God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (Penguin Classics)
by James Weldon Johnson
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Book Summary Information
Author: James Weldon JohnsonEditor: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Introduction: Maya Angelou
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-05-27
ISBN: 0143105418
Number of pages: 96
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780143105411
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: The literary and historical context of GOD'S TROMBONES
Summary: 5 Stars
I have recently read GOD'S TROMBONES for the first time. I did so because I had read not long before, thanks to the Amazon.com VINE program, a much more recent collection of scholarly essays. That collection is called THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE REVISITED. {See The Harlem Renaissance Revisited: Politics, Arts, and Letters} It is edited by Professor Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar of the University of Connecticut.
Over and over I read Essay (Chapter) Number Eight by McKinley Melton, a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts. Its title: "Speak It Into Existence: James Weldon Johnson's GOD'S TROMBONES and the Power of Self-Definition in the New Negro Harlem Renaissance" (pp. 109 - 126). That essay persuaded me to read Johnson for myself. I am glad I did.
According to Melton, a key goal of the very self-conscious New Negro Harlem Renaissance (NNHR) was to "let the Negro speak for himself" (p.109). But New Negro writers could not just parrot Henry Ford's dictum that "history is bunk." Black writers could not, that is, turn their backs on black history and start "writing black" from scratch. But how do this without repeating the stereotype of black folks as either figures of fun or profoundly to be pitied for their sufferings?
In 1927 James Weldon Johnson found a key example of Negro creative, assimilative culture for himself to investigate and to glorify: the old-time negro American Protestant preacher and his "song sermons."
Imagine a West African "griot" (teller of folk tales and folk histories). He is captured, shipped to America, sold into slavery. His master exposes him to Christian teaching and history. The Americanized griot is converted to Protestant Christianity and then retells the ancient stories of Israel as he heard them in the King James English translation.
The result is the Negro American song sermon -- "a new art form" drawing on West African "rhythm, melody, chant, mime, and dramatic impersonation" (p. 110). The black Protestant song sermon is a high Negro cultural contribution to America and the world.
In the seven sermons and a prayer of GOD'S TROMBONES James Weldon Johnson, using standard English rather than dialect," tries, successfully in my opinion, to capture elements of Negro preaching rhetoric and theater. All done meditatively, prayerfully, and briefly.
Take, for instance, the final sermon, "The Judgment Day." Time is finally up for the people of earth. Earth will be destroyed by fire. God summons Gabriel and tells him to trumpet the end time into existence.
"And the wicked like lumps of lead will start to fall,
Headlong for seven days and nights they'll fall,
Plumb into the big, black, red-hot mouth of hell,
Belching out fire and brimstone.
And their cries like howling, yelping dogs,
Will go up with the fire and smoke from hell,
But God will stop his ears.
Too late, sinner! Too late!
Good-bye, sinner! In hell!
Beyond the reach of the love of God."
Take this little book and eat it up. Amen!
-OOO-
Summary of God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (Penguin Classics)
James Weldon Johnson was a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance, and one of the most revered African Americans of all time, whose life demonstrated the full spectrum of struggle and success. In God?s Trombones, one of his most celebrated works, inspirational sermons of African American preachers are reimagined as poetry, reverberating with the musicality and splendid eloquence of the spirituals. This classic collection includes ?Listen Lord?A Prayer,? ?The Creation,? ?The Prodigal Son,? ?Go Down Death?A Funeral Sermon,? ?Noah Built the Ark,? ?The Crucifixion,? ?Let My People Go,? and ?The Judgment Day.?Poetry Books
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