Poets of the Harlem renaissance: The Poems that Spoke on Their Own
Male Poets
Throughout this era of enchantment, there were several African American male poets that were distinctive from others. They were very well orated poets, who found a way to use poems as a form of communication in such marvelous, eye capturing ways with the usage of English literature and their own language. These Negro Male figures left an impresssion in history with their heartfelt poems, and are rembered as the driven force of success for the Harlem Renaissance in the topic of poetry.
Langston Hughes
African American poet & writer Langston Hughes, c.1940, Britannica Image Quest
"...he is amoung the most eloquent American poets to have sung about the wounds caused by injustice... he is, above all, the author of poems of often touching lyric beauty, beyond issues such as race and justice."
~ Quoted from the book, The Collection of Langston Hughes, 2007
"My Idol was Langston Hughes" The Poet, the Renaissance, and their Enduring Influence from a talk delivered by Marget Walker Alexander, edited and introduced by William R. Ferris
"Langston Hughes, one of the best known writers of the Harlem Renaissance, was thrust into the mainstream of American literature, successfully earning a living in writing. Hughes's writing was powerful and groundbreaking; however, his success is due in part to the cultural movement that became the Harlem Renaissance."
~ "Global Contributions of African Americans Writers: Using Poetry to Facilitate Connections Between Historical Periods and Students' Personal Experiences by Kristen Krull
Countee Cullen
"However we do not need to start this review and one only look to Countee Cullen, the leading figure, if not the "poet laureate" of the desgregation of African American authors to begin to comprehend how this intersection expressed itself."
~ "The Classics and Countee Culllen", Edmund Paul Cueva, University of Houston-Downtown
African American Poet, Contee Cullen, Britannica Image Quest
"Cullen was celebrated as the golden exemplar of a campaign by black political and cultural leaders who sought to engineer a new image of black people in America. "
~ poet Major Jackson,
The Too-Breif Career of Countee Cullen, by Micheal Anderson
Claude McKay
"...He became both the first black Jamaican poet acclaimed for writing skillfully and seriously in Jamacain dialect and the first "African American" poet commended for investing elevated literary English and the time-honored sonnet form with the focused anger of the modern New Negro."
~ William J Maxwell, Complete Poems: Claude Mckay, 2008
"... for he is young and he has arrived at the degree of power and skill revealed in these poems pratically without encouragment or critical help. To me they show a fine clear flame of life burning and not to be forgotten."
~ The Liberator, Edition of July 1919 Vol.2, "Claude Mckay", page 7
Jamaican born, American Writer, Claude Mckay, c. 1920, Britannica Image Quest
Advertisment for Claude Mckay's Poetry collection "Harlem Shadows", The Liberator, May 1922, vol.5