The Dinosaur Blues: Why the Blues are Living and Breathing Within Our World Today and are not Just Buried Bones

Written by Harmony Lehman

“You know

I sure would like to write a blues

you know

a nice long blues

you know

a good feeling piece to my writing hand

you know

my hand that can bring two pieces of life together in your ear…

you know

if i could write a nice long blues

you know

it sure would feel good to my writing hand

you know

you know

you know.”

-Jayne Cortez, “You Know (For the people who speak the you know language)”

Writing is a gateway for the soul: and oftentimes our souls are broken and hurting things. The need to write the blues--as Jayne Cortez so eloquently illustrates--is a need to reflect and understand the sadness that you carry. It’s a relief to write; it’s a relief to hear; it’s a relief to perform. The blues are a space for sadness. They’re a space to dwell in that grief long repressed by African Americans. However, during the Black Arts Movement, the blues were cast aside in favor of angrier music. They were categorized by authors such as Maulana Karenga as useless, not furthering the revolution, rather spending unnecessary time on struggles supposedly passed. Yet Karenga’s view on the blues is limited and one-dimensional, failing to acknowledge the complexities in blues music and poetry.

 Karenga assumes that an acceptance of the poor conditions of African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance is reflected in the blues. He writes, “Therefore, we say the blues are invalid: for they teach resignation, in a word acceptance of reality--and we have come to change reality.” Yet, this is a superficial reading of blues poems; hope is one of the central ideas in the blues. In Langston Hughes’ “Blues Fantasy,” he represents the blues, curiously, as a happy experience as well as one of sorrow. Hughes, in the second-to-last stanza, writes, “Got a railroad ticket, / Pack my trunk and ride / And when I get on the train / I’ll cast my blues aside.” This is a direct contrast to what Karenga defined as the blues. Hughes imagines the blues as not an acceptance of reality, but a hope for a new one. Music cannot be hopeful if there is not an acknowledgement of the current pain one is undergoing; in other words, what Karenga fails to understand is that acknowledging is not accepting. In fact, one of the main ways slaves rebelled when they were severely dehumanized and objectified was through hope. The slaves overcame the radical hardships that the African Americans during the BAM still must reckon with. Whether this was through the enslaved people’s recounting of the stories of the Israelites being freed in Exodus, or through building loving families, slaves maintained a hope for a better future. Hope keeps us human. 

I believe that many of those who renounced the blues during the Black Arts Movement could have benefited more than they realize from these sad tunes. Madhubuti’s poem honoring Coltrane, “Don’t Cry, Scream,” describes his music: “Your music is like/ my head -- nappy black/ / a good nasty feel with/ tangled songs of.” The main reason people loved Coltrane’s jazz was because they could identify with it--through his music, they felt seen and heard. To indulge in jazz was to indulge in community. Jazz was an artform that required the participation of everyone involved: whether that be those listening and interpreting what the music means to them, those playing the jazz, or anyone in between. It therefore seems counterintuitive that they denounced the blues so flippantly, for poets felt similarly about the blues. Countee Cullen’s “Colored Blues Singer” depicts the heart that must be poured out in order to produce the blues. She writes, “You make your grief a melody / And take it by the hand.” This acknowledgement that the musician must put their all into producing real blues exemplifies the communal aspect that the blues provides. This experience allows for a group of people to feel seen and heard, similar to how Coltrane’s jazz, an inherently communal experience, brings people together through a shared rage or conviction. 

