The Kentucky Anthology: Two Hundred Years of Writing in the Bluegrass State

Joseph S. Cotter Sr.

John Fox Jr. 207 Joseph S. Cotter Sr. One of Kentucky’s first African American poets, Joseph S. Cotter Sr. was largely a man of his time, although he does attempt, sometimes successfully, to sound a new voice in Kentucky poetry. He was born in Nelson County in 1861; but when he was an infant his family moved to Louisville, where he grew up, became a prominent educator and pioneer in black education, and lived the rest of his life. His poems are typically written in the common three- or four-line stanzas in rhythms of iambic pentameter or tetrameter with recurring patterns of rhyme. The four poems that follow suggest the range of Cotter’s subjects, from homage to early opponents of slavery, such as the journalist William Lloyd Garrison (who founded the antislavery newspaper the Liberator in 1831) and the Kentucky abolitionist Cassius M. Clay, to poems about black domestic life and racial progress. His poems provided a good foundation and inspiration for African American writers in Kentucky who would flourish later in the twentieth century. h “William Lloyd Garrison” His country seared its conscience through its gain, And had not wisdom to behold the loss. It held God partner in the hellish stain, And saw Christ dying on a racial cross. What unto it the shackled fellow-man, Whose plea was mockery, and whose groans were mirth? Its boasted creed was: “He should rule who can Make prey of highest heaven and dupe of earth.” From out this mass of century-tutored wrong A man stood God-like, and his voice rang true. His soul was sentry to the dallying throng, His thought was watchword to the gallant few. He saw not as his fellow-beings saw; He would not misname greed expediency, He found no color in the nation’s law, And scorned to meet it in its liberty. 207 208 The Kentucky Anthology He saw his duty in his neighbor’s cause, And died that he might rise up strong and free— A creature subject to the highest laws, And master of a God-like destiny. The thunder of a million armed feet, Reverberating till the land was stirred, Was but the tension of his great heart-beat, The distant echo of his spoken word. He speaks again: “Such as would miss the rod That ever chastens insufficiency, Must purge their lives and make them fit for God, Must train their liberty and make it free.” “Gen. Cassius M. Clay” “Give me an heir,” the Century plead, “With the brain of a man and the will of a god; With a soul that will flash with the word that is said, And a hand that will strike, ’though the heavens nod. “When the storm blows not, and the way is clear, And man is to man as star to star, Let the sage come forth with his thought-bred fear, And plans that are meek as the grass blades are. “When soul meets soul and disdains to hate, When thought meets thought and clashes not, The priest may sweetly, sternly prate Of a saintly way and a Godless lot. “When weal must lessen the cry of woe, And blood must sanction the will of heaven, My heir must conquer the foremost foe; To slay, faith-spurred, is the age’s leaven.” So the Century hurled thee, a living flame, To blaze thy way to the heart of man. Now, at its end, thou art a name That shines wherever greatness can. John Fox Jr. 209 “The Negro’s Educational Creed” The Negro simply asks the chance to think, To wed his thinking unto willing hands, And thereby prove himself a steadfast link, In the sure chain of progress through the lands. He does not ask to loiter and complain While others turn their life blood into worth. He holds that this would be the one foul stain On the escutcheon of this brave old earth. He does not ask to clog the wheels of State And write his color on the Nation’s Creed. He asks an humble freedman’s estimate, And time to grow ere he essays to lead. “The Kiddies and the Christmas Tree” Smiling, smiling kiddies we— All with eyes and eyes to see Goodies on the Christmas tree. Jolly, jolly kiddies we, Two by two and three by three, Marching ’round the Christmas tree. Singing, singing kiddies we, Tasting...