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…
“For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Tenderness
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa was born in Lisbon on 13 June 1888 and died there on 30 November 1935, leaving behind a body of work so various, unfinished, and deliberately dispersed among invented authors that it altered the possibilities of modern literature. During his lifetime he published relatively little in book form and knew neither broad public fame nor financial ease. After his death, however, the vast ar…
“Solitude is the absence of company, and the lack of solitude is the absence of oneself.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Modernist Poets, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Longing
