The Book of American Negro Poetry

James Weldon Johnson, Editor
(1871-1938)

Contents of 1922 & 1931 Editions *

* The contents are presented in the order of the 1931 revised edition, with additional poems from the 1922 edition [in brackets]. See explanation below.

References:

The Book of American Negro Poetry, chosen and edited, with an essay on the Negro's creative genius, by James Weldon Johnson. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1922. xlviii, 217 pp.

The entire contents of this edition with various indexes are available online from Bartelby.com. Note Johnson’s Preface.

Individual poems of the 1922 edition are all linked in the contents above. The default target site is the Bartleby.com site. Poems appearing in the 1922 edition but not in the 1931 edition are indicated in brackets. Johnson altered the selection of his own poems for the 1931 edition.

The 1922 edition as a whole book can be found online in several places, at archive.org, Google books, Project Gutenberg. Here is one place to obtain the text in several formats at archive.org.

The Book of American Negro Poetry, chosen and edited, with an essay on the Negro's creative genius, by James Weldon Johnson. Revised edition. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1931. xii, 300 pp.

Poems added in the 1931 edition are boldfaced. Poems are linked to pages on different web sites, either as individual poems or within collections or books.

Johnson added one poem apiece by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Fenton Johnson, Leslie Pinckney Hill, and Claude McKay. New poets appearing are Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Bennett, Sterling A. Brown, Arna Bontemps, Frank Horne, Helene Johnson, Waring Cuney, and Lucy Ariel Williams.

“I Want to Die While You Love Me”
by Georgia Douglas Johnson

"Strong Men"
by Sterling A. Brown

Negro Poetry in America
by Lena Beatrice Morton
[Excerpts & Summary]

Anthology of American Negro Literature
ed. by V. F. Calverton
[Preface & Contents]

Black Studies, Music, America vs Europe

See also section on Black literature in Esperanto

Offsite:

The Black Poet as Canon-Maker
by Elizabeth Alexander

The Poetry Of The Negro 1746-1949
edited by Langston Hughes & Arna Bontemps