-Blues
A Poet Is Not A Jukebox
http://www.english. illinois.edu/ maps/poets/m_r/ randall/ onlinepoems.htm
===
Sources & Notes:
(1) Modern American Poetry: Betty DeRemus, The Detroit Free Press, obituary 8/15/00. (Notes: 1)
http://www.english. illinois.edu/maps/ poets/m_r/ randall/ life.htm
(2) Wikipedia: Dudley Randall (Notes 2, 4
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Dudley_Randall
(3) Modern American Poetry: Naomi Long Madgett, "Dudley Randall's Life and Career" (Notes: 2, 3, 5,6, 8, 9, 10.)
http://www.english. illinois.edu/ maps/poets/m_r/ randall/ onlinepoems.htm
Chicken Bones: Bio-Sketches of Dudley Randall (from Eugene Redmond, Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A critical History. Doublday, 1976 (Note 7)
http://www.nathanielturner.com/ dudleyrandall publishereditorpoet.htm
Tags: Dudley Randall The Profile of Pillow Booker and W.E.B. On Getting Natural (For Gwendolyn Brooks) Langston Blues LangstonHughes Poet Is Not Jukebox detroit Broadside Press PoemsBeingRead late 20thCentury early 21stCentury poetry Poems Being Read James Carew
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Poems Being Read
James Carew 2010
Dudley Randall
1914-2000
***
The Profile on the Pillow
***
After our fierce loving
in the brief time we found to be together,
you lay in the half light
exhausted, rich,
with your face turned sideways on the pillow
and I traced the exquisite
line of your profile, dark against the white,
delicate and lovely as a child's.
Perhaps
you will cease to love me.
or we may be consumed in the holocaust,
but I keep, against the ice and the fire,
the memory of your profile on the pillow.
***
Booker T. and W.E.B.
***
"It seems to me," said Booker T.,
"It shows a mighty lot of cheek
To study chemistry and Greek
When Mister Charlie needs a hand
To hoe the cotton on his land,
And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,
Why stick your nose inside a book?"
"I don't agree," said W.E.B.,
"If I should have the drive to seek
Knowledge of chemistry or Greek,
I'll do it. Charles and Miss can look
Another place for hand or cook.
Some men rejoice in skill of hand,
And some in cultivating land,
But there are others who maintain
The right to cultivate the brain."
"It seems to me," said Booker T.,
"That all you folks have missed the
boat
Who shout about the right to vote,
And spend vain days and sleepless
nights
In uproar over civil rights.
Just keep your mouths shut, do not
grouse,
But work, and save, and buy a house."
"I don't agree," said W.E.B.,
"For what can property avail
If dignity and justice fail.
Unless you help to make the laws,
They'll steal your house with
trumped-up clause.
A rope's as tight, a fire as hot,
No matter how much cash you've got.
Speak soft, and try your little plan,
But as for me, I'll be a man."
"It seems to me," said Booker T. --
"I don't agree,"
Said W.E.B.
***
On Getting a Natural
(For Gwendolyn Brooks)
***
She didn't know she was beautiful,
though her smiles were dawn,
her voice was bells,
and her skin deep velvet night.
She didn't know she was beautiful,
although her deeds,
kind, generous, unobtrusive,
gave hope to some,
and help to others,
and inspiration to us all. And
beauty is as beauty does,
they say.
Then one day there blossomed
a crown upon her head,
bushy, bouffant, real Afro-down,
Queen Nefertiti again.
And now her regal wooly crown declares,
I know I'm black and beautiful.
***
Langston Blues
***
Your lips were so laughing
Langston man
your lips were so singing
minstrel man
how death could touch them
hard to understand
Your lips that laughed
and sang so well
your lips that brought
laughter from hell
are silent now
no more to tell
So let us sing
a Langston blues
sing a lost
Langston blues
long gone song
for Langston Hughes
***
A Poet Is Not a Jukebox
***
A poet is not a jukebox, so don't tell me what to write.
I read a dear friend a poem about love, and she said,
"You're in to that bag now, for whatever it's worth,
But why don't you write about the riot in Miami?"
I didn't write about Miami because I didn't know about Miami.
I've been so busy working for the Census, and listening to music all night,
and making new poems
That I've broken my habit of watching TV and reading newspapers.
So it wasn't absence of Black Pride that caused me not to write about Miami,
But simple ignorance.
Telling a Black poet what he ought to write
Is like some Commissar of Culture in Russia telling a poet
He'd better write about the new steel furnaces in the Novobigorsk region,
Or the heroic feats of Soviet labor in digging the trans-Caucausus Canal,
Or the unprecedented achievement of workers in the sugar beet industry
who exceeded their quota by 400 percent (it was later discovered to
be a typist's error).
Maybe the Russian poet is watching his mother die of cancer,
Or is bleeding from an unhappy love affair,
Or is bursting with happiness and wants to sing of wine, roses, and nightingales.
I'll bet that in a hundred years the poems the Russian people will read, sing and love
Will be the poems about his mother's death, his unfaithful mistress, or his
wine, roses and nightingales,
Not the poems about steel furnaces, the trans-Caucasus Canal, or the sugar
beet industry.
A poet writes about what he feels, what agitates his heart and sets his pen in motion.
Not what some apparatchnik dictates, to promote his own career or theories.
Yeah, maybe I'll write about Miami, as I wrote about Birmingham,
But it'll be because I want to write about Miami, not because somebody
says I ought to.
Yeah, I write about love. What's wrong with love?
If we had more loving, we'd have more Black babies to become Black brothers and
sisters and build the Black family.
When people love, they bathe with sweet-smelling soap, splash their bodies
with perfume or cologne,
Shave, and comb their hair, and put on gleaming silken garments,
Speak softly and kindly and study their beloved to anticipate and satisfy her
every desire.
After loving they're relaxed and happy and friends with all the world.
What's wrong with love, beauty, joy and peace?
If Josephine had given Napoleon more loving, he wouldn't have sown the
meadows of Europe with skulls.
If Hitler had been happy in love, he wouldn't have baked people in ovens.
So don't tell me it's trivial and a cop-out to write about love and not about
Miami.
A poet is not a jukebok.
A poet is not a jukebox.
I repeat, A poet is not a jukebox for someone to shove a quarter in his ear
and get the tune they want to hear,
Or to pat on the head and call "a good little Revolutionary,"
Or to give a Kuumba Liberation Award.
A poet is not a jukebox.
A poet is not a jukebox.
A poet is not a jukebox.
So don't tell me what to write.
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