African American Poets | Black Poets

Pulitzer Prize-winning African American author and an important figure in the American Civil Rights.. American Poet

An American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and newspaper columnist.. American poet social activist novelist playwright and columnist

The first African American female writer to be published in the United States.. first African American poet

An American author and feminist.. American author poet and activist

Pulitzer Prize-winning African-American woman poet.. African-American poet; 30th US Poet Laureate

An American poet from New York.. educator and Poets Laureate of Maryland

A leading American author, poet, and early civil rights activist.. author poet folklorist and civil rights leader

Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and author. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1993, the second African American to be appointed, and received a second special appointment in 1999. Dove is the second African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.. American poet and author; US Poet Laureate

Etheridge Knight was an African-American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison. The book recalls in verse his eight-year-long sentence after his arrest for robbery in 1960

Tupac Amaru Shakur, known by his stage names 2Pac (or simply Pac) and Makaveli, was an American rapper. Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. In the United States alone he has sold 37.5 million records. Rolling Stone Magazine named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time.. African American rapper actor producer poet and black activist

Sherley Anne Williams (August 25, 1944—July 6, 1999) was born in Bakersfield, California and was an African-American poet. Many of her works tell stories about her life in the African-American community. When she was little her family picked cotton in order to get money. At the age of eight her father died of tuberculosis and when she was sixteen her mother died. In 1966 she earned her bachelors degree in English at what is now California State University at Fresno and she received her master's degree at Brown University in 1972. The following year (1973) she became a professor of English Literature at the University of California at San Diego. Her works include collections of poetry such as The Peacock Poems (1975), the novel Dessa Rose (1986), and two picture books. She also published the groundbreaking work Give Birth to Brightness: A Thematic Study of Neo-Black Literature in 1972.. African American poet novelist professor and social critic

Sterling Allen Brown (May 1, 1901 – January 13, 1989) was an African-American professor, author of works on folklore, poet and literary critic. He was interested chiefly in black culture of the Southern United States.. African American professor author of works on folklore poet and literary critic

Wanda Coleman (birth name, Wanda Evans) (born November 13, 1946) is an American poet. She is known as "the L.A. Blueswoman," and "the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles.". African-American poet

Toi Derricotte (pronounced DARE-ah-cot ) (b. April 12, 1941 in Hamtramck, Michigan) is an American poet and a professor of writing at University of Pittsburgh.. African American poet

Mari Evans (born July 16, 1923 in Toledo, Ohio) is an African-American poet, living in Indianapolis.. African American poet

Helen Johnson, who was better known as Helene Johnson (1906–1995) was an African American poet during the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a cousin of author Dorothy West.. African American poet during the Harlem Renaissance

Keorapetse William Kgositsile (b. September 19, 1938 in Johannesburg) is a South African poet and political activist, and was an influential member of the African National Congress in the 1960s and 1970s. He lived in exile in the United States from 1962 until 1975, the peak of his literary career. Kgositsile made extensive study of African-American literature and culture, becoming particularly interested in jazz. During the 1970s he was a central figure among African-American poets, encouraging interest in Africa as well as the practice of poetry as a performance art; Kgositsile was known for his readings in New York City jazz clubs. He was one of the first to bridge the gap between African poetry and Black poetry in the United States, and thus one of the first and most significant poets in the Pan-African movement.. South African poet and political activist

Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was a seminal African American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 "Ode to Ethiopia", one poem in the collection Lyrics of Lowly Life.. African American poet novelist and playwright

George Moses Horton (1797–1884) was an African-American poet.. African American poet

Dudley Randall (January 14, 1914 - August 5, 2000) was an African American poet and poetry publisher from Detroit, Michigan. He founded a publishing company called Broadside Press in 1965, which published many leading African American writers. Randall's most famous poem is "The Ballad of Birmingham", written during the 1960s, about the 1963 bombing of the church Martin Luther King, Jr. belonged to in Birmingham, Alabama. Randall's poetry is characterized by simplicity and realism.. African American poet and publisher

Ishmael Scott Reed (born 22 February 1938) is an American poet, essayist, and novelist. A prominent African-American literary figure, Reed is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression.. American poet essayist playwright and novelist

Sonia Sanchez is an African American poet most often associated with the Black Arts Movement. She has authored over a dozen books of poetry, as well as plays and children's books. She was a 1993 Pew Fellowships in the Arts.. African American poet; associated with the Black Arts Movement

Gilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011) was an American soul and jazz poet, musician, and author known primarily for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and '80s, and for his collaborative works with musician Brian Jackson. His collaborative efforts with Jackson featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues, and soul, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles by Scott-Heron. His own term for himself was "bluesologist", which he defined as "a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues". The music of these albums, most notably Pieces of a Man and Winter in America in the early 1970s, influenced and helped engender later African-American music genres such as hip hop and neo soul.. American soul musician and jazz poet

Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934 at Abeokuta, near Ibadan in western Nigeria. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where, later, in 1973, he took his doctorate. During the six years spent in England, he was a dramaturgist at the Royal Court Theatre in London 1958-1959. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller bursary and returned to Nigeria to study African drama. At the same time, he taught drama and literature at various universities in Ibadan, Lagos, and Ife, where, since 1975, he has been professor of comparative literature. In 1960, he founded the theatre group, "The 1960 Masks" and in 1964, the "Orisun Theatre Company", in which he has produced his own plays and taken part as actor.

Lucy Terry (c.1730-1821) is the author of the oldest known work of literature by an African American.. African American poet; author of the oldest known work of literature by an African American

Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander (July 7, 1915 – November 30, 1998) was an African-American poet and writer. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, she wrote as Margaret Walker. One of her best-known poems is For My People.. African American writer

Saul Stacey Williams (born February 29, 1972) is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.. African American singer musician poet writer and actor

Kevin Young (born 8 November 1970 Lincoln, Nebraska) is an American poet and teacher of poetry. Young graduated from Harvard College in 1992, was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University (1992–1994), and received his MFA from Brown University. While in Boston and Providence, he was part of the African-American poetry group, The Dark Room Collective. He is heavily influenced by the poets Langston Hughes, John Berryman, and Emily Dickinson and the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat.. American poet and teacher