Heavenly birthday wishes Henrietta Cordelia Ray! Born August 30, 1852, Henrietta Cordelia Ray was an African American poet and teacher. Her parents were notable abolitionists, and had worked for the Underground Railroad in Manhattan. Her ode “Lincoln” was read at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, DC, in April 1876. She died in 1916.
Happy birthday Rita Dove! Born August 28, Rita Frances Dove is an African American poet and essayist. She served as poet laureate consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995, becoming the first African American appointed to the position after it was established in 1986. In 1987, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her third collection of poetry, Thomas and Beulah. Other notable works:
Happy birthday Nikky Finney! Born August 26, Nikky Finney is an award winning African American poet. She was the Guy Davenport Endowed Professor of English at the University of Kentucky for twenty years. In 2013, she accepted a position at the University of South Carolina as the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Southern Letters and Literature. Her collection of poems, Head Off & Split received the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011. Other notable works are:
Happy birthday Clint Smith! Born August 25, Clint Smith is an award winning, New York Times bestselling African American author, poet, and scholar. He is the author of the number one New York Times Best Seller, How the Word Is Passed, which won the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and was named one of the top ten books of 2021 by the New York Times.
Happy birthday Kwame Alexander! Born August 21, Kwame Alexander is an award winning African American poet and author. He is a poet and author of several books for all ages. Read one of his books and I’m sure you will enjoy it! Here are just a few of his notable works:
Happy birthday Fred Moten! Born August 18, Fred Moten is an African American Fred Moten is an American cultural theorist, poet, and scholar whose work explores critical theory, black studies, and performance studies. He was an 2020 MacArthur Fellow. Some of his notable works:
Heavenly belated birthday wishes Robert Hayden! Born August 4, 1913 in Detroit, Robert Hayden was an African American poet, essayist, and educator. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1976 to 1978, a role today known as U.S. Poet Laureate. He was the first African-American writer to hold the office. He died in 1980. He authored a few works. The collected poems was published posthumously.
Belated happy birthday Sapphire! Born August 4, Ramona Lofton better known by her pen name Sapphire, is an African American author and performance poet. She is well known for her novel, Push. She has authored additional novels and collections of poetry.
Belated happy birthday Ross Gay! Born August 1, Ross Gay is an African American poet, essayist, and professor of English at Indiana University who won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his 2014 book Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, which was also a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry. Ross Gay is interested in joy. He wants to understand joy. He is curious about joy. He studies joy. Here are some of his notable works:
Read some of Ross Gay’s poems here:
Heavenly happy birthday James Baldwin! Born August 2, 1924, James Arthur Baldwin was an African American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel Go Tell It on the Mountain has been ranked by Time magazine as one of the top 100 English-language novels. He died in 1987. His authored other notable works:
Read some of his poetry here:
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 