Women Poets in Harlem

Whether writing in the thick of the Harlem Renaissance or, writing after it, these women give voice to a unique, hopeful time. The reality of the Harlem Renaissance - at least as well I I can tell from my reading  - is that the artists could never really be artists due the constraints and expectations of so-called "race leaders" (Lock, Johnson, DuBoise) and could never really free themselves of the frenzied life in the crucible of the Renaissance.

While it is sad that the Renaissance was shortened by the faddists and the Depression (though really - could Harlem sustain its frenetic pace of life?), it provided some of the most delicious poets and authors that America could claim as its own, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston, to name a few...and even some who migrated her, like Countee Cullen. 

These women poets give expression to the the precariousness of the performative act of black life in the Harlem of the "New Negro" and write from a vantage that was frequently minimized and exalted by critics (I blame the "male gaze"). Enjoy!