Reader Impressions: Cane, by Jean Toomer – September 2025 > Likes and Comments
I was looking through "Cane" on Project Gutenberg, and it was an interesting combination of prose and poetry. It starts in Georgia, then moves north to the Washington DC area. The author has family roots in Georgia, and was a noted writer during the Harlem Renaissance.
I have begun and am finding the book quite unique. As Connie said it combines different short pieces of poetry or prose, but the author had worked to make these short pieces relate as a whole. I doubt I will grasp all the potential connections on one read but I am getting a sense of whole from the first section of the book. My previous experience with Toomer was with individual poems; I am finding this much more challenging and interesting. Comparisons with Faulkner's modernism come to mind, and comparisons to other early 20th century black writers do too. I can't help but speculate on thoughts of Toomer's influence on future writers.As can be expected some of the pieces are graphic and horrific.
Below is a link to a pdf on teaching Cane put out by Penguin.
There is also a book Teaching Jean Toomer’s 1923 Cane by Chezia Thompson Cager that looks good for anyone wanting a deeper dive into the book.
I think I read this many years ago, but I won't have time to get to it this month. I'll follow the discussion though.
I have been wanting to read this one for ages! It's a shorty, so I'm going to squeeze it in in order to read it with y'all. I appreciate Connie and Sam's comments already. I'm going to read a bit then come back here to delve, too.And hey, thanks Tom for the online link.
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL37044...Here's an Overview as per OpenLibrary:
Published in 1923, Jean Toomer’s Cane was widely heralded as one of the first masterpieces of the Harlem Renaissance, and its author as “a bright morning star” of the movement. Toomer himself, however, was reluctant to embrace an explicitly racialized identity, preferring to define himself as simply an American writer.
Inspired in part by Sherwood Anderson’s short story cycle Winesburg, Ohio, Toomer conceived Cane as a mosaic of intricately connected vignettes, poems, stories, songs, and even play-like dialogues. Drawing on both modernist poetry and African-American spirituals, Toomer imbues each form with a lyrical and often experimental sensibility.
The work is structured in three distinct but unnamed parts. The first is set in rural Georgia and focuses on the lives of women and the men who desire them. The second part moves to the urban enclaves of the North in the years following the Great Migration. The third and final part returns to the rural South and explores the interactions between African-Americans from the North and those living in the South.
Although sales languished in the later years of Toomer’s life, the book was reissued after his death and rediscovered by a new generation of American writers. Alice Walker described Cane as one of the most important books in her own development as a writer: “I love it passionately, could not possibly exist without it.”
In the Forward by Waldo Frank, I'm immediately struck by this, The artist must lose such lesser identities in the great well of life. It reminds me of the same point by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own where she writes that great women writers, like all great writers, should strive to think about things in themselves.
Does anyone else use https://www.literature-map.com/ ? What do you think of it?"The Literature-Map is part of Gnod, the Global Network of Discovery.
It is based on Gnooks, Gnod's literature recommendation system. The more people like an author and another author, the closer together these two authors will move on the Literature-Map."
I checked out Jean Toomer. Nearest author showing is Michelle Cliff. Michelle Cliff 1946-2016 was a Jamaican-American author, longtime partner of poet Adrienne Rich.
I don't have anything more to add, not having read any Cliff. I just wanted to mostly to share the literature-map in case you haven't seen it before.
I've started reading the printed text while listening - the audiobook cast is excellent - with Bahni Turpin and others (available on Hoopla).
KARINTHAWhat a smooth pairing of poetry and prose! I felt like I was being rocked in a boat by the sounds and visions. Each making the other richer, and both growing, growing. Growing like Karintha.
I'm so glad to finally be reading this.
