African American Writers: Poets and Poetry


MTSU Library Page | African American Writers| Poetry Page| Reference

MTSU Library Guide 4/98/
http://www.mtsu.edu/~vvesper/afampoet.htm
Middle Tennessee State University
Comments to vvesper@ulibnet.mtsu.edu

Web Sites for African American Poetry

  • Poets of the Harlem Renaissance from the Academy of American Poets. Includes biographical information and full text of selected poems for eight poets.

  • Quarterly Black Review Poetry

  • Klub Kuumba---is the University of Georgia's first and only African American culturally based poetry society.

  • Voices from the Gaps Women writers of color.

  • American Verse Project

  • Rhapsody in Black

    Resources for Teachers

  • Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Understanding and Appreciating Poetry: Afro-Americans and Their Poetry, by Frances Ellen Pierce--a curriculum guide for grades 6 and up.

  • Harlem Renaissance: Pivotal Period in the Development of Afro-American Culture by Caroline Jackson

    Poets

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.52 H877c
    Color, sex & poetry : three women writers of the Harlem Renaissance / Gloria T. Hull. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1987. Blacks in the diaspora Bibliography: p. 217-234. Johnson, Georgia Douglas Camp, 1886-1966. Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Moore, 1875-1935. Grimke, Angelina Weld, 1880-1958.

    Barrax, Gerald W. MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 B27an
    An audience of one : poems / by Gerald W. Barrax. Athens : University of Georgia Press, [1980]

    Brief bio and poem from Poetry Daily

    Brooks, Gwendolyn
    MAIN COLLECTION 808.1 C17
    A Capsule course in Black poetry writing / by Gwendol Brooks ... [et al.]. 1st ed. Detroit : Broadside Press, [1975]

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 B79i
    Brooks, Gwendolyn, 1917- In the Mecca; poems. [1st ed.] New York, Harper & Row [1968]

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 B79be
    Brooks, Gwendolyn, 1917- Beckonings : [poems] / Gwendolyn Brooks. 1st ed. Detroit : Broadside Press, c1975.

    Gwendolyn Brooks from Voices from the Gaps. Biographical information/ links to resources both print and online.

    Brown, Sterling
    MAIN COLLECTION 811 B81c
    The collected poems of Sterling A. Brown / selected by Michael S. Harper. 1st ed. New York : Harper & Row, c1980.

    MAIN COLLECTION 810.9 B81l
    The last ride of Wild Bill, and eleven narrative poems / Sterling A. Brown. 1st ed. Detroit : Broadside Press, c1975.

    A Literary tribute to Sterling A. Brown from Howard University>

    Burroughs, Margaret T. G. MAIN COLLECTION 811.5408 R15f
    Randall, Dudley, 1914- comp. For Malcolm; poems on the life and the death of Malcolm X. Edited by Dudley Randall and Margaret G. Burroughs. Pref. and eulogy by Ossie Davis. 2d ed. Detroit, Broadside Press [1969]

    Brief bio

    Clifton, Lucille MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 C61te
    The terrible stories : poems / by Lucille Clifton. 1st ed. Brockport, NY : BOA Editions, c1996.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 C61t
    Clifton, Lucille, 1936- Two-headed woman / by Lucille Clifton. Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 1980. Biographical info from the Academy of American Poets.

    Cornish, Sam
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 C812s Sam's world : poems / by Sam Cornish. 1st ed. Washington : Decatur House Press, c1978.

    Cortez, Jayne
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 C819c
    Coagulations : new and selected poems / Jayne Cortez. New York : Thunder's Mouth Press ; New York : Distributed by Persea Books, c1984.

    Biographical info

    Cullen, Countee MAIN COLLECTION 811 C89 1969
    Cullen, Countee, 1903-1946. Color. New York, Arno Press, 1969 [c1925]

    "Heritage"
    "If you Should go"
    Info about Countee Cullen

    Dove, Rita
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 D751s
    Selected poems / Rita Dove. 1st ed. New York : Pantheon Books, c1993.

    Rita Dove from Voices from the Gaps, Women Writers of Color.

    Dumas, Henry MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 D89a
    Ark of bones and other stories. Edited by Eugene B. Redmond. [1st ed.] New York, Random House [1974]

    Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 1872-1906. MAIN COLLECTION 811 D91 1993
    The collected poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar / edited and with an introduction by Joanne M. Braxton. Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia, 1993.

    		Paul Dunbar Homepage
    Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American to gain national eminence as a poet. Born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio, he was the son of ex-slaves and classmate to two other Dayton men who gained national prominence -- Orville and Wilbur Wright.

    Evans, Mari MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 Ev1ia
    Evans, Mari, 1923- I am a Black woman. New York, Morrow, 1970.

