Melvin Beaunorus Tolson
Melvin Beaunorus Tolson Poems
I
Along the Wilderness Road, through Cumberland Gap,
The black ox hours limped toward Sunday's sun,
Across a buff clay belt with scrawls of stone,
...
Bartender, make it straight and make it two—
One for the you in me and the me in you.
Now let us put our heads together: one
Is half enough for malice, sense, or fun.
...
"We all declare for liberty," Lincoln said.
"We use the word and mean all sorts of things:
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.
Rifle the basket that thy neighbor brings."
...
Aunt Martha bustles
From room to room
Between attic and basement,
With duster and broom.
...
King Oliver of New Orleans
has kicked the bucket, but he left behind
old Satchmo with his red-hot horn
to syncopate the heart and mind.
...
Down in the shipyard, day and night,
The Galahads of the dock,
Hard as the sinews of basin rock,
Build an ocean cosmopolite.
...
At the Courthouse Square
On the Fourth of July,
Beneath Old Glory's
Pyrotechnic sky,
...
I was a minuteman at Concord Bridge,
I was a frigate-gunner on Lake Erie,
I was a mortarman at Stony Ridge,
...
The night John Henry is born an ax
of lightning splits the sky,
and a hammer of thunder pounds the earth,
and the eagles and panthers cry!
...
Melvin Beaunorus Tolson Biography
Melvin Beaunorus Tolson (February 6, 1898 – August 29, 1966) was an American Modernist poet, educator, columnist, and politician. His work concentrated on the experience of African Americans and includes several long historical poems. His work was influenced by his study of the Harlem Renaissance, although he spent nearly all of his career in Texas and Oklahoma. Tolson is the protagonist of the 2007 biopic The Great Debaters. The film, produced by Oprah Winfrey, is based on his work with students at predominantly-black Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, and their debate with University of Southern California (USC). Tolson is portrayed by Denzel Washington, who also directed the film. Born in Moberly, Missouri, Tolson was one of four children of Reverend Alonzo Tolson, a Methodist minister, and Lera (Hurt) Tolson, a seamstress of African-Creek ancestry. Alonzo Tolson was also of mixed race, the son of an enslaved woman and her white master. He served at various churches in the Missouri and Iowa area until settling longer in Kansas City. Reverend Tolson studied throughout his life to add to the limited education he had first received, even taking Latin, Greek and Hebrew by correspondence courses. Both parents emphasized education for their children. Melvin Tolson graduated from Lincoln High School in Kansas City in 1919. He enrolled at Fisk University but transferred to Lincoln University, Pennsylvania the next year for financial reasons. Tolson graduated with honors in 1924. He became a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.)
The Best Poem Of Melvin Beaunorus Tolson
A Song for Myself
I judge
My soul
Eagle
Nor mole:
A man
Is what
He saves
From rot.
The corn
Will fat
A hog
Or rat:
Are these
Dry bones
A hut's
Or throne's?
Who filled
The moat
Twixt sheep
And goat?
Let Death,
The twin
of Life,
Slip in?
Prophets
Arise,
Mask-hid,
Unwise,
Divide
The earth
By class
and birth.
Caesars
Without,
The People
Shall rout;
Caesars
Within,
Crush flat
As tin.
Who makes
A noose
Envies
The goose.
Who digs
A pit
Dices
For it.
Shall tears
Be shed
For those
Whose bread
Is thieved
Headlong?
Tears right
No wrong.
Prophets
Shall teach
The meek
To reach.
Leave not
To God
The boot
And rod.
The straight
Lines curve?
Failure
Of nerve?
Blind-spots
Assail?
Times have
Their Braille.
If hue
Of skin
Trademark
A sin,
Blame not
The make
For God's
Mistake.
Since flesh
And bone
Turn dust
And stone,
With life
So brief,
Why add
To grief?
I sift
The chaff
From wheat
and laugh.
No curse
Can stop
The tick
Of clock.
Those who
Wall in
Themselves
And grin
Commit
Incest
And spawn
A pest.
What's writ
In vice
Is writ
In ice.
The truth
Is not
Of fruits
That rot.
A sponge,
The mind
Soaks in
The kind
Of stuff
That fate's
Milieu
Dictates.
Jesus,
Mozart,
Shakespeare,
Descartes,
Lenin,
Chladni,
Have lodged
With me.
I snatch
From hooks
The meat
Of books.
I seek
Frontiers,
Not worlds
On biers.
The snake
Entoils
The pig
With coils.
The pig's
Skewed wail
Does not
Prevail.
Old men
Grow worse
With prayer
Or curse:
Their staffs
Thwack youth
Starved thin
For truth.
Today
The Few
Yield poets
Their due;
Tomorrow
The Mass
Judgment
Shall pass.
I harbor
One fear
If death
Crouch near:
Does my
Creed span
The Gulf
Of Man?
And when
I go
In calm
Or blow
From mice
And men,
Selah!
What . . . then?
Melvin Beaunorus Tolson Comments
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8/26/2026 5:27:52 AM # rel_20260825T124344Z_022792b
