African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology

Intertext

Below is a collection of poems by African American authors that highlight a dialogue with other writers, including writers from the Anglo-American Canon. Writers like Countee Cullen and William Stanley Braithwaite were particularly aware of their status as poets in a tradition, and the large number of such poems by Cullen listed below reflects his thoughtful, sometimes anguished, self-reflexivity. (See our Countee Cullen author page) 

For other poets, the attitude towards great Romantic poets and writers like Shakespeare was a little more irreverent. 

Contents of this tag:

  1. Anne Spencer, "Dunbar" (1920)
  2. William Stanley Braithwaite, "The Negro in American Literature" (1925)
  3. Countee Cullen, "For John Keats, Apostle of Beauty" (1925)
  4. Countee Cullen, "For Paul Laurence Dunbar" (1925)
  5. Angelina Weld Grimke, "To the Dunbar High School (A Sonnet)" (1917)
  6. Countee Cullen, "For Hazel Hall, American Poet" (1925)
  7. Frances E.W. Harper, "Eliza Harris" (1853/1854)
  8. Countee Cullen, "For Joseph Conrad" (1925)
  9. Countee Cullen, "To John Keats, Poet. At Spring Time (For Carl Van Vechten)" (1925)
  10. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "Shakespeare" (1915)
  11. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "Ephesus" (1907)
  12. Eloise A. Bibb, "Eliza In Uncle Tom's Cabin)" (1895)
  13. Maurice N. Corbett, "White Friends" (1914)
  14. Hubert Harrison, "The Black Man's Burden" (1915)
  15. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "Christopher Marlowe" (1904)
  16. Countee Cullen, "The Wise (for Alain Locke)" (1925)
  17. Countee Cullen, "The Dance of Love (After reading René Maran's 'Batouala')" (1923)
  18. Joseph S. Cotter, Sr., "Shakespeare's Sonnet" (1923)
  19. Paul Laurence Dunbar, "John Greenleaf Whittier" (1896)
  20. Townsend Allen, "The New Battle Hymn" (1903)
  21. Alberry A Whitman, Poems in "An Anthology of Verse by American Negroes" (1924)
  22. Marie Brown Frazier, "To Langston Hughes" (1928)
  23. H. Cordelia Ray, "Sonnets" (1893)
  24. James D. Corrothers, Poems included in "The Book of American Negro Poetry" (1922)
  25. Gwendolyn B. Bennett, "Lines Written at the Grave of Alexandre Dumas" (1926)
  26. James Edward McCall, "Countee Cullen" (1928)
  27. Poems by Anne Spencer in "The Book of American Negro Poetry" (1922)
  28. T. Thomas Fortune, "Edgar Allen Poe" (1905)
  29. Katherine D. Tillman, "Phyllis Wheately" (1902)
  30. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "Chaucer" (1922)
  31. Countee Cullen, "Cor Cordium" (1927)
  32. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "The Slaver" (1905)
  33. Countee Cullen, "An Epitaph (For Amy Lowell)" (1927)
  34. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "The Bells of Notre Dame" (1901)
  35. Fenton Johnson, "Rome Is Dying" (1913)
  36. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "My Hero (To Robert Gould Shaw)" (1915)
  37. Benjamin Griffith Brawley, "The Peon's Child" (1905)
  38. Countee Cullen, "On the Mediterranean Sea" (1927)
  39. Countee Cullen, "To Endymion" (1927)
  40. Josephine Heard, "Tennyson's Poems" (1890)
  41. Anne Spencer, "Life-Long, Poor Browning..." (1927)
  42. Sterling A. Brown, "When De Saints Go Ma'ching Home" (1927)
  43. A. Ashburn, "Uncle Joe on Shakespeare" (1907)
  44. James D. Corrothers, "The Dream and the Song" (1922)
  45. Thomas Millard Henry, "Alas" (1924)
  46. William Stanley Braithwaite, "October XXIX, 1795 (Keats' Birthday)" (1927)
  47. Dwight Fairfield, "A Modern Othello" (1902)
  48. Fenton Johnson, "Swinburne" (1913)
  49. Poems by Charles Bertram Johnson in "The Book of American Negro Poetry" (1922)
  50. Thomas Millard Henry, "Countee Cullen" (1924)
  51. Townsend Allen, "The New Battle Hymn" (1903)
  52. Poems by Benjamin Brawley in "The Book of American Negro Poetry" (1922)
  53. Frank Horne, "Harlem" (1928)