“Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks- write what you must.”-Carl Phillips. This is the motto Carl Phillips lived by to become who he is today. Carl Phillips was one of the best African-American poets to ever live and his influential heritage, different types of education, and the occupations of his life all contribute to him being an amazing poet. Carl Phillips’ heritage and childhood influenced him a lot. He was born on July, 23 1959, north of Seattle, in the small town of Everett, Washington. In his poetry, Phillips uses the name Carl Phillips, but his actual name is Carl Phillips Jr. His father, Carl Phillips Sr., was an African American medic in the United States Air Force and Helen Elizabeth Phillips, his mother, was a painter …show more content…
He described it as his most vivid memory at Harvard University and he also studied Greek and Latin at the time. Carl Phillips’ worst trials were dealing with racism and sexuality. He was always discriminated against for being black and for being homosexual.This directly correlates to his political and activist involvement. Carl Phillips never openly shared his political views, but he was an activist for the LGBT community and an activist against racism. He moved from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where he lived during high school, to St. Louis, Missouri. His main reason for moving was because he teaches in Louis. Carl Phillips also states that he wanted a change from rural to urban and from the liberal east coast to the conservative midwest. As it was stated earlier, Carl Phillips first job was cleaning dorm bathrooms. He then worked at the Iowa writers workshop and chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He also taught Latin in high schools because of his love for languages. After eight years of teaching Latin, Carl Phillips started writing poetry. This was right around the same time he was starting to accept his homosexuality. He was an extremely successful poet that won over 10 awards including: induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Fortunately, Carl Phillips still writes poetry, but not as much as he used to. He is more focused on his job at the Washington University in St. Louis. There he is a professor of African American studies, English, and creative writing. He is also a judge for the Yale Series of Younger
When you think your average baseball player, what do you think of? The player usually has all of his arms, legs, and no physical disabilities. Anyone who plays baseball would think it is hard to imagine that a person born without a right arm is able to play the game and let only be able to be a pitcher. Jim Abbott faces all the odds and has ten-year career in the major leagues. Abbott had to faces many obstacles throughout life and his playing career. Jim Abbott grew up being picked on since he didn’t have a right arm. When Abbott was younger he would use a steel hook as right hand and other children were afraid of him. Also, they called him names like Mr. Hook.
Slavery was a horrible institution that was widely practiced in the Southern and Mid-Atlantic states in the United States during the antebellum period. It was formally abolished in the United States in 1865, but is still practiced on a very small scale today. It also happens in other countries. Slavery is having somebody who does everything for you without pay. Usually if a slave refused to do their work, they were abused. Three important people who supported slavery in the United States were James Henry Hammond, John C. Calhoun, and William Harper.
Fredrick Douglass lived a life of sorrow, pain and cruelty. Yet, as a fine gentleman that he was, he managed to find the joy in his childhood. He remembered the marvelous memories he encountered when he was taught how to read and write and that’s what kept him going. Writing changed his life for the better. It encouraged him to keep on doing what he loved even if he was constantly being put down and discouraged. The love for writing saved Douglass from slavery. Even if Douglass passed on, his writing remains and continues to be legendary.
A University of San Diego professor whose daughter’s disappearance become a recurring factor in his life, has finally gotten the peace he deserves. After approximately five years of three unsolved murders, assailant David Allen Lucas, was convicted and sentenced to death. Lucas was a carpet cleaner from Spring Valley, CA and was 23 when he first committed a murder, but this was not his first time being convicted. In 1973, at the age of 18 Lucas was incarcerated after being convicted of raping a 21-year-old maid who had worked for a family friend.
Carl Carlton is one of those quite successful and popular musicians all over the world. This American songwriter and singer was born 21 May 1953 in the US nothwest city of Detroit, the largest and more populous in the state of Michigan. As surprising as it may seem, Carlton began his professional carrer when he was a teenager thanks to a kid’s baseball game. As reported by several sources, Carl liked to play baseball with others neighborhood’s teenagers, and during games he used to sing as well. Carlton voice at that time was already so powerful, clear and tuned, that one of the neighbours living in an appartment near the place the adolescents were playing thought they had a radio playing loud music down there and yelled down them to turn off
Poetry served as another form of self expression for African-Americans, similar to that of Jazz and the Blues. This form of media served the same (or a very much similar) as music did, Some notable poets include the likes of Langston Hughes, who is considered by some to be one of the most important and influential Harlem Renaissance poets of the time, James Weldon Johnson, and Claude McKay. Most notable of the three is, poet and intellectual, Langston Hughes who, in addition to writing books and plays, served to spread the emotions of African-Americans as well as himself and to make clear the ambitions and dreams of the American people within the United States. As stated by Concordia Online Education, ”Hughes wrote novels, plays and short stories, but it is his emotional, heartfelt poems that expressed the common experiences of the culture of black people for which he is most remembered”.
