black poets
The late Amiri Baraka was a poet, activist, playwright and educator whose poetry and writings gained him fame and criticism. The Newark, N.J. native was born October 7, 1934. Born Everett LeRoi Jones, Baraka graduated from Howard University and entered the Air Force in 1954, serving three years before being honorably discharged. He moved to […]
Nikki Giovanni is without a doubt one of the most celebrated poets of the last 50 years, earning countless awards and accolades for her work. The Knoxville, Tenn. native was born on June 7, 1943. Giovanni was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Junior, but Nikki stuck after her sister reportedly began calling her the nickname at […]
Ntozake Shange exploded onto the creative scene with her debut poem “for colored girls who considered suicide/when the rain is enuf,” and became a Black feminist icon in the process. Today is the award-winning playwright and poet’s 70th birthday. Shange was born Paulette L. Williams in Trenton, New Jersey in 1948, moving to St. Louis […]
“I love a good cry” – Poet Nikki Giovanni Twelve years ago, I sat in a classroom at Virginia Tech and watched poet and educator Nikki Giovanni inspire a group of black male students, all college football players who had dreams of ascending to the NFL. Giovanni was teaching the young men humility, patience, how […]
Poet Tracy K. Smith has achieved a great deal already but her recent appointment as the U.S. Poet Laureate tops the list of notable achievements. The Princeton professor hopes to use the platform and poetry to generate new conversations about diversity. Smith, 45, was born in Massachusetts but raised primarily in Fairfield, California. Her father […]
Sir Derek Walcott was one of the greatest poets of his time, capturing the essence of the Caribbean in his works. The award-winning poet and playwright passed at the age of 87 in his native St. Lucia last Friday, leaving behind a towering literary legacy. Walcott was born January 30, 1930 in Cap Estate, […]
Naomi Long Madgett, a former educator and poet laureate for the city of Detroit has given voice to several African-American poets by way of her publishing company and has left a mark in the Motor City in other ways as well. Born Naomi Cornelia Long on July 5, 1923, Madgett discovered a love for reading […]
Poet, author, and educator Rita Dove is the nation’s first Black United States Poet Laureate, although some historians would give that distinction to Robert Hayden. However, Dove is the first to hold what was previously known as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress position before it was changed to its current […]
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was a pioneering poet who captured the joys and pains of the African-American experience in her work. Ms. Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950, the first Black person to do so. Born June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kan., Brooks and her family relocated to Chicago early on. Her mother […]
Robert Hayden was the nation’s first Black Poet Laureate, a honor that most believe was first bestowed on Rita Dove in 1993. But Hayden’s achievement occurred 17 years earlier in 1976, and he served in the post for two years. Hayden was born August 4, 1912 as Asa Bundy Sheffey in Detroit, Mich. When his […]
Poet, educator and activist Frank X Walker is Kentucky’s first Black poet laureate, and at 53 the youngest to serve in the post. Governor Steve Beshear bestowed Mr. Walker with the honor in February 2013. With a specialty in writing “persona” poems, which are works written in the voice of another, Walker has won several […]
Amiri Baraka, the militant man of letters and tireless agitator whose blues-based, fist-shaking poems, plays and criticism made him a provocative and groundbreaking force in American culture, has died. He was 79. His booking agent, Celeste Bateman, told The Associated Press that Baraka, who had been hospitalized since last month, died Thursday at Newark Beth […]
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