In the twentieth-century, when Contemporary Literature was emerging from 1960 to present time, it was seen as a product of the post-Second World War situation. Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and raised in Lincoln Heights, an all-black suburb in Cincinnati. Giovanni is one of the most commonly read American poets; her frankness in her writing has brought her a lot of recognition and prominence. Giovanni became the voice of many African Americans, her contribution to the literary period reflects the struggle for equality, and the power one has to make a difference in oneself and in other’s life. Her writings reflect contemporary events and experiences in her own life, as well as in the larger African American community. At times, she can be rather controversial but becomes a respected speaker and reader and has upheld a prominent place as a strong voice of the Black society. Contemporary literature is a modern form of writing, which was born out of the devastations of World War II, characterized by unique features such as linguistic and stylistic characteristics, and thematic features. It is the product of the post-Second World War situation. It was a moment in time when “cynicism, frustration and disillusionment crept into the lives and minds of mankind after witnessing the damages caused by the War” ("Contemporary”). People were pessimistic, bitter and could not appreciate the glorious history, which marked the beginning of the romantic and metaphysical works. Some of the linguistic and stylistic characteristics consisted of free verse, juxtaposition, or combination of ideas and themes and a broad use of classical allusions. Contemporary poet, Nikki Giovanni, is famous for writing in free vers... ... middle of paper ... ...ry of The World...The Definitive Guide to Love Poems. Web. 8 Apr. 2011. "Contemporary Literature , Books on Literature." World Map, Map of the World. 2000. Web. 8 Apr. 2011. Fowler, Virginia C. "Nikki Giovanni: Bio: Timeline." Yolanda Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni: Poet, Virginia Tech University Professor. 2003. Web. 8 Apr. 2011. Jones, Dianne Rosena. "Nikki Giovanni—Revolutionary Poet - African American Lit." BellaOnline -- The Voice of Women. 2011. Web. 8 Apr. 2011. Mary. "Nikki-Rosa (293) Analysis." AP Lit. 30 Mar. 2008. Web. 8 Apr. 2011. Neal, Mark Anthony. "God Parent of Hip Hop Nikki Giovanni." Chickenbones. 8 June 2010. Web. 8 Apr. 2011. "Nikki Giovanni Criticism (Vol. 117)." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. 2011. Web. 8 Apr. 2011. Parks, Tilia. "A Moment With Nikki Giovanni - Campus Life." Spokesman. 9 Nov. 2001. Web. 8 Apr. 2011.
Prentice Hall Anthology of African American Literature. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. 163-67. Print.
Many writers begin writing and showing literary talent when they are young. Paul Laurence Dunbar, born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, was already editor of a newspaper and had had two of his poems published in the local newspaper before he’d graduated from high school. His classmate, Orville Wright, printed The Tattler which Dunbar edited and published for the local African American community. After graduating from high school, he was forced to get a job as an elevator operator which allowed him spare time for writing. He finally gained recognition outside of Dayton when, in 1892, he was invited to address the Western Association of Writers and met James Newton Matthews who praised his work in a letter to an Illinois newspaper. In 1892, he decided to publish his first book of poems entitled Oak and Ivy and four years later his second book of poems Majors and Minors was published. People began to see him as a symbol for his race, and he was thought of artistically as “a happy-go-lucky, singing, shuffling, banjo-picking being… in a log cabin amid fields of cotton” (Dunbar, AAW 2). Dunbar’s poems, written alternately in literary and dialect English, are about love, death, music, laughter, human frailty, and though Dunbar tried to mute themes of social protest, social commentary on racial themes is present in his poetry.
The "New Negro," the Black writers in 1920/30, tried to get out of the dominant white assimilation and practice their own tradition and identity in autonomous and active attitude. In virtue of their activities, the Harlem Renaissance became the time of sprouting the blackness. It offered the life of the black as the criterion to judge how well the democracy practices in America and to weigh the measure of the dream of America. Their vitality and artistic spirit, and dreams were so impressive that the Harlem of the 1920s has never been eluded out from the memory of American (Helbling 2).
