John Crowe Ransom stood at the crossroads of American poetry and criticism in the twentieth century, a figure whose influence extended far beyond the elegant verses he composed. Born on April 30, 1888, in Pulaski, Tennessee, he would become the architect of a critical revolution, the mentor to some of America's finest poets, and the principal voice of a distinctly Southern literary aesthetic that sought to reconcile…
“If I get a new insight, a new way in, if I grow into something different, I will start again, but I don’t want to be the same old John Crowe Ransom.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Imagist Poets, Modernist Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Irony
On May 30, 1903, a child was born who would become one of the most celebrated voices of the Harlem Renaissance, yet whose origins remain shrouded in the kind of mystery that seems almost poetic in retrospect. Countee Cullen's exact birthplace has been disputed—some records suggest New York City, others Louisville, Kentucky, and still others Baltimore, Maryland. This uncertainty about his origins would prove oddly fit…
“Never having been one to think all subjects and forms proper for poetic consideration, I regard these jazz poems as interlopers in the company of the truly beautiful poems in other sections of the book.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Tenderness