I've finished the first two sections. Toomer has an interesting sensibility. Lust bleeds easily into love, and love and hate are the two sides of a very thin coin that you just can't fish out of your pocket. In some ways he reminds me of Thomas Wolfe's search for that salvific "thing" that just seems out of the reach of one's conscious sensibility (ah, the curse of the young, sensitive, writer!).Coming out of the Harlem Renaissance, American letters had at one pole Richard Wright (the "sociologist"?), with his emphasis on the effects of racism on Black life, and Zora Neale Hurston (the anthropologist) on the other, who focused on Black life to the exclusion of whites as significant characters. Jean Toomer fits in quite well with Hurston, even though he rejected racial labels.
Randall wrote: "Jean Toomer fits in quite well with Hurston, even though he rejected racial labels."Splendid comparison, Randall.
About a year ago I re-read Their Eyes Were Watching God and was again struck by Hurston's joy for life. In her 1928 essay "How it Feels to Be Colored Me", she wrote she is not "tragically colored" and explains "No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife."
That joyful oyster hunting—for meat and pearls—feels like something Toomer is digging for, too. And finding, don't you think?
Or is it joy yes but salvation that is just out reach in Toomer? (I'm too early in the reading to feel that reaching.)
REAPERS(a short poem)
It's one of those poems that is pitch perfect about the surface subject. An evocative moment captured and written in such a way that allows you to fill in a million microdetails yourself. But then you wonder, wait, why write it like that, with the rat at the end. Why are the hones put in pockets "as a thing that’s done." And then. Oh. You feel the poem become bigger and taking you with it.
Then add it to Karintha. Karintha and Reapers shift, reflect off one another. These are the men that lust after her. These men are those who make their livings off their labor. They are caught, like Karintha in a repetition from which there is no escape. Need there be an escape?
I'm loving this. I trust that, from Cane's reputation, I can let myself fall as deep into it as I may, knowing that whatever I find early isn't going to be unraveled later by inadequacy or superficiality. So I'm letting myself plunge, hold my breath for the next gulp of air.
I've read most of the section set in Georgia from "Karintha" through "Evening Song." The women in the prose sections are mostly sources of temptation, and the men cannot resist their powers when they come under their spells.The depictions of Georgia are lovely. But when I read about the sounds of the wind through the cane, I also think of the slaves working on the cane plantations in prior years. Jean Toomer's father was a slave in Georgia before emancipation. Jean started writing "Cane" during the time when he was a school principal in Georgia.
Connie wrote: "...when I read about the sounds of the wind through the cane, I also think of the slaves working on the cane plantations in prior years."That adds an extra perspective to the Reapers, Connie. Life hasn't changed much for them from their father's lives, has it? The cane still must be cut. The men still know how it's done and do it.
I'm reading just a segment a day, so it will take me almost the whole month. I've learned that I like that approach from The Short Story Club. Eh, Connie? 😉 (So glad to see you over here too!)
Two stories: one told to me when I was doing my graduate research in the Mississippi Delta, the other I read somewhere, that both begin with music. Both, I think, would fit well in Cane.What I was told: A Black woman told me why B.B. King never played in a certain Delta town anymore. During his last performance there, he sang "It's three o'clock in the morning I don't know where my baby is." And a man in the audience realized that, yes, it was three o'clock in the morning and he, indeed, didn't know where his baby was. So he went looking for her. He was of a jealous and suspicious mind, and was drunk. She was out and about, but not with another man. She loved this guy, but she was scared of what he was capable of doing when he was in a jealous mind. She heard he was after her, and mad, mad, mad. So she ran. She passed the house of a very respectable Black family and started banging on the door. "Please let me in!" That woke them up, but they wouldn't let her in. At that hour of the morning--they wanted no part of this scandalous situation. So her man caught her, didn't believe any explanation or accept any plea, and killed her. When B.B. King heard about it, and the unwitting role his song played in this tragedy, he never played in that town again. So I was told.
What I read: The great jazz musician, Coleman Hawkins, was a very sophisticated and cosmopolitan man. He remained a vital part of the jazz scene well into his old age, capable of playing swing and bop. Late in life he had a romance with a beautiful, young Black woman. But he, so old, couldn't quite believe that she, so young, would stay with him, no matter how much she assured him of her love. To forestall her leaving him, he broke off the relationship. He carried his broken heart to his grave. So I remember reading.
