Eva Carter Buckner — Collected Poems
Eva Carter Buckner made poetry part of public life. Born in Washington, Iowa, and formed in Colorado’s Black club movement, she arrived in Los Angeles by 1909 with a reputation as a poet, songwriter, and friend of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Her surviving poems address women’s freedom, Black citizenship, wartime sacrifice, literary fellowship, and collective advance; her public career joined that writing to suffrage, the California Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, the Los Angeles Forum, Republican organizing, and early NAACP work. No poetry book by Buckner has been located. This edition gathers every complete poem presently recovered from original pages, restores stanza structure and intentional indents, and records the songs and recitation pieces whose texts remain lost.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Bibliography
Buckner, Eva Carter. “The City of Sunshine.” Song announced in the Denver Statesman, 31 Mar. 1905. Music and complete text not located.
———. “Gathering the Wild Flowers.” Song listed by Tolbert R. Ingram Publishing, Denver, 1905–06. Music and text not located.
———. “Onward.” Federation song. Denver Statesman, 8 June 1906, p. 15.
———. “Lines to Paul Laurence Dunbar.” Gems of Poesy, edited by William H. A. Moore and J. E. McGirt. Delhaye Publishing Company, 1907, p. 219.
Tribute to John Greenleaf Whittier. Reported by the Los Angeles Times, 12 Feb. 1909. Title and complete text not located.
———. “Original Poem.” California Eagle, 29 Sept. 1917, p. 4.
———. “In the Ranks.” Federation song performed in 1918. Music and text not located.
———. “What Constitutes a Negro?” The Negro Trail Blazers of California, by Delilah L. Beasley, Times Mirror Printing and Binding House, 1919, pp. 269–70. First printed in the California Eagle.
———. “If Lincoln Could Return Today.” The Negro Trail Blazers of California, by Delilah L. Beasley. Times Mirror Printing and Binding House, 1919, pp. 270–71.
———. “Let’s Go.” Ottawa Guardian, 31 Jan. 1919, p. 2.
———. “The Man of Faith, The Man of Love.” Los Angeles Evening Express, 12 Dec. 1921, p. 26.
———. “[Untitled Poem Dedicated to W. E. B. Du Bois].” Reported during an NAACP fundraising campaign; text and publication details unlocated.
———. “The Tulsa Song.” Recalled in family testimony. Text not located.
———. “Lending Books.” Recited at the Los Angeles Forum anniversary program, Apr. 1932. Text not located.