Color, Sex, and Poetry: Three Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance

This excellent work of criticism and biography focuses on the works and the worlds of Harlem Renaissance poets Angelina Weld Grimke (1880-1956), Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935, and Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966). Grimke was a published author of plays, short stories, and poetry. Dunbar-Nelson was an editor, poet, and journalist, and an important hostess to the famous and not-so-famous personalities of her time. Johnson was an educator, an assured formalist poet and a considerable social force with a memorable and important salon. Despite the minimization of Johnson's contributions in, for example the 1932 edition of "Who's Who in Colored America," in which she is listed as "housewife/writer," Dr. Hull is undaunted in her pursuit of the truthful meaning of these writers' full lives and contributions.These writers led purposeful and productive writing and personal lives despite the fact that "at no point in their lives did anyone ever provide them with leisure to write." (p. 10). In addition, Dr. Hull asserts that black women participants' experience of the Harlem Renaissance had embedded in it the usual social tensions of caste and social class - plus the biggest handicap of all: femaleness. In most aspects, it was (not surprisingly) a man's world.Dr. Hull has done something wonderful here. Photographs of each poet are included in the wealth of biographical material. The research is deep, as is the interpretation. Texts are excerpted. She has read letters, diaries, and a wealth of unpublished material. There is good historical and social context provided. This is a valuable, assured study. There are pages of notes, and a good index. Definitely worth reading.