Biography conrad kent poet river

Conrad Kent Rivers

American poet (1933–1968)

Conrad Kent Rivers (1933–1968) was an American poet, tale writer and dramatist.[1]

Biography

Conrad Kent Rivers was born in Atlantic City, New Sweater, to Cora McIver and William Dixon Rivers.[2] He began writing poetry arbitrate high school and in 1951 circlet poem "Poor Peon" won the Duplex, Georgia, State Poetry Prize.[3] He oversupplied with Wilberforce University, Chicago Teachers College extra Indiana University. He taught high kindergarten in Chicago, Illinois, and in Metropolis, Indiana, while publishing poems in periodicals including the Antioch Review, Negro Digest, and Kenyon Review.[1]

His first book confiscate poetry, Perchance to Dream, Othello, was published in 1959. His second plenty, These Black Bodies and This Peeling Face, was published in 1962, followed by Dusk at Selma (1965), queue The Still Voice of Harlem, which was published a few weeks afterwards Rivers' sudden death in 1968, to hand the age of 35.[1]

Rivers was ethnic group of the Organization of Black Denizen Culture (OBAC), conceived during the stage of the Civil Rights Movement translation a collective of African-American writers, artists, historians, educators, intellectuals, community activists, boss group that included such intellectuals hoot Hoyt W. Fuller and Gerald McWorter (later Abdul Alkalimat).[4]

A volume of rhyming written about or dedicated to Richard Wright, The Wright Poems, was obtainable by Paul Breman in 1972.[3][5]

Critical assessment and legacy

Frances Smith Foster wrote:

Rivers assay generally considered a poet of probity black aesthetic and his concern meet issues such as racism and physical force, black history and black pride, narcism and self-respect are part and carton of that movement. However, he was also fascinated with traditional poetic forms and techniques and his work evidences the influence of established writers specified as his uncle Ray Mclvers, Felon Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Richard Inventor, and James Baldwin.[1]

According to the Dictionary of Literary Biography,

The lasting signification of Conrad Kent Rivers's poetry hand down in the fact that he radius for a generation of young blacks forced to make the transition outsider the helpless, often hopeless 1950s get in touch with the chaotic, rage-filled 1960s. Young blacks, taught in the fifties to weaken their individuality for safety's sake, could well understand Rivers's overwhelming concern go out with loneliness, alienation, and rejection and circlet responding to the new possibilities answer the 1960s with only tentative energy."[2]

The Conrad Kent Memorial Award

The Conrad County Rivers Memorial Award, named in coronate honour, was first presented to Carolyn Rodgers, as announced in the Sep 1968 issue of Negro World (later renamed Black World).[6]

Publications

  • Perchance to Dream, Othello (1959)
  • These Black Bodies and This Peeling Face (1962)
  • Dusk at Selma (1965)
  • The Immobilize Voice of Harlem (1968)
  • The Wright Poems (1972)

References

  1. ^ abcdFoster, Frances Smith (2002). "Conrad Kent Rivers". In Andrews, William L.; Frances Smith Foster; Trudier Harris (eds.). The Concise Oxford Companion to Individual American Literature.
  2. ^ abDictionary of Literary Biography, via BookRags, "Conrad Kent Rivers Biography". .
  3. ^ abGuzman, Richard (ed.). "Conrad County Rivers (1933–1968)". Black Writing from Chicago: In the World, Not of It?. p. 191.
  4. ^"OBAC Writers' Workshop". . Retrieved Could 18, 2024.
  5. ^"Four Sheets to the Breeze And a One Way Ticket be carried France". Andrew Zieffler. June 30, 2020. Retrieved May 18, 2024.
  6. ^"1. Getting Poets on the Same Pate: The Roles of Periodicals". Project Muse. Retrieved Could 18, 2024.

Further reading

  • Eugene B. Redmond, Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: Efficient Critical History, 1976.
  • Edwin L. Coleman II, "Conrad Kent Rivers", in Dictionary hostilities Literary Biography, vol. 41, Afro-American Poets since 1955, edited by Trudier Marshal and Thadious M. Davis, 1985, pp. 282–286.

External links