Toomer's on-again, off-again literary drive bemused his circle. They questioned why he seldom published and how he could afford to reject James Weldon Johnson's offer to publish his poems in Book of American Negro Poetry, which Toomer disdained because of its insistence on blacks only. Although Toomer persevered with a wealth of writing, including poems, novels, nonfiction, and short fiction, his career stalled. He produced only two works, the self-published book of sayings, Essentials (1931), influenced by Pennsylvania Quakers, and Portage Potential (1932). He went into a depression after his wife, novelist Marjorie Latimer, died giving birth to a daughter in August 1932. The publication of a rhapsodic long narrative poem, The Blue Meridian (1936), ended his role in the Harlem Renaissance.
At loose ends, Toomer was an artistic dropout turned Quaker. He withdrew into religious mysticism; his work passed out of print. He died on March 30, 1967, at a rest home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, leaving unpublished a sizable sheaf of stories, drama, novels, and an autobiography. In 1974, Darwin Turner issued The Wayward and the Seeking: a Collection of Writings by Jean Toomer. Editors Robert B. Jones and the poet's second wife produced a subsequent verse anthology, The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer (1988). The boldness of Toomer's racial neutrality influenced subsequent students of the black experience, notably novelist Alice Walker.
