
I recently began my MFA studies in fiction writing at Rutgers, and for my literature course this semester on what's now known as the Harlem Renaissance, I read this genuine masterpiece of a book. Toomer was born into a black family but he later eschewed race as such, proclaiming himself to be neither black nor white but a member of the new "American" race. Nevertheless, Cane, based on the author's three-month stint as a temporary high-school principal in Sparta, Georgia, is widely regarded as the first literary classic of the "New Negro" movement that was taking shape at the book's publication in 1923. It's a zinging modernist text, split between narrative, poetry, and drama conveyed in sharply etched images, realistic dialogue, and potent symbols. Toomer's subject? The history and present of black life in the South during Jim Crow, counterposed and related to life up north as the Great Migration took off. A must-read for anyone concerned with canons or art.