James Weldon Johnson
With a use of skill and choice of medium that not only belied his interests but spoke to his understanding of the dualistic system, James Weldon Johnson wrote and published God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse in 1927. This text was unique not only at the time it was printed, but it remains unique because it is a work that combines the print features of poetry with the aural characteristics of sermons, in addition to illustrations created by Aaron Douglas.
In the introduction to his sermons, Johnson outlines his intention to preserve the style of “the old-time Negro preacher” who “was above all an orator, and in good measure an actor” through a voice that was “a marvelous instrument” (7). The poems are meant to be read to an audience, and in their printed state, represent only one half of the exchange intended by Johnson and characterized by an African-American sermon. Recorded readings of the poems are in no way comparable to a performance because in response to the heightened emotion the sermons are meant to cause, a congregation’s interjections of “Hallelujah” and “Amen,” would make the experience one of collaborative art-making rather than recitation. By writing them, Johnson hoped to create a new genre, “a form expressing the imagery, the idioms, the peculiar turns of thought and the distinctive humor and pathos” for African Americans, one “capable of voicing the deepest and highest emotions and aspirations and allow[ing] of the widest range of subjects and the widest scope of treatment;” (8-9) work which begins in the first of the poems, “The Creation.”
In the introduction to his sermons, Johnson outlines his intention to preserve the style of “the old-time Negro preacher” who “was above all an orator, and in good measure an actor” through a voice that was “a marvelous instrument” (7). The poems are meant to be read to an audience, and in their printed state, represent only one half of the exchange intended by Johnson and characterized by an African-American sermon. Recorded readings of the poems are in no way comparable to a performance because in response to the heightened emotion the sermons are meant to cause, a congregation’s interjections of “Hallelujah” and “Amen,” would make the experience one of collaborative art-making rather than recitation. By writing them, Johnson hoped to create a new genre, “a form expressing the imagery, the idioms, the peculiar turns of thought and the distinctive humor and pathos” for African Americans, one “capable of voicing the deepest and highest emotions and aspirations and allow[ing] of the widest range of subjects and the widest scope of treatment;” (8-9) work which begins in the first of the poems, “The Creation.”
"The Creation" by Orlando Ceasar
The textual features of Johnson’s poems are also indicative of his desire to read the creation myth through new eyes. A more human God, who expresses a desire to commune with man rather than control mankind, characterizes his version of the creation myth. Johnson’s God feels “lonely,” so he makes himself a world, and as he does it, he uses his hands and feet to “spangle the night,” “hollow the valleys,” and “bring forth” the animals (16), but still he is lonely. Finally, he decides to make man, and “like a Mammy bending over her baby/ Kneeled down in the dust” and made man (17). God lowers himself to the earth, molding man out of clay, getting his hands dirty, working with the earth, and communing with the human race reducing the distance between them. By fashioning a character that echoes the feelings and characteristics of a human, Johnson begins the work needed to explore and deconstruct the biblical constructs of superiority and inferiority that had sanctioned racialized slavery in the United States.
Aaron Douglas’s accompanying illustration also underscores Johnson’s characterization of God in human terms as well as addressing another of the binary systems encouraged by the American interpretation, man’s relationship with the earth. The illustration depicts a man standing on the earth, gently touching a plant, and looking up at the heavens. A shape has descended from the sky, and it gives the impression of a hand, linking God to man with this physical representation. In the sky a rainbow illuminates the profile of the man, but the man does not look at the viewer, nor can the viewer discern his features. The shape that represents the figure’s eyes points toward the sky, so the gaze of the man in Douglas’s illustration does not fall on the viewer. The path created by Douglas is discernible, and the picture clearly wants the viewer to see the links between man’s connection to both earth and God. In this way the visual images of Aaron Douglas are “ ‘go-betweens’ in [the] social transaction” (Mitchell, 351) between James Weldon Johnson and his audience.
Aaron Douglas’s accompanying illustration also underscores Johnson’s characterization of God in human terms as well as addressing another of the binary systems encouraged by the American interpretation, man’s relationship with the earth. The illustration depicts a man standing on the earth, gently touching a plant, and looking up at the heavens. A shape has descended from the sky, and it gives the impression of a hand, linking God to man with this physical representation. In the sky a rainbow illuminates the profile of the man, but the man does not look at the viewer, nor can the viewer discern his features. The shape that represents the figure’s eyes points toward the sky, so the gaze of the man in Douglas’s illustration does not fall on the viewer. The path created by Douglas is discernible, and the picture clearly wants the viewer to see the links between man’s connection to both earth and God. In this way the visual images of Aaron Douglas are “ ‘go-betweens’ in [the] social transaction” (Mitchell, 351) between James Weldon Johnson and his audience.
Taken together, the mixed media of this text is the final message for those who read it and the reason it is so successful at reinterpreting the Edenic myth. All three forms of media that Johnson uses to represent his message reveal his opposition to different patriarchal expressions of the binary system. First, by electing to preserve the oral culture of his ancestors, he has upheld the matriarchal roots of civilization. Similarly, his use of free verse, spoken-word poetry snubs the “patriarchal poetry,” ordered and confined, that Gertrude Stein calls into question in her poem of that name. Finally, with the pictures created by Aaron Douglass, as well as the illustrated chapter head images, Johnson wants to make his text as much of a multi-sensory experience as he can, and by doing so, he eschews the simplicity of print in favor of a combination that highlights shared, defiant qualities of the chosen media.