George Marion McClellan was born on 29 September 1860 near Belfast, Tennessee, and died on 17 May 1934. His lifetime stretched from the final year of slavery in the United States through the Civil War, Reconstruction, the consolidation of Jim Crow segregation, the Great Migration, and the Harlem Renaissance. To read his poetry only as the work of a minor late-Victorian versifier would be to miss the extraordinary his…
“The epic of his race awaits a writer. The drama of an unwritten history covering about four centuries will welcome the facile pen of some gifted son or daughter.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Death & Mortality, Harlem Renaissance, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Charles Bertram Johnson entered the world on October 5, 1880, in the small town of Callao, Missouri, a place where the rolling prairies of Macon County stretched under vast Midwestern skies, whispering promises and hardships in equal measure. He departed this life on March 20, 1958, at the age of seventy-seven, in Jefferson City, Missouri, where he was laid to rest in Longview Cemetery. His seventy-seven years spanne…
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Longing
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
George Marion McClellan only
Charles Bertram Johnson only
From the biographies
paul laurence dunbar
harlem renaissance
great migration
african
racial
George Marion McClellan:
belfast, tennessee, fisk university, hartford theological seminary, paul laurence dunbar, james weldon johnson, poems, the path of dreams, harlem renaissance.
Charles Bertram Johnson:
callao, missouri, jefferson city, longview cemetery, paul laurence dunbar, songs of my people, the mantle of dunbar, lincoln school, moberly, missouri.