(A bunch of blues artists during the Harlem Renaissance, sharing that community. https://www.thecollector.com/harlem-renaissance-arts-and-culture/)

Hope is not a feeling typically associated with anger; it is a quieter, steadier emotion. It is one of waiting, one of dreamers and artists. To discard this as useless is a mistake. While the blues being written for a whiter audience than Coltrane’s jazz is a perhaps rational criticism of the validity of blues, that definition ignores much of what the blues truly was. Karenga and many of his contemporaries felt the need to simplify the blues into just one aspect of its complex identity. As I did in my previous blog, I want to warn about defining art in rigid ways. These oversimplified definitions don't always simply result in a small misconception--they evolve, they develop. Defining the blues without the word “hope” was, I believe, the major mistake, but perhaps the real mistake was in defining them at all, and, within that, discarding them as “usefuless”’ art. Art has meaning through the beholder, so perhaps if all those beholding a form of art decide it is useless, it is such. Yet art also has meaning through the artist; therefore the very act of creating is a use in and of itself. How can any kind of art not be useful?

To Define...

To Define is To Limit Learn

Written by Harmony Lehman

DRAMA. It’s a dramatic word, is it not? Well, certainly it is when I make the letters bold, underlined, and capitalized. But writers cannot often get away with something as obvious and strange as making the letters pop out to the reader’s eye in the literal sense. Instead, they use actions to emphasize and metaphors to explain. The imagery must still be there--big, bold, important--but the path to that impression must be taken much more tactfully. While some writers will tell you there’s no formula to their method of expressing this drama, others cite specific examples of how drama is used to characterize certain types of writings. 

In Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” she lays out her view of just what makes a work of art specifically Negro expression. Her very first section covers drama, and Hurston attempts to qualify the specifics of what elements of drama are uniquely the Black author’s during the Harlem Renaissance. And yet oftentimes to define is to limit--and Hurston’s rigid definitions of Negro Expression in drama which, by analyzing the work of her contemporaries, reveals both examples and counterexamples to her categorization (as is often the case when writers attempt to get into the nitty gritty of what truly defines subsects of writing). By examining two poems, Gwendolyn Bennett’s “To a Dark Girl” and Countee Cullen’s “From the Dark Tower,” we can see how drama is used in Negro writings during the Harlem Renaissance.

One of Hurston's definitions of drama in Black writing is that the author’s “very words are action words…hence the rich metaphor and simile.” In “To a Dark Girl,” Bennett uses several different pieces of imagery, creating a metaphor that eloquently dramatizes the otherwise commonplace actions the speaker describes. The imagery of “something of old forgotten queens/ Lurks in the lithe abandon of your walk” contrasts heartbreakingly with the line, “And something of the shackled slave/ Sobs in the rhythm of your talk.” In all four lines, Bennett takes walking and talking, actions otherwise completely ordinary, and transforms them into vivid, complex images: one of the subject’s forgotten royal ancestry and one of her tragic history of slavery. In this respect, certainly some Black author’s works fall under Hurston’s definition of drama, specifically with respect to action. 

Another idea Hurston introduces about drama in Black writing is that “everything is acted out.” Hurston explains that every emotion is highly dramatized--sadness becomes deep, unending grief, joy becomes jubilance--even if that dramatization is unconscious. While surely this fits many poems written during the Harlem Renaissance, Culleen’s “From the Dark Tower” challenges this idea. She writes, “So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds/ And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.” This acknowledgement of the hidden pain that many Black people faced alone is not a dramatization of emotion--in fact, it speaks to the feelings long hidden away. These ending lines of “From the Dark Tower” are even reminiscent of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask.” It too exposes the deep sorrow that lies behind false smiles. These examples contradict Hurston’s definition that "everything is acted out.” Therefore, when considering this specific definition of drama, we cannot claim Hurston’s rule is all-encompassing.