Langston Hughes was passionate about expressing the lives of black people through his poetry. His poetry expressed the pain and suffering that black people had to endure. Many critics have claimed that Langston Hughes created an unattractive view of black life through his poetry, but he was only demonstrating the realities of their lives. He didn’t make up stories about how great life was; he wrote realistically about the fear, segregation, and lost innocence of the black race. Langston Hughes left an immense impression on the literature of his time period. He influenced many other writers and helped to establish a voice for black people. Langston Hughes was an extraordinary poet that should be known as the man who brought light to the injustice that the people of color of America had to survive.
“I've written some poetry I don't understand myself,” Carl Sandburg once said. Carl Sandburg was one of the most unique and passionate poets and writers in his lifetime. He received many awards and recognitions and he had many admirers. Carl Sandburg can be noted as a great man based on his early life experiences, his adult life experiences, his life as a poet, his many great achievements, and his impact on the world.
“Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.” –Edgar Allan Poe. Poetry is one of the world’s greatest wonders. It is a way to tell a story, raise awareness of a social or political issue, an expression of emotions, an outlet, and last but not least it is an art. Famous poet Langston Hughes uses his poetry as a musical art form to raise awareness of social injustices towards African-Americans during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Although many poets share similarities with one another, Hughes creatively crafted his poetry in a way that was only unique to him during the 1920’s. He implemented different techniques and styles in his poetry that not only helped him excel during the 1920’s, but has also kept him relative in modern times. Famous poems of his such as a “Dream Deferred,” and “I, Too, Sing America” are still being studied and discussed today. Due to the cultural and historical events occurring during the 1920’s Langston Hughes was able to implement unique writing characteristics such as such as irregular use of form, cultural and historical referenced themes and musical influences such as Jazz and the blues that is demonstrative of his writing style. Langston Hughes use of distinct characteristics such as irregular use of form, cultural and historical referenced themes and musical influences such as Jazz and the blues helped highlight the plights of African-Americans during the Harlem Renaissance Era.
When reading the literature of Langston Hughes, I cant help but feeling energetically charged and inspired. Equality, freedom, empowerment, renaissance, justice and perseverance, are just a taste of the subject matter Hughes offers. He amplifies his voice and beliefs through his works which are firmly rooted in race pride and race feeling. Hughes committed himself both to writing and to writing mainly about African Americans. His early love for the “wonderful world of books” was sparked by loneliness and parental neglect. He would soon lose himself in the works of Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence, Carl Sandburg and other literary greats which would lead to enhancing his ever so growing style and grace of oeuvre. Such talent, character, and willpower could only come from one’s life experiences. Hughes had allot to owe to influences such as his grandmother and great uncle John Mercer Langston - a famous African American abolitionist. These influential individuals helped mold Hughes, and their affect shines brightly through his literary works of art.
Wallace Stevens is considerd one of the most important poets of this century. His style was unique and diffrent. The way he used words to optain the reality of something that can't be touched, is an amazing and brilant talent. Stevens was a very successful lawer and business man as well as a great peot. We usually think of peots and artists as "starving artists." Stevens was a very accommplished lawer and was still able to write beautifull peotry. His peoms useually contadicted his lifestile, but that might be were he got his insperation. He had a wife, family, and career, he had a very queit lifestyle. But, his peotry is very loud and abstract.
...can writers, a guardian of traditional African-American culture, a civil rights activist through his writing and and as the face of the Harlem Renaissance. His importance to not only the Harlem Renaissance but the African-American identity is immeasurable and for that we should be forever grateful and pay him the highest regard.
Gordon Parks was a photographer and humanitarian with a passion for documenting poverty, and civil rights in the second half of the 20th century. His signature style continues to be celebrated as one of the most iconic of the time.
The power to do an outlandish action to change the future is truly remarkable. Eighteenth century poet Phillis Wheatley a former slave in the United States became the first African American to publish a book of poems. Fully aware that her life would change drastically she had no idea that her life would change for the better as her slave ship kissed the shores of Massachusetts. She had no idea that she would embark on the journey which would become the pathway for other African Americans to take upon themselves to understand literature. Phillis is amongst the few in history that created a tremendous change in how the eighteenth century population of white masters viewed the slaves they owned.
Langston Hughes was deemed the "Poet Laureate of the Negro Race," a fitting title which the man who fueled the Harlem Renaissance deserved. But what if looking at Hughes within the narrow confines of the perspective that he was a "black poet" does not fully give him credit or fully explain his works? What if one actually stereotypes Hughes and his works by these over-general definitions that cause readers to look at his poetry expecting to see "blackness?" Any person's unique experiences in life and the sense of personal identity this forms most definitely affects the way he or she views the world. This molded view of the world can, in turn, be communicated by the person through artistic expression. Taking this logic into account, to more fully comprehend the message and force of Hughes' poetry one must look, not just to his work, but also at the experiences in his life that constructed his ideas about society and his own identity. In looking at Hughes' biography, one studies his struggle to form a self-identity that reflected both his African American and mainstream white cultural influence; consequently, this mixing of black and white identity that occurred throughout Hughes' life is reflected in his poem "The Weary Blues."