The brief but shining life of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a poet who gave dignity to the Black experience

Paul Laurence Dunbar was only 33 years old when he died in 1906. In his short yet prolific life, Dunbar used folk dialect to give voice and dignity to the experience of Black Americans at the turn of ...
The New Criterion

Among the missing, among the dead: black poetry in America

The brutalities of American life have left deep scars in our literature, few more evident than the long absence of African American poets. Among the exceptions, at least two black poets published work ...
University of Dayton

Paul Laurence Dunbar Initiative

Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American to gain national eminence as a poet. Born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio, he was the son of ex-slaves and classmate to Orville Wright of aviation fame.
The Washington Post

Voice of the Voiceless

Edited and Introduced by Shelley Fisher Fishkin and David Bradley Modern Library. 441 pp. $14.95 "I didn't start as a dialect poet," Paul Laurence Dunbar told James Weldon Johnson in 1901. Dunbar had ...