William Rose Benét was born on 2 February 1886 at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York, and died on 4 May 1950 in New York City. During his lifetime he became known as a poet, editor, critic, anthologist, essayist, novelist in verse, and tireless popularizer of literature. He belonged to a family unusually rich in literary talent: his younger brother was the poet and novelist Stephen Vincent Benét, author of John Brow…
“The earliest ones were written by a boy who was in love, and the latest by a man who has suddenly stepped into the dark.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder
William Stanley Beaumont Braithwaite entered the world on December 6, 1878, in Boston, Massachusetts, a city pulsing with literary ambition and the lingering echoes of abolitionist fervor. He departed it on June 8, 1962, at his home on Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem, New York, after a brief illness, at the age of eighty-three. In the eighty-three years between those dates, Braithwaite forged a remarkable life as poet, cr…
“The poets are doing satisfying and vitally excellent work, and it only remains for the American public to do its duty by showing a substantial appreciation.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Love Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Wonder, Peace