In both cases I have laid out for you, you could find examples to support either side of the argument, and many, at that. I have told you there were poems which were rich in metaphor and simile, and other readings might further my point (consider Arna Bontemps’ “Southern Mansion,” Hughes’ “Harlem,” or Bontemps’ “A Black Man Talks of Reaping”). However, even Hurston’s own works, such as “The Gilded Six Bits,” contain little to no metaphor or simile. I have provided you a counterpoint to the definition of drama in acting out emotion, but should you look further, you would find many examples that do adhere to Hurston’s definition (See Countee Cullen’s “Colored Blues Singer,” or Claude McKay’s “Outcast”). My point in all of this is not to discredit Hurston's Characteristics of Negro Expression. I think the majority of it aids in helping one understand the subsect of writing that is considered Negro Expression during the Harlem Renaissance. But all writings that attempt to define art will inevitably fall short. There will be nuances, because life is nothing if not a whole bunch of nuances we must carefully consider, and writing is simply a reflection of life. Yet (and here’s a delicious thought to think on!) maybe that’s partially the point--in defining Negro writing, Hurston has pushed us to consider these pieces of work as a whole. She has made us truly consider this writing for what it is; and through that we have examined the acute suffering and beauty that is conveyed through these works of Negro writing. And that, satisfyingly and undoubtedly, is a win.

The Light in Enlightenment (But Also the Dark)

Written by Harmony Lehman

Enlightenment is a state of knowledge in which someone’s perspective changes from uneducated to one of a higher understanding. It has been historically defined in many different contexts, but they all share the core idea of the knowledge gained making the person better for it. This idea of enlightenment as merit is used in both Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery, but in very different ways. While Jacob’s definition of enlightenment lifts Black people up, Washington’s definition squanders the empowerment and equality that Black people fought for.

In Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet’s enlightenment stems from the realization that she is not, and should not be considered to be, property. Harriet, despite the pain and trauma it dredges up, tells the story of her life in Life of a Slave Girl. She is made to feel less than human through the abuse she suffers, especially from Dr. Flint, who makes her feel ashamed even when recounting the story of the pain he inflicted upon her and how she responded to it. However, this past trauma does not stop Harriet from the realization she comes to after escaping from the slave owner’s clutches and finding refuge in the North. She realizes--through her education and life experiences--that she is not property. She aims this acquired knowledge at those living in the North in a plea for empathy, not just for herself, but for the people still suffering in slavery. Harriet’s perspective contradicted the common view of the time that slaves were more property than people and empowered African Americans in the simplest way: it recognized their humanity. 

In contrast to Harriet’s Life of a Slave Girl, Washington’s Up From Slavery represents this idea of enlightenment to assert superiority of some people over others. Washington goes to great lengths to get his education, and with it, he is steadily offered more and more opportunities from White people. He views himself, with this new insight into writing and reading as well as politics, as enlightened. However, instead of seeing himself as an exemplary case of African American achievement, Washington argues that this knowledge he fought for was guaranteed because of how hard he fought. He claims that only some people have merit, and those few deserve to, and will, succeed. But what, then, of those who don’t have his perceived notion of merit? According to Washington, these people don’t deserve to have certain rights that are shared by the rest of Americans. This conclusion, while not only astoundingly inaccurate (see the Tulsa Massacre, pictured below, where a successful Black village is ravaged), also assumes much and little of African Americans at the same time. It assumes that Black people should be acknowledged for their skills by White people, which is demeaning in of itself; why should Black people need the acknowledgement of their White counterparts? But it further assumes that all of the people who are not successful (which, in large part in the late 1800s, were African Americans), are not successful because they do not hold enough merit. This viewpoint only serves to demoralize African Americans.

(Results of Tulsa Massacre. Read more in: Messer, Chris M., et al. “The Destruction of Black Wall Street: Tulsa’s 1921 Riot and the Eradication of Accumulated Wealth.” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol. 77, no. 3/4, 2018, pp. 789–819. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45129337. Accessed 15 Sept. 2025.)

The way we use knowledge matters. It can be used to empower or to oppress. By examining these two cases of the effects of gained enlightenment, we can see how to responsibly go about using this knowledge. We could claim ourselves simply better, and disregard those struggling. Or, we could instead use that knowledge to empathize better with those we might otherwise not completely relate to. The choice here, I believe, is a simple one. Why choose to undermine instead of understand?