    Fleming, Sarah Lee Brown MAIN COLLECTION 811.52 F62c
    Fleming, Sarah Lee Brown. Clouds and sunshine. Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press, 1971.

    Forbes, Calvin MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 F74b
    Forbes, Calvin, 1945- Blue Monday. [1st ed.] Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press [1974]

    Giovanni, Nikki. LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811 Gio
    The genie in the jar / by Nikki Giovanni ; illustrated by Chris Raschka. New York : H. Holt, c1996. In this hymn to the power of art and of love, the words create images of black songs and black loom, inspiring readers to trust their hearts.

    Harper, Michael MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 H23he
    Healing song for the inner ear : poems / by Michael S. Harper. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1985.

    Hayden, Robert
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.52 H32n
    Hayden, Robert Earl. The night-blooming cereus. 2nd ed. London, Paul Breman Ltd, 1972.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.52 H32w
    Words in the mourning time ; poems, by Robert Hayden. New York, October House [1970]

    Horton, George Moses, 1798?-ca. 1880. MAIN COLLECTION 811.4 H78b
    The Black bard of North Carolina : George Moses Horton and his poetry / edited by Joan R. Sherman. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c1997.

    George Moses Horton Society
    George Moses Horton on the Internet
    Biography, full text of poems, facsimiles of poems, etc.

    Hughes, Langston, 1902-1967.
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.5 H87c The collected poems of Langston Hughes / Arnold Rampersad, editor, David Roessel, associate editor. 1st ed. New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1994.

    Johnson, James Weldon
    MAIN COLLECTION 811 J63f 1975
    Johnson, James Weldon, 1871-1938. Fifty years & other poems / by James Weldon Johnson ; with an introd. by Brander Matthews. New York : AMS Press, [1975]

    Lane, Pinkie
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 L244g 1991 Girl at the window : poems / by Pinkie Gordon Lane. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 1991.

    Lorde, Audre MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 L88m
    The marvelous arithmetics of distance : poems 1987-1992 / Audre Lorde. 1st ed. New York : W.W. Norton, c1993.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 L88c
    Coal / Audre Lorde. 1st ed. New York : Norton, c1976.

    Madhubuti, Haki MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 L51d
    Madhubuti, Haki R., 1942- Directionscore: selected and new poems [by] Don L. Lee. [1st ed.] Detroit, Broadside Press [1971]

    Rodgers, Carolyn M MAIN COLLECTION 813.54 R61s
    Rodgers, Carolyn M Songs of a black bird. [1st ed.] Chicago, Third World Press [c1969]

    Sanchez, Sonia MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 Sa55u
    Under a soprano sky / Sonia Sanchez. Trenton, N.J. : Africa World Press, 1987.

    David Sutherland

    Wheatley, Phillis
    MAIN COLLECTION 811.1 W56c
    Wheatley, Phillis, 1753-1784. The collected works of Phillis Wheatley / edited by John Shields. New York : Oxford University Press, 1988.

    Williams, Sherley MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 W675p
    The peacock poems / by Shirley [i.e. Sherley] Williams. 1st ed. Middletown, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press, [1975]

    Wright, Jay MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 W933d
    The double invention of Komo / by Jay Wright. Austin : University of Texas Press, c1980.

    Wright has been called one of the country's most eloquent and powerful voices. He is the author of six books of poems and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award and a MacArthur Fellowship. Wright summed up his own work when he responded to a young man who had attended one of his readings. "(He said) that I seemed to be trying to weave together a lot of different things," Wright recalled. "My answer is that they are already woven; I'm just trying to uncover the weave." --from publicity for the Symposium at Washington University

    Academy Fellowship

    Books about African-American Poetry

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.5409 M48h
    Heroism in the new Black poetry : introductions & interviews / D.H. Melhem. Lexington, KY : University Press of Kentucky, c1990.

    MAIN COLLECTION 810.99287 W64b
    Wild women in the whirlwind : Afra-American culture and the contemporary literary renaissance / edited by Joanne M. Braxton and Andree Nicola McLaughlin. New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, c1990.

    MAIN COLLECTION 818.08 B73b
    Black women writing autobiography : a tradition within a tradition / Joanne M. Braxton. Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 1989.

    MAIN COLLECTION 810.9 B561w
    Black women writers : arguments and interviews / edited by Mari Evans. London : Pluto Press, 1985, c1983.

    MAIN COLLECTION 810.8 C36
    Chant of saints : a gathering of Afro-American literature, art, and scholarship / edited by Michael S. Harper and Robert B. Stepto. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1979.

