Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem

Sonnet to A Negro In Harlem

You are disdainful and magnificent--
Your perfect body and your pompous gait,
Your dark eyes flashing solemnly with hate;
Small wonder that you are incompetent
To imitate those whom you so dispise--
Your shoulders towering high above the throng,
Your head thrown back in rich, barbaric song,
Palm trees and manoes stretched before your eyes.
Let others toil and sweat for labor's sake
And wring from grasping hands their meed of gold.
Why urge ahead your supercilious feet?
Scorn will efface each footprint that you make.
I love your laughter, arrogant and bold.
You are too splendid for this city street!

By: Helene Johnson

Helene Johnson was on born July 7, 1906, in Boston, Massachusetts to Ella Benson Johnson and George William Johnson. She was an only child, and her parents separated shortly after her birth, so she never knew her father or his family. Johnson moved to New York in 1927 and attended Columbia University’s Extension Division where she studied to become a novelist. Her writing career started in 1924, when she submitted the poem “Trees at Night” to an urban magazine. Johnson continued to write and as a result sixteen of her poems were published in numerous magazines and anthologies. This lead to Helene Johnson being considered to be one of the youngest poets’s associated with the Harlem Renaissance. To me her strongest poem is “Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem, which was published in 1927. This poem highlights the issues of what defines an African American during the Harlem Renaissance. The word she uses is genuine and creates an expression of racial pride. This poem to me symbolizes the inspirational of black people and their contributions to society.