Dubbed the "Poet Laureate of the Negro race" by Booker T. Washington, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) is best known for his lively dialect poems. In addition to his dialect verse, however, Dunbar also wrote fine poems in standard English that captured many elements of the black experience in America.
This volume contains a representative cross-section of both types of verse, including "Ode to Ethiopia," "Worn Out," "Not They Who Soar," "When Malindy...