African American Poetry: A Digital Anthology Main Menu Full Text Collection: Books Published by African American Poets, 1870-1929 Long list of 100+ full texts books of poetry available on this "Anthology" Author Pages: Bios and Full Text Collections List of African American poets on African American Periodical Poetry (1900-1928) A collection of African Amerian Periodical Poetry, mostly focused on 1900-1928 Areas of Interest: Topics and Themes African American Poetry: Anthologies of the 1920s Poetry by African American Women (1890-1930): A Reader and Guide Open access textbook introducing readers to Poetry by Black Women Exploring Datasets related to African American poetry About This Site: Mission Statement, Contributors, and Recent Updates An account of the history and evolution of this site by the site editor. Further Reading / Works Cited

Other Poets: full text collections

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This page links to collections by African American poets who are less well-known today, or to collections by well-known figures not primarily known for their poetry. 

Some figures had complex heritage; Ada Isaacs Menken, for instance, was of mixed Jewish and African American heritage. Olivia Ward Bush-Banks was of mixed African American and Montaukett (Montauk) ancestry. However, for all of the materials included here we have taken efforts to validate the heritage of the authors included. 

While the whole books will perhaps mainly be of interest to readers with a deep interest in this period in African American poetry, many of the poets stick to certain themes, including occasional poetry, dedications to luminaries such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Paul Laurence Dunbar, and commemorations of the end of the Civil War and Emancipation. 

Note: As of May 2022, several of these files need additional proofreading and formatting. Many derive from scanned images that have only been imperfectly rendered into plain text via OCR software. 

This page has paths:

  1. Welcome: African American Poetry--a Digital Anthology Amardeep Singh

Contents of this path:

  1. Ada Isaacs Menken, "Infelicia" (Full Text) (1873)
  2. Josephine Heard, "Morning Glories" (Full Text) (1890)
  3. Frances E.W. Harper, "Poems" (Full Text) (1895)
  4. Eloise A. Bibb, "Poems" (Full text) (1895)
  5. Daniel Webster Davis, "Idle Moments: Containing Emancipation and Other Poems "(Full Text) (1895)
  6. Mary Weston Fordham, "Magnolia Leaves," (Full Text) (1897) (Preface by Booker T. Washington)
  7. Olivia Ward Bush Banks, "Original Poems" (Full Text) (1899)
  8. Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Lyrics of Love and Laughter" (Full Text) (1902)
  9. Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Lyrics of the Hearthside" (Full text) (1904)
  10. William Stanley Braithwaite, "Lyrics of Love and Life" (Full Text) (1904)
  11. Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow" (1905)
  12. Lucian B. Watkins, "Voices of Solitude" (Full Text) (1903/1907)
  13. William Stanley Braithwaite, "House of Falling Leaves" (Full Text) (1908)
  14. Clara Ann Thompson, "Songs from the Wayside" (Full Text) (1908)
  15. Charles Frederick White, "Plea of the Negro Soldier: and a Hundred Other Poems" (Full Text) (1908)
  16. Maggie Pogue Johnson, "Virginia Dreams" (Full text) (1910)
  17. H. Cordelia Ray, "Poems" (Full text) (1910)
  18. Fenton Johnson, "A Little Dreaming" (Full Text) (1913)
  19. Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, "Driftwood" (Full Text) (1914)
  20. Fenton Johnson, "Visions of the Dusk" (Full text) (1915)
  21. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Heart of a Woman" (Full Text) (1918)
  22. Waverley Turner Carmichael, "From the Heart of a Folk" (Full Text) (1918)
  23. Sarah Lee Brown Fleming, "Clouds and Sunshine" (Full Text) (1920)
  24. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Wings of Oppression" (Full Text) (1921)
  25. Carrie Williams Clifford, "The Widening Light" (Full Text) (1922)
  26. "Negro Poets and their Poems." Edited by Robert T. Kerlin (1923)
  27. "An Anthology of Verse By American Negroes" (Edited by N.I. White) (1924)