African American Poets Part I
Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Georgia Douglas Johnson
African American Poets Part III
Countee Cullen and Caroling Dusk
African American Poets Part II
For my next post highlighting African American poets, we’ll look at another anthology from 1923, titled Negro Poets and Their Poems, compiled and edited by Robert T. Kerlin, a civil rights activist and educator who was fired from three jobs in a row for the audacity of activism. In addition to highlighting some excellent poets, this volume includes commentary and discussion of the poets themselves, rather than just collecting the work. In this aspect, the volume also highlights some of the problems inherent in examining the work of African American artists in the public domain. As mentioned in the last post, the language and attitude of white anthologists–even an activist like Kerlin–reflects the strongly racist opinions of the time. At times, discerning Kerlin’s appreciation and admiration for the poets and their works is almost a translation project, while in other places he is effusively positive and his respect for the artists shines through. As a historical object, the book is fascinating in its way; taken at face value from a modern perspective, it is blatantly offensive. So if you check out the anthologies linked here, bear this in mind.
Yone Noguchi: The Man Who Brought Haiku to the West
Born in Japan in 1875, Yone Noguchi left his home country for San Francisco in 1893. For a time, he worked as a journalist and domestic servant, but eventually turned his hand to poetry. He had a strong interest in English from an early age, and often adapted Japanese poetry forms, such as haiku, to English. With poetry published in The Lark, a San Francisco-based magazine, and his novels The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (1902) and its followup The American Letters of a Japanese Parlor-Maid, he became the first Japanese-born author to publish in the English language.
E.F. Benson
Edward Frederic Benson was born to a family of writers–-both his parents and three of his surviving siblings were all authors. And, according to some accounts, most of his immediate family was queer. Benson himself was gay, and included gay and lesbian characters in some of his works. His mother, after his father’s death, moved her long-time female companion into their house, and his sister Margaret, an Egyptologist as well as an author, also enjoyed a long-term same-sex relationship.