While in school he wrote poetry and short stories for the high school literary magazine. ... The next day reporters and photographers flooded the hotel that Hughes worked in to hear more of his poetry. ... He continued to write poetry throughout the remainder of his life, and by the 1960's he was know and acknowledged as "Dean of Negro Writers". ... He incorporated rhythm, the mood of jazz and blues music into his poetry and other writings. ...

• Word Count: 774
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Hughes wrote in many genres, but he is best known for his poetry in which he disregarded classical forms in favor of musical rhythms and the oral and improvisatory traditions of black culture. http://myhero.com/hero.asp?... Hughes' poetry announced to the world that the streets of black America were culturally rich, vibrant and fiercely poetic. ... From the mid-1920s through the mid-1930s, some 16 black writers published more than 50 volumes of poetry and fiction, The Harlem Renaissance appealed to a mixed audience. ... Magazines as The Crisis, a monthly journal of the NAACP, and Opportu...

• Word Count: 1518
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

His poetry, spanning five decades from 1926 to 1967, reflected the changing black experience in America, from the Harlem Renaissance to the confused sixties. ... The tone and subject matter of Hughes' poetry can be linked to certain points in history, and his life. ... Although scholars and critics throughout his career dismissed his poetry as too "simple and unlearned,"" his primary audience, the black masses, and even Hughes himself viewed his work as "folk poetry- which was beneath criticism (Rampersad 4-5). ...

• Word Count: 1313
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

This movement included poetry and writing, which forever changed the African-American lifestyle into a unique and more educated culture. ... They viewed poetry and writing as a form of expression, as a form of freedom and escape during the troubled life that many lived. ...

• Word Count: 591
• Approx Pages: 2

Gwendolyn Brooks is a prominent African American poet of the twentieth century, and is known for her indelible impact in African American literature. Brooks was born in 1917 in Topeka, Kansas. Soon after her birth her family moved to Chicago, the city where she was associated with the rest of life...

• Word Count: 431
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

The diverse literary expression of the Harlem Renaissance ranged from the fiction of James Weldon Johnson and the poetry of Claude Mckay which described the reality of black life in America and the struggle for racial identity. ... Also the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar and the fiction of Charles W. ...

• Word Count: 1369
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

First, in 1922 Claude McKay was the first black writer that published a volume of poetry "Harlem Shadows" by a mainstream national publisher. Second, in 1923 was by Jean Toomer who wrote a novel named "Cane" that had both poetry and prose that was about the life of black Americans in the rural South and urban North. ... Hughes wrote literary types of writing like poetry, plays, short stories, and novels. ...

• Word Count: 2368
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Claude McKay's volume of poetry, Harlem Shadow (1922), Jean Toomer's experimental novel combination of poetry and prose, Cane (1923), and Jessie Fauset's novel about a middleclass black woman, There Is Confusion (1924) were among the first books written by Blacks to be published. ...

• Word Count: 2619
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The Harlem Renaissance was a very important African-American cultural and social movement during the early twentieth century. The Harlem Renaissance marked the first time that African-American artists and authors were taken seriously by American society. During the Harlem Renaissance, African-American music, theater, art, and politics flourished. The African-American artists and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance were some of the most famous of the twentieth century. The Harlem Renaissance was the single most significant event in modern African-American history (McKissack 11). ...

• Word Count: 2498
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

One of the most prominent representatives of these revolutionary authors was Amiri Baraka, who had been an acclaimed writer of poetry, fiction and music criticism, before he was sent to prison in 1967 after the Newark riots. ...

• Word Count: 1192
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA contends that Hip-Hop is not just a genre of music but also a complex system of ideas values and concepts that reflect newly emerging and ever-changing creative correlative expressive mechanisms including but not limited to song, poetry, film and fashion (quote). ...

• Word Count: 1971
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Oppression and marginalization of youth minorities over thirty years ago had led to the creation of the music and culture that is known as Hip-hop. Experiences of discrimination and hardship translated into rhythm and poetry became the widely renowned music genre that the world has come to know. Hip...

• Word Count: 2033
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Many kinds of music have come out on the American stage within the last 100 or so and have had a great impact on it. American music is extremely varied and diverse. Instead of being dominated by the cultures and traditions of any one particular country (i.e. England or Germany), it is the proverbial...

• Word Count: 4261
• Approx Pages: 17
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Walker, Marshall, and Hurston; Women writing other Women Alice Walker, through her essay "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens", and Paule Marshall, in "Poets In The Kitchen", both write about the African-American women of the past and how these women have had an impact on their writing. Walker and Marshall write about an identity they have found with these women because of their exposure to the African culture. These women were searching for independence and freedom. Walker expresses independence as found in the creative spirit, and Marshall finds it through the spoken word. Walker...

• Word Count: 3271
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

Due to Cane's eclectic mixing of poetry and prose it was considered a New Negro text and is still considered a 'masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance'.3 Toomer did not want to be associated with the Harlem Renaissance or to be solely identified as a Negro writer, as he believed that 'there [was] a new race in America. ...

• Word Count: 3347
• Approx Pages: 13

Section I: Book Length Works Alain Locke's career in publishing spanned over a quarter of a century; from the 1920's to the 1950's. He established the Associates in Negro Folk Education, an organization created to collect and share and accurate history of African Americans. Locke published and rep...

• Word Count: 2542
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

Culture, the thing that defines a group of people, is truly interesting. Culture is a phenomenon that is directly linked with the development of its respective group of people. Furthermore a people's culture is expressed through its works, whether it be in politics, literature, athletics, or art. Art is a unique form of expression because humans can directly play on three of the human senses, sight, taste, and hearing. Among the three senses, hearing is the primary sense. ...

• Word Count: 4223
• Approx Pages: 17
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Section I: Book Length Works Alain Locke's career in publishing spanned over a quarter of a century; from the 1920's to the 1950's. He established the Associates in Negro Folk Education, an organization created to collect and share and accurate history of African Americans. Locke published and rep...

• Word Count: 2542
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School