Born in 1876 amid the lingering shadows of slavery in Tennessee, Charles Frederick White entered a world still scarred by the chains his parents had worn. The oldest of ten children born to formerly enslaved parents, he carried the weight of their hard-won freedom from the very beginning. His family soon migrated northward to Springfield, Illinois, seeking better opportunities in a state that had once sheltered Abrah…
“If you had lived upon scant means, compelled to support yourself, often being physically hungry in an endeavor to satisfy your mental hunger for knowledge”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Devotional Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Anger, Sorrow, Despair
Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in a modest farmhouse in West Hills, on Long Island, New York, into a working-class family that embodied the restless energy and struggles of early America. He was the second of nine children born to Walter Whitman, a carpenter and farmer of English descent who wrestled with financial instability, and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman, whose Dutch heritage brought a touch of earthy prac…
“If he breathes into anything that was before thought small, it dilates with the grandeur and life of the universe.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Transcendentalists
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing
