• An expatriate who never returned (self exhile in Paris, France during last years of his life)
• Was once part of the Communist Party
• Goal is to show the brutality and violence of racism
• Ms. Cowan’s Fav
• Po’ Boy Blues
• Mother to Son
• I Too Sing America
• Dreams Deferred
• Theme for English B
•
• Dialect
• Sound effects
• Wild shifts in voice
“I, Too, Sing America” is a response to this
• Loves Sonnets esp Shakespearean Sonnets
(Red Summer of 1919)
(Later quoted by Winston Churchill about the Nazis im WWII)
• America
• Studied Anthropology
• Focuses a lot on Folklore
Folktales, Folk Music,
Tales, Music, Beliefs
• Editor of Opportunity
• Tableau (Poem)
• Incident (Poem)
• Likes English Romantic Poets (esp. John Keats)
• Called for black poets to write traditional verse and to avoid
• Married (and divorced months later) W.E.B. DuBois’s daughter
• Fletcher Henderson
• Bessie Smith
• Duke Ellington
• Billie Holiday
• Ella Fitzgerald