In the pantheon of American literary history, few figures embody the contradictions and complexities of the twentieth century quite like Claude McKay. Born Festus Claudius McKay on September 15, 1890, in the verdant hills of Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, this poet, novelist, and essayist would become one of the most powerful voices of the Harlem Renaissance, despite spending much of his life in restless exile from the m…
“I felt assurance that If We Must Die was just what I intended it to be, a universal poem.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Sorrow
On March 18, 1875, in the historic Hempstead House in New London, Connecticut, Anna Hempstead Branch was born into a world of deep New England roots and literary tradition. The younger of two children, she arrived into a family where words mattered, where literature breathed through the rooms of an ancestral home that had sheltered Hempsteads since 1640. Her father, John Locke Branch, practiced law with quiet distinc…
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Edwardian Poets, Hymn Writers, Nature Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Fear, Despair, Wonder
