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 have always, in the summing up, fallen back on my own ear and taste as the arbiter.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Spirituality
In the sunlit streets of late-19th-century Chicago, where the Great Lakes breezes carried the promise of industry and the distant echoes of Southern migrations, Fenton Johnson entered the world on May 7, 1888. He would leave it on September 17, 1958, in the same city that had cradled his ambitions and tested his spirit, his seventy years a testament to the restless genius of an artist who refused to be confined by th…
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Modernist Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Peace
