Michael S. Harper

Michael S. Harper (born March 18, 1938, New York, New York, U.S.—died May 7, 2016) was an African-American poet whose sensitive, personal verse is concerned with ancestral kinship, jazz and the blues, and the separation of the races in America.

Harper grew up in New York City and in West Los Angeles. He was educated at Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences (B.A., 1961; M.A., 1963), and the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa (M.F.A., 1963). He taught at several West Coast colleges before joining the faculty of Brown University in 1971.

Harper’s first book, Dear John, Dear Coltrane (1970), addresses the theme of redemption in compact poems that are based both on historical events and figures and on his travels and personal relationships. The poetry in History Is Your Own Heartbeat (1971) and Song: I Want a Witness (1972) stresses the significance of history to the individual, particularly to black Americans. