http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dunbar/dunbar.htm
The "New Negro" poets came of age during the Reconstruction and poets like Paul Laurence Dunbar began defining a uniquely African American voice just as he called for justice and equality. In his day Dunbar was considered the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race" (an appellation awarded by Booker T. Washington), although it wasn't until the publication of his third volume of poetry, Lyrics of Lowly Life, that Dunbar finally came to national prominence, primarily because of the endorsement of his work by the novelist and critic William Dean Howells. He produced several novels and a substantial body of short stories, but Dunbar is known today primarily as a writer of "dialect" or "plantation pastoral" poetry such as "Little Brown Baby" and "Chrismus on the Plantation," which were extremely popular during his lifetime.
Dunbar's most popular dialect poetry often expressed nostalgia for the rural life that existed before the war. Although his depictions of plantation life were basically accurate, they were by no means comprehensive, being generally devoid of any mention of the harsher realities of slave life. This is not to say that his poetry glorified the fictional "happy slave," as some might misinterpret. But rather, Dunbar endeavored to capture the rhythms of the colloquial speech of the slaves, along with its imagery. In so doing, he acted as a griot, keeper of the cultural heritage. An excellent example of this is his poem "When Malindy Sings," that reflects the startling metaphoric imagery employed by the slaves:
G'way an' quit dat noise, Miss Lucy –
Put dat music book away;
What's de use to keep on tryin'?
Ef you practice twell you're gray,
You cain't sta't no notes a-flyin'
Lak de ones dat rants and rings
F'om de kitchen to de big woods
When Malindy sings. (1-8)
……
Oh, hit's sweetah dan de music
Of an edicated band;
An' hit's dearah dan de battle's
Song o' triumph in de lan'.
It seems holier dan evenin'
Whe de solemn chu'ch bell rings,
Ez I sin a' ca'mly listen
While Malindy sings. (57-64)
Dunbar also produced an extensive body of well-crafted poetic works reflective of the works of English poets like Tennyson, Keats and Shelly that went effectively unnoticed by the white literati, and in "Sympathy," like Horton, he expresses his frustration at being so narrowly defined:
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,
When he beats his bars and would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings! (15-21)
Also like Horton, Dunbar was a praise-singer. His moving tribute to the great orator Frederick Douglass reads like an oration itself as it gives voice to Mother Africa:
A hush is over all the teeming lists,
And there is pause, a breath-space in the strife;
A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists
And vapors that obscure the sun of life.
And Ethiopia, with bosom torn,
Laments the passing of her noblest born.
She weeps for him a mother's burning tears –
she loved him with a mother's deepest love.
He was her champion thro' direful years,
And held her weal all other ends above.
When Bondage held her bleeding in the dust,
He raised her up and whispered, "Hope and Trust." (1-12)
By recalling life and events that occurred during slavery through the orality of his dialect poetry, Dunbar embodies Sankofa and expresses the Sasa of the Reconstruction Negro. He allows his generation, and those following, to incorporate not just the cruel realities of slavery, but also the gentler aspects of plantation life.