    Collections/Anthologies

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811.5 Ado
    Adoff, Arnold. comp. Black out loud; an anthology of modern poems by Black Americans. Drawings by Alvin Hollingsworth. [New York] Macmillan [1970] 86 p. illus. 25 cm. Includes bibliographical references. A collection of poetry by twentieth-century black Americans expressing what it is like to be black in the United States. Includes capsule biographies of the poets.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.308 Af8s
    African-American poetry of the nineteenth century : an anthology / edited by Joan R. Sherman. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1992.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.5 B56
    Black American poets between worlds, 1940-1960 / edited by R. Baxter Miller. Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press, c1986.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811.08 Cel
    Celebrations : a new anthology of Black American poetry / compiled and edited by Arnold Adoff ; introduced by Quincy Troupe. Chicago : Follett Pub. Co., c1977.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.008 C68s
    Collected Black women's poetry / edited by Joan Rita Sherman. New York : Oxford University Press, 1988-

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811 Mye
    Brown angels : an album of pictures and verse / Walter Dean Myers. 1st ed. [New York] : HarperCollinsPublishers, c1993. A collection of poems, accompanied by photographs, about African American children living around the turn of the century.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811 Tho
    Brown honey in broomwheat tea : poems / by Joyce Carol Thomas ; illustrated by Floyd Cooper.1st ed. [New York] : HarperCollins, c1993. A collection of poems exploring the theme of African-American identity.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.508 M95e
    Murphy, Beatrice M., 1908- ed. Ebony rhythm; an anthology of contemporary Negro verse, edited by Beatrice M. Murphy. Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press [1968, c1948]

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.52 T58g
    A gallery of Harlem portraits / Melvin B. Tolson ; edited, with an afterword, by Robert M. Farnsworth. Columbia : University of Missouri Press, 1979.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.508 G16m
    The garden thrives : twentieth-century African-American poetry / edited and with an introduction by Clarence Major. New York : HarperPerennial, c1996.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.5408 L56d
    Letters to America : contemporary American poetry on race / edited by Jim Daniels. Detroit : Wayne State University Press, c1995.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.08 P27r
    Patterson, Lindsay, comp. A rock against the wind: black love poems; an anthology, edited with an introd. by Lindsay Patterson. New York, Dodd, Mead [1973]

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.54 T55b
    To Gwen with love; an anthology dedicated to Gwendolyn Brooks. Edited by Patricia L. Brown, Don L. Lee, and Francis Ward. Chicago, Johnson Pub. Co., 1971.

    MAIN COLLECTION 305.896 T28t
    Testimony : young African-Americans on self-discovery and Black identity / edited by Natasha Tarpley. Boston : Beacon Press, c1995. A spell of finding: beginning the journey -- The preserving: family and friends -- In love and trouble -- The eyes of seers: educating and re-educating ourselves -- You ask me what hip hop is: art and aesthetics -- Coming into myself: establishing Black identity -- Move: revolution and solution.

    MAIN COLLECTION 811.5408 W64n
    Natural process; an anthology of new Black poetry. Edited by Ted Wilentz and Tom Weatherly. [1st ed.] New York, Hill and Wang [1971, c1970]

    Poetry for Children

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811 Gre
    Honey, I love : and other love poems / by Eloise Greenfield ; pictures by Diane and Leo Dillon. [New York] : HarperCollins, c1978. Titles include "I look pretty," "Fun," "Riding on the train," "Harriet Tubman," and "By myself." Afro-Americans--Juvenile poetry.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811.008 In
    In search of color everywhere : a collection of African-American poetry / edited by E. Ethelbert Miller ; illustrated by Terrance Cummings. New York : Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1994. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. a collection of contemporary and classic poems by African-American writers, celebrating freedom, love, family, and other universal aspects of life.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811 Gio
    Knoxville, Tennessee / by Nikki Giovanni ; illustrated by Larry Johnson. New York : Scholastic, c1994. Describes the joys of summer spent with family in Knoxville: eating vegetables right from the garden, going to church picnics, and walking in the mountains.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811 Fuf
    My daddy is a cool dude, and other poems / by Karama Fufuka ; pictures by Mahiri Fufuka. New York : Dial Press, [1975] Poems expressing a black child's view of holidays, family life.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 811.08 Ado
    Adoff, Arnold, comp. My Black me: a beginning book of Black poetry. [1st ed.] New York, Dutton [1974] A compilation of poems reflecting thoughts on being black by such authors as Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, Nikki Giovanni, and Imamu Amiri Baraka.

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) E Cli
    Clifton, Lucille, 1936- The boy who didn't believe in spring. Pictures by Brinton Turkle. [1st ed.] New York, Dutton [1973]

    LIBRARY SERV. (CURRIC) 301.45 Cli
    The Black ABC's. Illustrated by Don Miller. [1st ed.] New York, Dutton [1970] 45 p. illus. 24 cm. A poem for each letter of the alphabet introduces brief discussions of the contributions of black people to American history and culture.