An "ordinary" guy and a sophisticated artist, but both men couldn't quite believe that they were good enough for the women they loved--who loved them!--and so they, themselves, brought about what they feared would happen. How much racism played in their general insecurities, I don't know, but their tragic stories (the the tragic endings they visited upon their women) speaks to me of the universal conflicts in the human heart. Much like those Toomer writes about in Cane.
I am reading the 2nd section now and finding the impressionistic, interior monologues powerful - so much anger under the surface (barely) of these men!
I have just ordered a copy, this sound too good to miss out on.
@Randall, since I'm reading so purposefully slow, I can't comment much on what you shared, except to say that Love Hurts. ha No, no, to say that crimes against women by men who love them goes on, all ages, all races, all places. And even the occasional other way around.I do have to say that I loved the B.B. King story. Sounds righteous to me.
Lisa (NY) wrote: "I am reading the 2nd section now and finding the impressionistic, interior monologues powerful - so much anger under the surface (barely) of these men!"Sounds like it's going to be an emotional ride, this book.
Dave wrote: "I have just ordered a copy, this sound too good to miss out on."Yay! Hope you are able to read along here, Dave. I know you have a Faulkner biggie you are also working on. Actually, when I read Karintha, I instantly thought of you and your love of American Southern literature.
NOVEMBER COTTON FLOWERI'm having a little trouble with this one. Maybe y'all would share your thoughts with me.
Half the poem is literally about cotton (I grew up on a cotton farm, in NM and the "rust" comment was perfect) and a bad year which would have such a terrible impact on a community.
The second half, though, is more than that. It shifts to "significance" and "superstition" before bringing to the forefront what seems to be about Karintha, "lovely as a November cotton flower" as described also in the first vignette. And also, not about literal cotton flowers,
"Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear,
Beauty so sudden for that time of year."
He writes about suddenness. The shift seemed sudden to me. Perhaps it will make more sense as I go, or maybe it is what I think it is: a shift from the bad times of cotton farming, to the observing the near miraculous blooming of a different kind of love than the community's norm.
@Debi, that poem as many others in the early part of this book are so evocative. It's a bit oblique, but I'd definitely say you're right; for sure, there is meaning behind all of this in terms of the community.There appears to be a drought (the "drouth fighting soil"), and the cotton takes more than its share. It pulls all the remaining water out of the land, so much so that nothing else can live. The streams run dry, and birds die in desperation, seeking water in the depths of presumably dry wells.
And isn't this what it would feel like for slaves, I suppose?
The cotton that the slaves pick; they know it means more to their masters than people. Everything dies and is stunted so that the cotton can grow. The slaves' lives are destroyed for the industry of it; the land of their lives is barren so that the cotton can come forth.
Cane's metaphor in this first half of the poem is perfect.
It reminds me a little of the beginning of the The Bluest Eye when the narrator says, "For years I thought my sister was right: it was my fault. I had planted them too far down in the earth. It never occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have been unyielding." But of course, it's not only the earth that's unyielding but the whole world that surrounds them, that shapes the town and all the characters of the book.
Here, the conditions are unyeilding just like that. The cotton sucks the water, the life, from everything.
But then, something miraculous happens . . . or something ordinary really but something that seems miraculous because of the incredible hardship of living in that land. The cotton flower blooms, and despite all of the terrible demands of their world, there can still be beauty.
But the final lines strike me as a bit ambiguous. I can read them a few different ways, and there are probably yet others as well.
One way I can read it is:
The people of the fields see it as an omen (a "superstition"). But it's not so much the flower itself they are reacting to most; it's what they see in the people reacting to the flower that shocks them.
