Slim in Hell

By Sterling A. Brown

I
Slim Greer went to heaven;
St. Peter said, "Slim,
You been a right good boy."
An' he winked at him.

"You been travelin' rascal
In yo'day.
You kin roam once mo';
Den you come to stay.

"Put dese wings on yo' shoulders,
An' save yo' feet."
Slim grin, and he speak up,
"Thankye, Pete."

Den Peter say, "Go
To Hell an' see,
All dat is doing, and
Report to me.

"Be sure to remember
How everything go."
Slim say, "I be seein' yuh
On de late watch, bo."

Slim got to cavortin'
Swell as you choose,
Like Lindy in de Spirit
Of St. Louis Blues.

He flew an' he flew,
Till at last he hit
A hangar wid de sign readin'
DIS IS IT.

Den he parked his wings,
An' strolled aroun',
Gittin' used to his feet
On de solid ground.

II
Big bloodhound came aroarin'
Like Niagry Falls,
Sicked on by white devils
In overhalls.

Now Slim warn't scared
Cross my heart, it's a fac',
An de dog went on a bayin'
Some po' devil's track.

Den Slim saw a mansion
An' walked right in;
De Devil looked up
Wid a sickly grin.

"Suttinly didn't look
Fo' you, Mr. Greer,
How it happens you comes
To visit here?"

Slim say---"Oh, jes' thought
I'd drop by a spell."
"Feel at home, seh, an' here's
De keys to hell."

Den he took Slim around
An' showed him people
Rasin' hell as high as
De first Church Steeple.

Lots of folks fightin'
At de roulette wheel,
Like old Rampart Street,
Or leastwise Beale.

Showed him bawdy houses
An' cabarets,
Slim thought of New Orleans
An' Memphis days.

Each devil was busy
Wid a devilish broad,
An' Slim cried, "Lawdy,
Lawd, Lawd, Lawd."

Took him in a room
Where Slim see
De preacher wid a brownskin
On each knee.

Showed him giant stills,
Going everywhere,
Wid a passel of devils
Stretched dead drunk there.

Den he took him to de furnace
Dat some devils was firing,
Hot as Hell, an' Slim start
A mean presspirin'.

White devils with pitchforks
Threw black devils on,
Slim thought he'd better
Be gittin' along.

An' he says---"Dis makes
Me think of home---
Vicksburg, Little Rock, Jackson,
Waco and Rome."

Den de devil gave Slim
De big Ha-Ha;
An' turned into a cracker,
Wid a sheriff's star.

Slim ran fo' his wings,
Lit out from de groun'
Hauled it back to St. Peter,
Safety boun'.

III
St. Peter said, "Well,
You got back quick.
How's de devil? An' what's
His latest trick?"

An' Slim Say, "Peter,
I really cain't tell,
The place was Dixie
That I took for hell."

Then Peter say, "you must
Be crazy, I vow,
Where'n hell dja think Hell was,
Anyhow?

"Git on back to de yearth,
Cause I got de fear,
You'se a leetle too dumb,
Fo' to stay up here. . ."


Comments : Found this poem in a delightful anthology of poems by African - American poets that is (in a most politically incorrect manner) titled 'The Black Poets'. The chatty, casual tone and language in the first few verses of this poem had me hooked - imagine someone casually saying, “Thank ye, Pete” or “I be seein’ yuh on de late watch,bo” to St. Peter ! Slim’s experiences in Hell had me chuckling away and I knew this was one poem I wanted to share. What a marvellously humorous and sarcastic way to skewer a region and a way of life !

Also, I felt that since this was on the theme of discrimination based on the colour of one’s skin, there was a somewhat tenuous link to the last poem run on the blog, which was favoured by a president incarcerated for the colour of his skin.
- By Zen

For more information on Sterling Brown, read this article. This site has a brief biography, the text of some of his poems etc.

More information about Slim Greer from this website, some snippets from the same pasted below :
Jean Wagner
Among all his humorous poems, in which he exercises his comic vein at the expense of whites no less than of blacks, the most remarkable are assuredly those which relate the adventures of Slim Greer. By uniting this new hero of the tall tale, Brown provided Paul Bunyan and John Henry with a younger brother fully worthy of them. For Slim shows extraordinary skill in extracting himself from the most unbelievable situations. He brings to naught the vigilance of the most vigilant, and at the same time exposes the oddities of the people he brushes up against.

Thus he succeeds, in Arkansas, in passing as a white man, though his skin color is "no lighter than a dark midnight." The white woman he set up house with thinks he is a Spaniard or a Frenchman. He is found out at last, not because of his color, but through his way of playing the blues:

An' he started a-tinklin'
Some mo’nful blues,
An' a-pattin' the time
With No. Fourteen shoes.
The cracker listened
An' then he spat
An' said, "No white man
Could play like that. . ."
But he is more agile than the whites and makes his getaway, of course without suffering the least hurt.
..........

We meet Slim again in Atlanta, where the whites have passed laws "for to keep all de niggers from laughin' outdoors":
Hope to Gawd I may die
If I ain't speakin’ truth
Make de niggers do deir laughin’
In a telefoam booth.

When told about this rule on his arrival in Atlanta, he feels he is going to explode with laughter. He barely has time to skip past the queue waiting outside the phone booth and to dash inside--after dragging out the Negro who was there already. He laughs for hours on end, and the Negroes waiting in the lengthening queue groan in anguish as they wait their turn. In the end, Slim has to be taken away in an ambulance at the state's expense, so that things may return to normal in Atlanta.

John Edgar Tidwell
Slim Greer is both a literary character created by Sterling A. Brown and the term designating his memorable series of satiric poems. In the cycle are five poems: "Slim Greer," "Slim Hears ‘the Call’," "Slim in Atlanta," "Slim in Hell," and "Slim Lands a Job?," all of which were published between 1930 and 1933. These poems reveal Brown's careful study of oral and written literatures, from Moliére's satire to Mark Twain's humor, and his absorption of less formal teaching from a gallery of African American raconteurs. After graduation from Harvard University (MA, 1923), he immersed himself in the cultural life and lore of Black folk by frequenting barbershops, "jook-joints," and isolated farms. In these places, "master liars" like "Preacher," Duke Diggs, and an actual Slim Greer transformed mundane, prosaic experiences into performances of high art. The results of their informal instruction are readily discerned in Brown's poems.

The Slim Greer poems represent the principal concern in nearly all of Brown's work: reclaiming the humanity of African Americans to insure the completion of selfhood. To accomplish this purpose, Brown adapts features of the American tall tale, including Vernacular language, "deadpan" manner of narration, development from plausibility to frantic impossibility, and the snapper climax or exposure at the end. As in the best tall tales, these poems achieve their success by laughing the reader/listener into an awareness of practices that prevent the self from attaining wholeness, such as religious hypocrisy and the absurdity of racial segregation. In so doing, Brown makes his Slim Greer do in poetry what Langston Hughes's Simple does in short fiction.