The Harlem Renaissance and Poetry

The Harlem Renaissance was a movement much bigger than a single neighborhood in New York City. Though strongly associated with the African-American economic power of Harlem, the Harlem Renaissance was a widespread explosion of creativity among African-American artists, writers and musicians in the 1920’s and 1930’s, some of whom also had commercial success in mainstream culture.

Probably the best known Harlem poet was Langston Hughes, who was influenced by previous poets like Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Langston Hughes brought modernist ideas of using contemporary imagery and language to his personal and powerful poetry. One of his most well-known poems “I, too Sing America” seemed to be a direct response to Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” which emphasizes Whitman’s attitude toward America, which is part of his ideal of human life. The American people have based its faith on the creativeness of labor, which Whitman glorifies in this poem. In “I, too Sing America” Langston Hughes addresses the issue of black rights. Hughes hopes for a better tomorrow white American’s will see how beautiful his people are and appreciate them.

The legacy of the Harlem Renaissance opened doors and deeply influenced the generations of African American writers and poets that followed more noticeably in the emergence of Hip-Hop.

To learn more about modernist poems and the influence of the Harlem Renaissance on poetry check out Poetry For Beginners!