When I read the poem, I pictured younger folks, who had not yet been completely trodden down by the horrors of their world, experiencing a pure moment of ecstasy in seeing that flower. Those younger observers in that moment have lost any trace of fear, and it shows in their eyes ("Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear"). Older folks seeing them might well feel a sense of amazement in seeing eyes that are fearless among their own people, as well as at the suddenness of the beauty of that reaction in such a harsh drought. And perhaps they also feel a sense of foreboding at that moment of fearlessness, given the precarious conditions they are all living under. Fearlessness is dangerous.
A lot of this is just my speculations though. Like I said, I can read it in many ways.
But any way I read it, I do think there's a lot of symbolism in the mixture of brutality and beauty here. I'm at the end of the "Georgia Dusk" poem, not far into the book yet. But already, there is so much lyricism and gorgeous evocativeness in Cane's descriptions . . . but mixed with incredibly harsh and brutal realities.
I like that you mention Karintha - it's a perfect example. She's described so beautifully; yet, the reality is that she has grown up much younger than she should have ("ripened too soon"), and that early ripening forced upon her by her world has made her cruel. She stones cows and beats the dog; she's spoiled and heartless. Her environment has made her strong, yes, but hard and damaged too. Cane's glimpse into Karintha's life is so poignant. I really feel for her, but I feel for the people that she'll cause pain to, also.
Debi wrote: "What a smooth pairing of poetry and prose! I felt like I was being rocked in a boat by the sounds and visions. Each making the other richer, and both growing, growing. Growing like Karintha."I love this Debi, as well as many of your comments. I like your passionate engagement with this book and your own lyricism which fits beautifully with the lyricism of this wonderful book!
I wish I had not waited so long to read it! It has been sitting on my shelf for years.
Debi, I'm glad you started off a discussion about "November Cotton Flower." Greg, it's good to see you reading poetry again on Goodreads.
I'm also seeing the first part of the poem with its harsh images representing the hardship of slavery and the Jim Crow laws.
The ending seems to represent the situation after emancipation, but it's very ambivalent. The words are softer with their "s" sounds. On one hand, the blooming of the cotton flower in November seems miraculous and a sign of hope for the future. But it's only one flower and it's still a cotton flower--not a rose or a lily or another type of flower. And that cotton flower is going to turn into cotton (oppression). They are still looking at racism and oppression, but with guarded hope that things will be better.
Good to see you too Connie! Work has been bad and I haven't read anything or posted anything for months, but it feels good to finally return!
Debi wrote: "NOVEMBER COTTON FLOWERI'm having a little trouble with this one. Maybe y'all would share your thoughts with me.
As you read on you'll find several lyrical passages about the beauty of the South, the natural beauty and also the beauty of its folk ways, particularly the people singing in the fields, in their homes, at dusk and in the night.
My sense of these scenes is that they exist above and beyond the conflicts within and between the characters in these stories. The characters often seem to be aware of this beauty but it doesn't (to my mind) really effect their feelings, thoughts, and behavior. The beauty exists as a distant counter-point the characters' ongoing conflicts.
So maybe that duality can also be read in the poem. And maybe the poem poses its resolution. Suddenly, out of this unyielding earth (I really like Greg's comparison to the opening of The Bluest Eye), a miracle! One not even imagined by the people's religious beliefs. And here, the distance between natural beauty and personal conflict that I found so often in the stories, is bridged by the flower's bloom. The people's hardship is replaced by a sudden beauty "loved without a trace of fear."
If I'm anywhere close to what Toomer was getting at, I wonder why he didn't put this poem at the end of the book. But maybe he wanted a passage of hope and redemption early on, to sustain his readers onward.
Who knows. A sudden beauty that miraculously springs from hardship and despair. As Hemingway wrote, isn't it pretty to think so. But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Debi wrote: "@Randall, I loved the B.B. King story. Sounds righteous to me."The kicker is that the guy got off with just a slap on the wrist, because he was drunk, and all he did was kill a Black woman.
Mississippi Goddamn indeed.
