By Nava Atlas | On November 27, 2024 | Updated May 24, 2025 | Comments (0)
Mae Virginia Cowdery (also known as Mae V. Cowdery; January 10, 1909 – November 2, 1948) is a forgotten poetic voice of the Harlem Renaissance era of the 1920s. A selection of her earlier poems is presented here.
Mae was the only child of professional parents who were part of Philadelphia’s Black elite. They instilled in her their values of racial pride, equality, and respect for the arts.
Above right, Mae in 1928 at age nineteen, sporting an androgynous look.
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By Taylor Jasmine | On October 20, 2024 | Updated May 9, 2025 | Comments (0)
Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880 – 1966) was a prominent poet associated with the Harlem Renaissance movement. Following is the full text of Bronze: A Book of Verse (1922), her second collection of published poetry.
Bronze was preceded by The Heart of a Woman and Other Poems (1918). Next came An Autumn Love Cycle (1928), and many years later, Share My World (1962). Her poems were also published in numerous periodicals and anthologies, particularly in the 1920s.
In her poetry, Georgia addressed issues of race as well as universal themes of love, motherhood, and being a woman in a male-dominated world. Of all her works, Bronze most directly addressed issues of race and racism. Bronze: A Book of Verse is in the public domain. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On October 14, 2024 | Updated December 16, 2024 | Comments (0)
Effie Lee Newsome (1885–1979), a writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance, wrote poetry that was widely published in journals and anthologies of the 1920s. Notably, these included NAACP’s The Crisis and the Urban League’s Opportunity, and Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, edited by Countee Cullen.
Mary Effie Lee was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in Wilberforce, Ohio. She took classes at Wilberforce University, Oberlin College, the Philadelphia Academy of the Arts, and the University of Pennsylvania, exploring her dual interests in writing and art. Effie and her sister Consuelo both did illustration for children’s magazines.
As the editor of the children’s column “Little Page” in The Crisis, Effie Lee was one of the first to write poems expressly for Black children. Her poetry encouraged younger readers to appreciate their worth and beauty. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On October 13, 2024 | Comments (0)
Mina Loy (1882 – 1966) was an English-born poet, playwright, and artist. She was lauded by her peers for her dense analyses of the female experience in early twentieth-century Western society. Here lasting impact is arguably as a modernist poet.
She was associated with other great minds and literary innovators of her time, like T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Sylvia Beach, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, and others.
“Love Songs,” a poem that first appeared in print in 1915, is among her best known works. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On July 17, 2024 | Updated April 1, 2025 | Comments (1)
Dame Edith Sitwell (1887 – 1964), the British poet, literary critic, and famous eccentric, began publishing her poetry in 1913. With a modernist edge, some of it inscrutably abstract, some even set to music and sound.
Because of her dramatic self-presentation and manner of dress, she was sometimes criticized as a dilettante, but overall, her literary legacy remained intact and has grown over the years. Her poetry is praised for its craftsmanship and attention to technique. Read More→
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