Black poets

Try this in Midjourney: /imagine Audre Lorde reading a poem on stage. The image is hyper-realistic. --v 6.0 #aiart #blackhistory #poetry #midjourney

Here is a selection of poems by Lucille Clifton, a small sampling of the prolific output of a chronicler of the Black American experience.

(BLACKSTEW) — A reflection on the closing decade would not be complete without highlighting the important contributions of Black poets for the world of poetry and the culture overall. The featured…

Paul Laurence Dunbar became the first Black writer to earn international acclaim through his poetry, essays and musical lyrics.

A sampling of iconic poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, with links to analyses following each one.

Happy Birthday Mari Evans. Born in Ohio in 1923, the poet and educator is closely aligned with the Black Arts Movement, exploring African American culture through literature. Evans remains one of the twentieth century’s most influential poets. #HappyBirthdayMariEvans #MariEvans #icon #poet #writer #poem #poetry #education #dreamer #reader #writer #Levenger

Starring thirty-seven poets, with contributions from acclaimed authors, including Kwame Alexander, Ibi Zoboi, and Nikki Giovanni, this breathtaking Black YA poetry anthology edited by National Book Award finalist Amber McBride, Taylor Byas, and Erica Martin celebrates Black poetry, folklore, and culture. Come, claim your wings. Lift your life above the earth, return to the land of your father’s birth. What exactly is it to be Black in America? Well, for some, it’s learning how to morph the…

We’re kicking off Black History Month with one of our treasures. In 1931 poet Langston Hughes published this booklet ‘The Negro Mother and Other Dramatic Recitations.’ The poems addressed citizenshi…

All to often, our list of Black poets and artists gets limited to the writers who have been anthologized over an over again. I see Langston Hughes “Harlem” and Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” and Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” over and over again. These poets, phenomenal poets, are often reduced to that one single poem, or, even more damningly, the end of the list of Black poets that students are exposed to in high school. LET’S CHANGE THAT.

This Spring, Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color (Nightboat Books, May 2018) was released in collaboration with Lambda Literary. The anthology is the first of its kind in the English sp…

SFist reader Emily Alexander sent us this brilliant poem she found on Bart car. In related news, Wilton Antonio McGlory is now SFist's unofficial poet laureate.

For poet Tiana Clark, trees will never be just trees. They will also and always be a row of gallows from which Black bodies once swung. This is an image that she cannot escape, but one that she has learned to lean into as she delves into personal and public histories, explicating memories and muses around race, elegy, family, and faith by making and breaking forms as well as probing mythology, literary history, her own ancestry, and, yes, even Rihanna. I Can't Talk About the Trees without…

Just living this life Black in America. All images on this page are assumed to be public domain unless otherwise noted. If there is an issue with copyright, please contact me so the issue can be rectified.

Here are our favourite modern novels by Black women writers from the UK, US, and Canada. Every single one is a masterpiece.

From literary giants such as Audre Lorde to emerging Sudanese-American poet Dalia Elhassan and timeless classics by Maya Angelou — Vogue shares seven poems you need to read that show the strength, resilience, and poise of the black experience

Valuable written words by Black womxn writers