Greg wrote: "I love this Debi, as well as many of your comments. I like your passionate engagement with this book and your own lyricism which fits beautifully with the lyricism of this wonderful book!I wish I had not waited so long to read it! It has been sitting on my shelf for years"
I mightily enjoyed your thoughts on NOVEMBER COTTON FLOWER, Greg! It's so fun to deep read especially a work that is written to be deeply read, perhaps even more than usual, as poetry often invokes. Lots of food for thought there and thank you for your passion, as well.
I'm wondering if maybe Toomer will use the "November cotton flower" again, maybe its meaning will become more defined. Or maybe become broader. Reading just the first 3 vignettes made me think it means Karintha because he called her that in KARINTHA. But maybe it doesn't, maybe it's an expression for any remarkable, sudden beauty in a kind of lexicon that fits the community, or in Toomer's own lexicon in this work in order to speak about the community. It is, whatever it is, a powerful phrase.
I also think that I'm reading slow. Too slow. ha. Although it's partly intentional and partly a full reading schedule. I'm getting the feeling from the comments about many things to come and surely they will reconfigure these early vignettes.
I read where Toomer intended Cane circle back on itself. So certainly everything is connected, carefully so.
Connie wrote: "They are still looking at racism and oppression, but with guarded hope that things will be better."I haven't yet figured out a distinct time frame, have you? Maybe it becomes clearer later? I only knew that it was written in 1923, so I assumed these are no longer enslaved people. 1865=1923, hm, yes possible the "old folks" here could have been enslaved, if indeed it is reflecting the 1920s.
No matter if there are living once enslaved people because slavery would still be a distinct influence on the culture, the psychology, and as you say "guarded hope." Heck, slavery and Jim Crow laws still influences the dark parts of the American psyche.
Randall wrote: "So maybe that duality can also be read in the poem. And maybe the poem poses its resolution. Suddenly, out of this unyielding earth (I really like Greg's comparison to the opening of The Bluest Eye), a miracle! One not even imagined by the people's religious beliefs. And here, the distance between natural beauty and personal conflict that I found so often in the stories, is bridged by the flower's bloom. The people's hardship is replaced by a sudden beauty "loved without a trace of fear.""I like how you've put that all together, Randall. I can be thick headed, but the discussion by you, Greg, and Connie that NOVEMBER COTTON FLOWER has a broader (not narrower) meaning might be seeping in. ❤️
I love it and thank you guys!
Randall wrote: "The kicker is that the guy got off with just a slap on the wrist, because he was drunk, and all he did was kill a Black woman.Mississippi Goddamn indeed."
Shocking! And tragic. That is terrible.
Nina Simone knew what she was talking and singing about, for sure.
Now that Simone is on my mind, I just thought Karintha might have had a tad of "I Got Life" attitude in her.
Debi wrote: "No matter if there are living once enslaved people because slavery would still be a distinct influence on the culture, the psychology, and as you say "guarded hope.""Definitely Debi, the psychological effects of an experience like that would last for generations, passed down in little or big fears and cruelties from one generation to another. It gradually lessens over time but the echoes can last, just as they do with horrible individual experiences of all sorts.
I imagine that it would have been hard for Toomer to think of cotton fields without slavery coming to mind in at least some way. With Toomer's father born into slavery, it would have been recent enough.
My book has an appendix with quite a lot of biographical information and historical photographs of Toomer's life. It'll be interesting after I finish the book to read a bit more about him since I know very little.Does anyone know of a good history of Harlem Renaissance poets? So many talented and fascinating poets that I know little about beyond their work, like Claude McKay and Countee Cullen.
My copy has just arrived. I opened it and the page opened here:Hair-
silver-gray
like streams of stars
oh yeah I'm going to love this.
I liked those lines too Dave, such an arresting image.
