Orientation

Jean Toomer's "Karintha" is a lyrical story of a young black girl, in temperament and effect like Faulkner's Eula Mae Varner, a natural, lusty beauty, contemptuous of her male suitors who recognizes her charms when bouncing her "hobby horse" on their knees. "Reapers" captures the syncopations of the quickened blade of the scythe in the hands of Negro field hands and the horrific consequences of the slow swaths through the tall grasses. "November Cotton Song" evokes the passing of the growing and labor season into winter, and a revelation, possible only after the toil of the working season has been suspended: When there is nothing left to do, people are open to inspiration found deeply within.