In the tumultuous landscape of early twentieth-century literature, few figures embodied the era's contradictions and transformations as completely as Richard Aldington. Born Edward Godfree Aldington on July 8, 1892, in Portsmouth, Hampshire, he would emerge as one of the founding voices of literary modernism, only to spend his later years railing against the very movement he helped create. His life trajectory—from pr…
“Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Imagist Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Sorrow, Despair
Leslie Pinckney Hill entered the world on May 14, 1880, in Lynchburg, Virginia, the son of Samuel H. Hill, a man who had known the brutal chains of enslavement, and Sarah E. Hill. In the shadow of the post-Reconstruction South, where the promises of freedom still clashed with the realities of Jim Crow oppression, young Leslie’s early years were steeped in the rhythms of a family striving for dignity and self-determin…
“The white man has no fine quality, either of heart or mind, which is not shared by his black brother.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Sorrow, Tenderness