Jean Toomer
Jean Toomer
Jean Toomerwas an African American poet and novelist and an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance and modernism. His first book Cane, published in 1923, is considered by many to be his most significant...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth26 December 1894
CountryUnited States of America
lifetime wells
It takes a well-spent lifetime, and perhaps more, to crystalize in us that for which we exist.
sweet land tree
O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree, So scant of grass, so profligate of pines
song eye blood
some genius of the South With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth, Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds.
eye sight loses
No eyes that have seen beauty ever lose their sight.
teaching missing information
One may receive the information but miss the teaching.
mistake people high-standards
People mistake their limitations for high standards.
curves rivers feelings
If you have heard a Jewish cantor sing, if he has touched you and made your own sorrow seem trivial when compared with his, you will know my feeling when I follow the curves of her profile, like mobile rivers, to their common delta.
might poet conscious
I am not less poet; I am more conscious of all that I am, am not, and might become.
doubt earth enough
Perhaps . . . our lot on the earth is to seek and to search. Now and again we find just enough to enable us to carry on. I now doubt that any of us will completely find and be found in this life.
hurt it-hurts ifs
Whats beauty anyway but ugliness if it hurts you?
men justice social-justice
Men are apt to idolize or fear that which they cannot understand, especially if it be a woman.
ignorance knowing justice
The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing.
sweet rain flying
Dripping rain like golden honey- And the sweet earth flying from the thunder
pain mean perfect
There is no such thing as happiness. Life bends joy and pain, beauty and ugliness, in such a way that no one may isolate them. No one should want to. Perfect joy, or perfect pain, with no contrasting element to define them, would mean a monotony of consciousness, would mean death