SOURCE: "Point and Counterpoint in Harlem Gallery," in CLA Journal, Vol. XXVII, No. 2, December, 1983, pp. 152-68.

In the following essay, Schroeder discusses Tolson's Harlem Gallery and asserts that "the character of the Curator and the central dilemma in which he is placed provide a perfect vehicle for an examination of social divisions and conflicting roles."

Although first published in 1965, Melvin B. Tolson's highly allusive poem Harlem Gallery has yet to attract much critical recognition. With the exception of an unpublished dissertation, a rather general critical biography, a handful of reviews, and some widely scattered articles, the poem has been virtually ignored; as Robert M. Farnsworth has recently expressed it, "Critics and scholars have been ducking the challenge of his [Tolson's] work for years." The reasons for this neglect of a modern masterpiece undoubtedly stem from the difficulties of the poem itself; the density of its allusions and the...