We are all at different points in this work. Randall and I have finished the first two sections while Dave is just starting. So for the sake of readers that have not read quite as far, we might want to put spoiler tags around anything we feel might be ruining something for someone else. This novel won't have spoilers, like a normally constructed novel but there may be some of which I am not aware. I see no problem with the present rate of discussion though, so unless anyone has an objection, I hope to see more in depth discussion of the individual pieces and their relations to other pieces and the whole as we continue.
I couldn't agree more Greg. I can't wait to start this. I know nothing about this author, to my shame. This feels like a game changer.
Does everyone's edition have the forward by Waldo Frank? Not only did I find it helpful, but Frank was a mentor to Toomer. They were friends. Until Toomer slept with Frank's wife.Here's a short piece about the relationship. There is also a book about them. Apparently there are a lot of letters between the two men. What will the future researchers do without letters? Email is not the same and disappears so easily besides.
https://www.villagepreservation.org/2...
@Randall, I can't personally vouch for this, but it's been on my wishlist at my favorite online bookshop for a long time. Women of the Harlem Renaissance.And then there is a GR List, but it is the works of women of the HR.
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
Such a fascinating time and place in American history. It would have been an exciting time and place to be alive!
Mine has no forward, but it has an extensive 80 page afterward by Rudolph P Byrd and Henry Louis Gates. Several photographs of Toomer from different stages of his life as well.
Here's a cut and paste of Franks' forward. I think his was the forward in the original publication.FOREWORD
READING this book, I had the vision of a land, heretofore sunk in the mists of muteness, suddenly rising up into the eminence of song. Innumerable books have been written about the South; some good books have been written in the South. This book is the South. I do not mean that Cane covers the South or is the South’s full voice. Merely this: a poet has arisen among our American youth who has known how to turn the essences and materials of his Southland into the essences and materials of literature. A poet has arisen in that land who writes, not as a Southerner, not as a rebel against Southerners, not as a Negro, not as apologist or priest or critic: who writes as a poet. The fashioning of beauty is ever foremost in his inspiration: not forcedly but simply, and because these ultimate aspects of his world are to him more real than all its specific problems. He has made songs and lovely stories of his land ... not of its yesterday, but of its immediate life. And that has been enough.
How rare this is will be clear to those who have followed with concern the struggle of the South toward literary expression, and the particular trial of that portion of its folk whose skin is dark. The gifted Negro has been too often thwarted from becoming a poet because his world was forever forcing him to recollect that he was a Negro. The artist must lose such lesser identities in the great well of life. The English poet is not forever protesting and recalling that he is English. It is so natural and easy for him to be English that he can sing as a man. The French novelist is not forever noting: “This is French.” It is so atmospheric for him to be French, that he can devote himself to saying: “This is human.” This is an imperative condition for the creating of deep art. The whole will and mind of the creator must go below the surfaces of race. And this has been an almost impossible condition for the American Negro to achieve, forced every moment of his life into a specific and superficial plane of consciousness.
The first negative significance of Cane is that this so natural and restrictive state of mind is completely lacking. For Toomer, the Southland is not a problem to be solved; it is a field of loveliness to be sung: the Georgia Negro is not a downtrodden soul to be uplifted; he is material for gorgeous painting: the segregated self-conscious brown belt of Washington is not a topic to be discussed and exposed; it is a subject of beauty and of drama, worthy of creation in literary form.
It seems to me, therefore, that this is a first book in more ways than one. It is a harbinger of the South’s literary maturity: of its emergence from the obsession put upon its minds by the unending racial crisis—an obsession from which writers have made their indirect escape through sentimentalism, exoticism, polemic, “problem” fiction, and moral melodrama. It marks the dawn of direct and unafraid creation. And, as the initial work of a man of twenty-seven, it is the harbinger of a literary force of whose incalculable future I believe no reader of this book will be in doubt.
