Authenticity and elevation: Sterling Brown's theory of the blues

African American Review, Fall, 1997 by Lorenzo Thomas

Talkinges' guy An' biggest liar, With always a new lie On the fire. (Poems 77)

Remarkably balanced in his approach, Brown brought to American literature a voice rich in racial memory and resonant with messages of struggle and strength. When he died on January 13, 1989, I lost a dear friend and mentor, and the literary world lost a champion. Now what remains is his voice resonating with dignity and truth. His poetry is his legacy to all of us.

Works Cited

Brown, Sterling A. The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown. 1980. Chicago: TriQuarterly P, 1989.

-----. "Folk Literature." The Negro Caravan. Ed. Brown, Arthur P. Davis, and Ulysses Lee. 1941. New York: Arno, 1970. 412-34.

Gabbin, Joanne. Sterling A. Brown: Building the Black Aesthetic Tradition. 1985. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1994.

Sanchez, Sonia. I've Been A Woman: New and Selected Poems. Sausalito: Black Scholar P, 1978.

Joanne V. Gabbin is the author of Sterling A. Brown: Building the Black Aesthetic Tradition (1985, 1994) and Professor of English at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.