“Let art portray things as they are, no matter what the consequences, no matter who is hurt, is a blind bit of philosophy.”

Rejects unfiltered realism when it only arms hostility or cheapens the subject · The Dark Tower column, Opportunity

• Art
• Restraint
• Truth

“That is what has hindered the development of artists among us. Their one note has been the concern with their race. That is all very well, none of us can get away from it. I cannot at times.”

Admits race as inescapable feeling while resisting it as an artist's only subject · Interview, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10 February 1924

• Artists
• Poetry
• Race

“If dialect is missed in this collection, it is enough to state that the day of dialect as far as Negro poets are concerned is in the decline.”

Treats literary dialect as a fading, often artificial medium rather than a required racial stamp · Foreword, Caroling Dusk, 1927

• Convention
• Language
• Poetry