For the month of April, HypeFresh will be sharing some of our favorite top influential poets of all time. In lieu of National Poetry Month, we want to pay homage to Black female poets who enlighten and empower.
Black women and poetry are a collision of art and science, delivering heartfelt songs of literature. Poetry are unique forms of expressive emotion and intensity, presented rhythmically or distinctively. Whether it an acrostic poem, sonnet or ballad, it is an art form we all will experience by song or by book.
Here are three of the most influential Black female poets of all time:
The Black Female Poets Who Changed the World
Maya Angelou is one of the most renown poets of the 20th century. Born in Stamps, Arkansas, young Maya experienced hardships that would soon become her triumphs. The I Know Why Caged Birds Sing author was the first Black woman to author a best selling nonfiction body of work, according to Biography. Angelou’s dearest poem, Phenomenal Woman, from Still I Rise continues to grace Black theater stages every February.
Alice Walker is an African American writer and poet. She is widely recognized for her novel, The Color Purple (1982), which received the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize, as stated by Best Poems Encyclopedia. The Third Life of Grange Copeland is a body of work by Walker that includes a scrapbook of poems. Walker wrote the scrapbook when she was 15, naming it Poems of a Childhood Poetess. She is an epitome of a legendary literary dog.
Phillis Wheatley is a sojourner of the pre 19th century, breaking barriers as an enslaved woman. Although she was Black and in bondage, she was allowed the gift of reading and writing, according to Poetry Foundation. On Being Brought from Africa to America contains Wheatley’s most notable poems. She is the first female slave to have work published in New England and England.
