african american poets

Chronicles the life of Dave, a slave potter during the mid-1800s in Edgefield, South Carolina, who defied the system by learning to read and write as well as signing his pots or inscribing poems on them.

Explores the roles of Phillis Wheatley and Thomas Jefferson in shaping African-American literary tradition, discussing how Phillis gained acceptance and freedom by being the first person of African descent to publish a book of poems in the English language in 1773. Discusses the effects of Jefferson's harsh criticism of the poet and her race.

An autobiography in which African-American poet Langston Hughes recounts his years in Harlem and Paris during the 1920s.

A biography of Phillis Wheatley, a slave in colonial America who became famous as a poet.

An illustrated biography of the Harlem poet whose works gave voice to the joy and pain of the black experience in America.

A biography of the turn-of-the-century African American poet and novelist whose works were among the first to give an honest presentation of black life.

Biography of a African American poet whose early dialectic works were superseded by works exposing the problems of his race.

Relates the story of a young girl bought as a slave by a Boston family where she later learned to write and became a poet.