How typical is Cane of the South’s still virgin soil and of its pressing seeds! and the book’s chaos of verse, tale, drama, its rhythmic rolling shift from lyrism to narrative, from mystery to intimate pathos! But read the book through and you will see a complex and significant form take substance from its chaos. Part One is the primitive and evanescent black world of Georgia. Part Two is the threshing and suffering brown world of Washington, lifted by opportunity and contact into the anguish of self-conscious struggle. Part Three is Georgia again ... the invasion into this black womb of the ferment seed: the neurotic, educated, spiritually stirring Negro. As a broad form this is superb, and the very looseness and unexpected waves of the book’s parts make Cane still more South, still more of an æsthetic equivalent of the land.
What a land it is! What an Æschylean beauty to its fateful problem! Those of you who love our South will find here some of your love. Those of you who know it not will perhaps begin to understand what a warm splendor is at last at dawn.
A feast of moon and men and barking hounds,
An orgy for some genius of the South
With bloodshot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth
Surprised in making folk-songs....
So, in his still sometimes clumsy stride (for Toomer is finally a poet in prose) the author gives you an inkling of his revelation. An individual force, wise enough to drink humbly at this great spring of his land ... such is the first impression of Jean Toomer. But beyond this wisdom and this power (which shows itself perhaps most splendidly in his complete freedom from the sense of persecution), there rises a figure more significant: the artist, hard, self-immolating, the artist who is not interested in races, whose domain is Life. The book’s final Part is no longer “promise”; it is achievement. It is no mere dawn: it is a bit of the full morning. These materials ... the ancient black man, mute, inaccessible, and yet so mystically close to the new tumultuous members of his race, the simple slave Past, the shredding Negro Present, the iridescent passionate dream of the To-morrow ... are made and measured by a craftsman into an unforgettable music. The notes of his counterpoint are particular, the themes are of intimate connection with us Americans. But the result is that abstract and absolute thing called Art.
Waldo Frank.
The novel is a composite novel, made up of individual pieces that can be read as stand alone or in relation to each other or to the whole. I have seen multiple ways of interpreting these relationships in criticism. For example, if you were to relate "Karintha," to "November Cotton Flower," certain connections might occur to you. If you were to relate "November Cotton Flower," to 'Cotton Song," and "Harvest Song," you would see other connections. We happen to be reading the novel as pieces in a progression, but the novel can also be read as a collage with each piece representing individual ideas that when contrasted or combined with another piece or the whole. A better example might be to think of the various pieces as dots on a page. You could draw lines of connection between individual dots or groups of dots that signify connections of theme or emotion or style. You could also stand back and see how all of this connects as a whole. But you could also view the dots as individual dots. Also I think time is bit nebulous in this novel. While some pieces can be locked into certain times, I think there is overall a vague sense of time or the sense that the novel is to not be seen as time dependent.
We will see a distinct difference between geographic location in the first two sections and the prose reflects differences that could be construed as traditional as opposed to modern but I think there are examples that challenge this as well.
Greg wrote: "Mine has no forward, but it has an extensive 80 page afterward by Rudolph P Byrd and Henry Louis Gates. Several photographs of Toomer from different stages of his life as well."I don't know Byrd but I love the literary critiques of Henry Louis Gates! The first copy I read of Their Eyes Were Watching God had an afterward by him and it was impressive. Made me glad all over again I had just read TEWWG. (And I was already mighty glad before I read the afterward. ha)
@Sam and others...Please don't refrain or tamper any discussions because of me and I don't need spoiler alerts hidden. Have I told y'all I'm reading this slow yet? ha ha.I'm going to enjoy it no matter what is shared here. Who knows, I might enjoy it MORE.
Anyway, it's up to y'all but please don't do it for me. I'll be reading ONLY ONE vignette per day. That'll take the whole month, pretty much.
Greg wrote: "I imagine that it would have been hard for Toomer to think of cotton fields without slavery coming to mind in at least some way. With Toomer's father born into slavery, it would have been recent enough."Great points, Greg. In fact, many generations had never known freedom; their culture was built within being enslaved, so it would be something they could not put behind them when they were emancipated. It's really a remarkable history of extreme fortitude.
