50. Detroit: Book Tower, 1986.

Martin, Herbert Woodward. Paul Laurence Dunbar: A Singer of Songs. Columbus: The State Library of Ohio, 1980.

———, and Ronald Primeau. In His Own Voice: The Dramatic and Other Uncollected Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002.

Martin, Jay, ed. A Singer in the Dawn: Reinterpretations of Paul Laurence Dunbar. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1975.

———, and Gossie H. Hudson, eds. The Paul Laurence Dunbar Reader. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1975.

McKissack, Patricia C. Paul Laurence Dunbar: A Poet to Remember. Chicago: Children’s Press, 1984.

Metcalf, E. W. Paul Laurence Dunbar: A Bibliography. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1975.

Nettles, Elsa. Language, Race, and Social Class in Howells’s America. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1987.

Revell, Peter. Paul Laurence Dunbar. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979.

Schultz, Pearle H. Paul Laurence Dunbar: Black Poet Laureate. Champaign, Ill.: Garrad Publishing Company, 1974.

Turner, Darwin T. “Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Rejected Symbol.” Journal of Negro History 52 (January 1967): 1-13.

Wagner, Jean. Black Poets of the United States: From Dunbar to Langston Hughes. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973.

Wiggins, Lida Keck. The Life and Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Naperville, Ill.: J. L. Nichols and Company, 1907.

FROM OAK AND IVY 1893

A Banjo Song

Oh, dere’s lots o’ keer an’ trouble
In dis world to swaller down;
An’ ol’ Sorrer’s purty lively
In her way o’ gittin’ roun’.
Yet dere’s times when I furgit ’em,—
Aches an’ pains an’ troubles all,—
An’ it’s when I tek at ebenin’
My ol’ banjo f’om de wall.

 

’Bout de time dat night is fallin’
An’ my daily wu’k is done,
An’ above de shady hilltops
I kin see de settin’ sun;
When de quiet, restful shadders
Is beginnin’ jes’ to fall,—
Den I take de little banjo
F’om its place upon de wall.

 

Den my fam’ly gadders roun’ me
In de fadin’ o’ de light,
Ez I strike de strings to try ’em
Ef dey all is tuned er-right.