... World Literature. Ed. Martin Puncher. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 441. Print.
3. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 51: Afro-American Writers from the Harlem Renaissance to 1940. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Trudier Harris, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Gale Group, 1987. pp. 133-145.
Paul Laurence Dunbar is one of the most influential African American poets to gain a nationwide reputation. Dunbar the son of two former slaves; was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. His work is truly one of a kind, known for its rich, colorful language, encompassed by the use of dialect, a conversational tune, and a brilliant rhetorical structure. The style of Dunbar’s poetry includes two distinct voices; the standard English of the classical poet and the evocative dialect of the turn of the century black community in America. His works include a large body of dialect poems, standard English poems, essays, novels, and short stories. The hardships encountered by members of is race along with the efforts of African Americans to achieve equality in America were often the focus of his writings. http://www.dunbarsite.org/
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. of the year.
Gwendolyn Brooks is the female poet who has been most responsive to changes in the black community, particularly in the community’s vision of itself. The first African American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize; she was considered one of America’s most distinguished poets well before the age of fifty. Known for her technical artistry, she has succeeded in forms as disparate as Italian terza rima and the blues. She has been praised for her wisdom and insight into the African Experience in America. Her works reflect both the paradises and the hells of the black people of the world. Her writing is objective, but her characters speak for themselves. Although the idiom is local, the message is universal. Brooks uses ordinary speech, only words that will strengthen, and richness of sound to create effective poetry.
Gates Jr, Henry Louis, and Nellie McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd edition. New York, NY: Norton & Company, 2004
In 1942, Margaret Walker won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her poem For My People. This accomplishment heralded the beginning of Margaret Walker’s literary career which spanned from the brink of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s to the cusp of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s (Gates and McKay 1619). Through her fiction and poetry, Walker became a prominent voice in the African-American community. Her writing, especially her signature novel, Jubilee, exposes her readers to the plight of her race by accounting the struggles of African Americans from the pre-Civil War period to the present and ultimately keeps this awareness relevant to contemporary American society.
Wells, Kim. "My Antonia: A Survey of Critical Attitudes." August 23, 1999. Online Internet. November 4, 1998.
The image of African-American’s changed from rural, uneducated “peasants” to urban, sophisticated, cosmopolites. Literature and poetry are abounded. Jazz music and the clubs where it was performed at became social “hotspots”. Harlem is the epitome of the “New Negro”. However, things weren’t as sunny as they appeared.
The author was born in Washington D.C. on May 1, 1901. Later, he received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College where he studied traditional literature and explored music like Jazz and the Blues; then had gotten his masters at Harvard. The author is a professor of African American English at Harvard University. The author’s writing
Johnson, Anne. Janette. “Toni Morrison.” Black Contemporary Authors. A Selection of Contemporary Authors.
Over the course of the century chronicling the helm of slavery, the emancipation, and the push for civil, equal, and human rights, black literary scholars have pressed to have their voice heard in the midst a country that would dare classify a black as a second class citizen. Often, literary modes of communication were employed to accomplish just that. Black scholars used the often little education they received to produce a body of works that would seek to beckon the cause of freedom and help blacks tarry through the cruelties, inadequacies, and inconveniences of their oppressed condition. To capture the black experience in America was one of the sole aims of black literature. However, we as scholars of these bodies of works today are often unsure as to whether or not we can indeed coin the phrase “Black Literature” or, in this case, “Black poetry”. Is there such a thing? If so, how do we define the term, and what body of writing can we use to determine the validity of the definition. Such is the aim of this essay because we can indeed call a poem “Black”. We can define “Black poetry” as a body of writing written by an African-American in the United States that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of an experience or set of experiences inextricably linked to black people, characterizes a furious call or pursuit of freedom, and attempts to capture the black condition in a language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. An examination of several works of poetry by various Black scholars should suffice to prove that the definition does hold and that “Black Poetry” is a term that we can use.