I like how Franks explained what Toomer was doing--not exactly writing about slavery nor not writing about slavery, but rather writing about a culture as it existed, as "a subject of beauty and of drama, worthy of creation in literary form."
I like seeing the various interpretations of "November Cotton Flower." I think the poem is ambiguous enough to suggest numerous interpretations and Toomer's Cane is undergoing continuous revaluation, so I don't see one correct interpretation Just last year The Roots of Cane: Jean Toomer and American Magazine Modernism was published with John K. Young suggesting a whole new way of reading the novel. https://uipress.uiowa.edu/books/roots...
If you read the critics on the poem, the interpretations are numerous and at times contradictory. Because the poem is often taught excerpted from the whole, there is even an interpretation that suggests the flower is a symbol for the birth of the civil rights movement.
I like a simple interpretation of the poem because this is a first time read and I haven't the time to study the work in any depth. The poem is in sonnet form using rhyming couplets rather than a more standard rhyme scheme.The octet summarizes a blight that has come to the cotton. The sestet tells us of a cotton flower blooming and the various reactions to the blooming. I think there is enough evidence in the work that Toomer uses symbolism and may even be considered a Symbolist poet, so I like to see a symbolic reading. I also want something simple so I choose one of these three readings.
1 a spiritual reading where the spirit of the people has been near crushed has revived as shown by the flower.
2. a physical reading where the race has been near decimated but has been resilient as shown by the flower.
3. A cultural reading where the culture has been near eradicated but is reborn as shown by the flower.
Ultimately because I like it simple I see the flower as a symbol of hope after oppression because of its positive suggestion, and that incorporates the other three thoughts.
I am left with a couple of questions. First I wonder why Toomer chose the formal sonnet for expression. It could be because he feels it fits with the tradition associated with pastoral settings but it was an adopted form.
I also question the November flower. A flower in November is not a real good sign for that crop of cotton. It is too late in the year for the bloom. So if it is an anomaly, what is Toomer suggesting and might there be an event or date that he found significant that I am not privy? But so many to guess from. Heck the poem could just be a carry over celebrating the WWI armistice that Toomer rewrote to fit his novel.
Greg wrote: "Does anyone know of a good history of Harlem Renaissance poets? So many talented and fascinating poets that I know little about beyond their work, like Claude McKay and Countee Cullen."The New Negro edited byAlain LeRoy Locke is the go to book from the time which samples all literature including poetry with numerous essays. There are a number of different editions under different titles. I would compare editions quality before buying.
Sam wrote: "I am left with a couple of questions. First I wonder why Toomer chose the formal sonnet for expression. It could be because he feels it fits with the tradition associated with pastoral settings but it was an adopted form."I had to brush up on the sonnet so I could better enjoy your comment here, Sam. Could it be he modified the sonnet to remake it into something slightly new, a hybrid, perhaps a bit like himself? And aren't many sonnets about nature, love, and beauty? If so, wouldn't that be a perfect fit? I think it fits that he would not throw out anything good because it is not traditional to Georgia Black culture.
I read that sonnets were the first poem tradition for silent reading. I had noticed that, a lack of overt energy was missing...like sounds and movement, predominant were the visuals and emotions.
I love that you shared how any number of interpretations can be valid with Toomer, even celebrating events that have not happened in 1923, ha.
I like how it fires up brain synapses.
By the way, cotton is from the mallow family, like hollyhocks and okra. The blooms look similar, with hollyhocks of course being bigger and in much richer colors. Cotton flowers are pale with light magenta streaks (or at least the kind I am familiar with). It's a pretty flower, one you could tuck over your ear before going to an early summer hoedown. 🌺
Lots of cotton in the southern US, including here in this part of Texas, the western part. Oil and cotton.
FYI: This book can be read for free online thanks to Lehigh University via the link below.
https://scalar.lehigh.edu/jean-toomer...