❖ Preface ❖

This anthology collects poems by authors who lived in Washington,

DC, during the city’s early years. All the authors were born before 1800
through 1900. These poets were born in, or drawn to, the nation’s cap-
ital as it grew from its founding, through such major upheavals as the
Civil War, Reconstruction, and World War I. Their work spans the
gamut from traditional Victorian-era sentimentality through the be-
ginnings of literary modernism.
The city has always been home to prominent poets, including pres-
idents and congressmen, lawyers and Supreme Court judges. These
writers made their names as leaders in government, sometimes help-
ing in the creation of the country’s most important institutions and
laws—but they also produced poetic works. There have also been po-
ets who worked as foreign diplomats, professors, and scientists, as well
as writers from across the country who came as correspondents for
their hometown newspapers. All are represented in these pages.
I have included some of the nation’s most significant authors: no
book of DC poets would be complete without Francis Scott Key, James
Weldon Johnson, Henry Adams, Ambrose Bierce, or Paul Laurence
Dunbar. But I have taken particular pleasure in seeking out poems by
lesser-known poets as well, especially women, working-class writers,
and writers of color. Some poets are represented by a single poem; oth-
ers who I believe deserve more critical reevaluation have been given
more space.
The title of this anthology comes from a poem by Walt Whitman.
Although critics now consider his work canonical, Whitman’s reputa-
tion over the past nearly two centuries has waxed and waned. He is a
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good example of how readers’ ideas of a poet’s importance can change

significantly over time.
How do we measure greatness? One of my favorite poets in this col-
lection is Arthur Bowen, but would I argue his “Farewell” is as great a
poem as Whitman’s “The Wound-Dresser”? I would not. But Bowen’s
poem’s connection to DC’s first race riot, the infamous Snow Storm,
gives “Farewell” an inarguable historical importance. And I personally
find the poem—and this is no small thing—incredibly moving.
All anthologies make an argument about greatness simply by what
they choose to include and what they choose to exclude; this book is
no different. My desire is to offer a wide-ranging, diverse collection of
noteworthy voices that present an authentic, polymorphic view of the
capital city.
For each poet, I provide a short biography, placing their work within
their historical context and emphasizing when they lived in Washing-
ton, DC. Although poets are presented chronologically by birth within
each section, the parts are arranged by theme. So, for example, those
authors in part 2 may have written about the Civil War during wartime,
or long after its end. Grouping the poets thematically in this way breaks
up the strict chronology, but it better represents when these poets were
writing most actively, when they lived in the city, and what literary
influences are seen most strongly in their poems.
I am pleased to have three significant subgroups of poets emerge. Al-
though there are prominent politicians, such as President John Quincy
Adams, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Librarians of Congress
George Watterston and Archibald MacLeish, and Secretary of State
John Hay, I was interested in including several others who held more
modest positions within the federal government. For a working-class
writer, a clerkship provided much-needed stability in which to create
poetry.
A second subgroup of great interest consists of the poets born
enslaved. This group includes Arthur Bowen, Walter H. Brooks,
Fanny Jackson Coppin, Frederick Douglass, Newell Houston Ensley,
T. Thomas Fortune, John Henry Paynter, John Sella Martin, and Alfred
Islay Walden. Their poems give important insight into the complexity
of the lives of people of color in Washington, especially in the eras
immediately after emancipation. In overcoming such traumatic begin-
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nings to rise to become writers of note, these poets have not only en-
riched the city’s literature, but they provide an inspirational model that
helps us to better understand poetry’s role in early civil rights efforts.
The third group is the largest: journalists, including a significant
number of women correspondents. Both the segregated white and
black newspapers hired women journalists. But the press provided
another important outlet for women: poetry was regularly included
alongside “hard news,” and editors tended to favor poems on patriotic
and religious subjects, as well as poems about family and nature, all
subjects considered suitable for women’s “refined sensibilities,” so for
many women who worked at home or had other employment, this was
their first opportunity to see their work in print.
I was particularly drawn to poems that reflect the city’s geography
and the important events of the times: poems that could take place
only in Washington. Thus you’ll find an ode to the “mammoth cheese”
presented to Thomas Jefferson from the “Republican” cows of New
Hampshire, a love poem that takes place in the Senate chambers
during cloture, poems written in memory of George Washington and
Abraham Lincoln, works set at Howard University and Arlington Na-
tional Cemetery, poems about the prominent grave of Henry and Clo-
ver Adams in Rock Creek Cemetery, or verses set along the banks of
the Potomac River.
Taken together, the poems create a map of a particularly American
landscape, and the capital city reveals something representative, some-
thing symbolic, about the identity of the country as a whole.
In my earlier book published with the University of Virginia Press,
A Literary Guide to Washington, DC: Walking in the Footsteps of Amer-
ican Writers from Francis Scott Key to Zora Neale Hurston, the walking
tour and “portrait” format of that book necessarily limited the number
of authors I could cover. I see this anthology as a continuation of the
research I did for that book, and as a companion volume.

I am grateful to the University of Virginia Press for their faith in

this project, particularly Eric Brandt, Emily Grandstaff, and Helen
Chandler. My gratitude also goes to the staff of Art Omi Sculpture Cen-
ter in Ghent, New York, particularly Carol Frederick, D. W. Gibson,
xxii PREFACE

and Ruth Adams, for a writer’s residency where this book was com-
pleted; and the late Pellom McDaniels and the staff at Emory Uni-
versity, where I was honored with a Rose Library Research Fellow-
ship to conduct research in their collections. Other essential support
came from HumanitiesDC, the Historical Society of Washington, the
Library of Congress, and the Gelman Library at George Washington
University.
Individuals who gave guidance and support were invaluable to me:
I thank Joy Ford Austin, Jasper Collier, Teri Ellen Cross Davis, Julie R.
Enszer, the late Patsy Fletcher, Michael Gushue, Jennifer King, Marya
Annette McQuirter, Peter Montgomery, Martin G. Murray, Gwen Ru-
binstein, Myra Sklarew, and Dan Vera.
“The Fall of Richmond, April 3, 1865” by Walter H. Brooks is used
with the permission of the Association for the Study of African Amer-
ican Life and History (www.asalh.org).