“A Pattern in Sand”: Tracing Arcs of Influence between Eunice Tietjens’s Jake and Jean Toomer’s Cane

ABSTRACT

Newly discovered correspondence from 1921 between the apprentice writer Jean Toomer and the well-established Chicago Renaissance poet Eunice Tietjens reveals an exciting and never-before-seen avenue of influence on the development of Toomer’s Cane (1923). In the spring of 1921 Toomer read Tietjens’s novel Jake (1921) and sent the poet a glowing but never-published review of her text titled “Jake.” After a brief epistolary exchange between the two authors in late summer of 1921, Toomer left for his life-changing trip to Sparta, Georgia. But the young writer never forgot the power of Tietjens’s postwar novel as he began to compose his Harlem Renaissance masterpiece in November of 1921 while still living in the South. Through an examination of Jake alongside Toomer’s review and an original untitled sonnet that he sent to the Chicago poet, this article demonstrates that the form and content of Tietjens’s poetic novel deeply impacted the initial direction of Toomer’s text. With its focus on pain and violence, Jake influenced Toomer’s hybrid style and overall structure as well as his choice of subject matter. By providing the connection between Jake and Cane, this article contributes to literary scholars’ understanding of Cane’s multiple origins.