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…
“The spirituals and the blues were not created out of sweet deceit. Spirituals and blues contain sublimated bitterness and humility, pathos and bewilderment.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Spirituality
William Stanley Beaumont Braithwaite entered the world on December 6, 1878, in Boston, Massachusetts, a city pulsing with literary ambition and the lingering echoes of abolitionist fervor. He departed it on June 8, 1962, at his home on Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem, New York, after a brief illness, at the age of eighty-three. In the eighty-three years between those dates, Braithwaite forged a remarkable life as poet, cr…
“Indeed, the Negro novel is one of the great potentialities of American literature.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Love Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Wonder, Peace
