Arna Bontemps Poetry

Bontemps, Arna. "Arna Bontemps." The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David L. Lewis. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994. 224-26. Print.

I am going to focus on The Day-Breakers rather than its longer associate. Golgotha is a Mountain is a fine poem, certainly worth exploring (especially when considering all of the different possible notions the symbol of the mountain represents – I am partial to replacing “mountain” with something very simple, like “idea” or “thought”), but The Day-Breakers is more in-line with the other works we’ve studied in this class.

The immediate connection between this poem and Returning Soldiers is obvious. The imagery of war, battles, fighting, death and so on are all too common in the poetry found in this anthology. However, I believe that Bontemps adds something that I have yet to find in any of the other similarly-themed works. Instead of doing the equivalent of literary whining (or rallying, if you want to be progressive about it), he has a very lone notion of something boarding nostalgia hidden in his words. The first two lines:

We are not come to wage a strife
With swords upon this hill,

are not very open to vast interpretation (i.e. the meaning is fairly static). Bontemps is simply stating that the black race did not barge into America looking for a fight, nor did they barge in at all. Now, the next two lines are where that nostalgic sadness comes in:

It is not wise to waste the life
Against a stubborn will.

I’m not sure why I’ve decided this is nostalgic – pessimistic is more fitting to the theme, however “pessimistic” does not do justice to the feelings these lines evoke. I believe that the “stubborn will” is referencing racism, or perhaps whites in general. Firstly, he uses the word “waste” as an absolute; there is no recourse or opening for any “if’s” or “maybe’s.” He sees rebellion as futile, and ultimately a willing of one’s own death. However, he does not necessarily condemn “wasting the life,” but merely notes that it is not wise to do so. The use of the word “wise” is, now that I’m working through it, why I’ve labeled this poem nostalgic: it isn’t really nostalgic in the traditional sense of the word, but in a more spiritual eventuality. Again, spiritual may be leaning in the wrong direction (perhaps try substituting in a word like “empirical”… which I think is too harsh and scientific for what I’m trying to get at here). “Wise” is the word of an old man who has given up on the fire of youth. Again, he does not condemn the fire (which is necessary to foolishly waste one’s life), but merely notes that it isn’t the best of ideas. I can picture Bontemps as an old man having his say to his grandsons who are readying themselves for a mob-riot against racial discrimination: he understands the fire that drives them, yet he has lived long enough to have grown beyond it. I’m sorry if this is unclear; I’m having trouble polishing it down.

The second to last line:

Yet would we die as some have done.

reaffirms what I’ve already stated. The old, removed man understands that the fire of youth drives people to do things that lead to their deaths (i.e. is “unwise”), and furthermore he accepts that it happens. He may even accept that it happens not because of the specific exemplum of black discrimination, but as a facet of any individual’s life. Bontemps cheats himself in this line by letting in the word “some.” He is removing what could have been a very effective generalization and diminishing its effect, and I sort of wish he hadn’t. A more proper word (at least for my own reading of this poem) would be something very simple, such as “others”, or even a pronoun like “he”. It removes the implied doubt in assertion inherent in the word “some” (at least as it is being used here).

The final line turns what I’ve labeled nostalgia around and offers a small, distant glimpse of hope:

Beating a way for the rising sun.

What must be remembered when viewing this final line, however, is that Bontemps is referencing an “unwise” person dying for their cause. Again, this goes back to what I was saying before and adds to it: Bontemps understands and accepts the fire of youth, even to the point of pseudo-suicide, and furthermore he accepts and promotes the reasoning behind doing so (“the rising sun” being used as symbolism for a “brighter tomorrow” (oh the cliché!)). So the question I am left with is this: who, really, is unwise? Obviously, Bontemps believes that fighting for a cause when death is a given is unwise, but then how does he reconcile his acceptance of fighting and advocate the cause as the brighter tomorrow he believes it to be? Ultimately, Bontemps is calling himself a fool here, and I believe he did this on purpose. In a very circular kind of way, he has concluded that fighting is foolish, but fighting is also necessary despite its foolishness. And, now that I’ve reached this conclusion, I think that the title makes a lot more sense.