WGBH

Who was Phillis Wheatley, the first African American poet to publish a book?

In 1761, a young girl crossed the Atlantic on a slave ship. Captured in West Africa and transported to Boston, where she was enslaved by John and Susanna Wheatley. They named her Phillis, after the ...
WESA

Homing Instinct: African-Born Poet Keeps Returning To The Theme Of Home

Poet Patricia Jabbeh Wesley writes of war, family, love and home. In 1991, the brutal civil war in Liberia caused poet Patricia Jabbeh Wesley and her family to emigrate to the United States. The war ...
Los Angeles Times

Leopold Senghor, 95; African Statesman, Poet

PARIS — Leopold Sedar Senghor, a former president of Senegal and poet who won acclaim in Africa’s presidential palaces and France’s universities and literary salons, died at his home in Normandy on ...
Los Angeles Times

Mazisi Kunene, 76; Zulu Poet, Teacher Fought Apartheid

Even while living in exile, thousands of miles from South Africa, Mazisi Kunene wrote poetry from home. Epic poems that explain the cycles of creation and destruction, the wisdom of the ancestors, the ...
Yahoo

South African dissident writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach dies at 85

FILE - South African writer Breyten Breytenbach, right, and American actor and singer Harry Belafonte shake hands during a press conference in Paris, on June 18, 1986. (AP Photo, File) JOHANNESBURG ...
Afro

PRESS ROOM: National Museum of African American History and Culture acquires major collection of work attributed to poet Phillis Wheatley Peters

New objects are available online in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the publication of Wheatley Peters’ poems, including the only copy of the poet’s long-lost “Ocean” poem in her handwriting ...
Newsday

Poet David Mills explores African Burial Ground, Jupiter Hammon at LI talks

"I’m looking for ways to make history sing," said poet David Mills. In his latest collection, "Boneyarn," a volume of poems laced with grit and grace about Manhattan’s African Burial Ground — ...
NPR

Under Lockdown, A Nigerian Poet Encourages Others To Find 'Own Truth' In Poetry

Lagos, the biggest city in Africa, has been under lockdown for more than a month now. When a literary festival was canceled, the organizer began asking writers from across the continent to read ...
KETV Omaha

Jewel Rodgers appointed as first African American Nebraska poet laureate

BEAUTIFUL IN THE DISTANCE. WELL, IN LINCOLN TODAY, GOVERNOR JIM PILLEN APPOINTS OMAHA AUTHOR AND PERFORMER JEWELL ROGERS AS NEBRASKA’S NEW STATE POET. AT 27, ROGERS IS THE YOUNGEST TO HOLD THE ...
The Republic

South African dissident writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach dies at 85

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach, a staunch opponent of the former white-minority government’s apartheid policy of racial oppression, has died in Paris, his family ...
KSAT

South African dissident writer and poet Breyten Breytenbach dies at 85

FILE - South African writer Breyten Breytenbach, right, and American actor and singer Harry Belafonte shake hands during a press conference in Paris, on June 18, 1986 ...