Selected Poems PDF Paul Laurence Dunbar

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Seen my lady home las’ night,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hel’ huh han’ an’ sque’z it tight,
Jump back, honey, jump back.

This is oral poetry at its lighthearted and humorous best. Its effectiveness lies in recitation. It must be read aloud. Indeed, the persona in many of Dunbar’s poems is asking to be freed from the prison of the page. The poems are asking to be verbalized, to take flight in the air. Dunbar seems to have been the best at verbalizing the oral tradition in black American literature.

Nowhere is this oral tradition more apparent and effective than in “An Ante-Bellum Sermon.” The theme is freedom, but it is couched in an analysis of the biblical relationship of the Israelites and the Egyptians, and that is why the preacher says: