Sara Teasdale was born on 8 August 1884 in St. Louis, Missouri, and died there on 29 January 1933. During her lifetime she became one of the best-known American lyric poets of the early twentieth century, admired for verse that appeared effortless: brief, melodious, emotionally direct, and exquisitely shaped. Her poems spoke of love, solitude, desire, beauty, loss, the changing seasons, and death. Their clarity made…
“He now walks round and round it, so to speak, looking at it from all sides, trying to see which aspect of it is the most vivid.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Confessional Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
In the smoky jazz clubs of 1920s Harlem, where the saxophone's wail mingled with the clatter of typewriter keys, James Mercer Langston Hughes emerged as one of America's most vital poetic voices. Born on February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri, and passing away on May 22, 1967, in New York City, Hughes spent his sixty-five years crafting a literary legacy that would fundamentally reshape American poetry and give voice…
“Harlem was like a great magnet for the Negro intellectual, pulling him from everywhere. Or perhaps the magnet was New York, but once in New York, he had to live in Harlem.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
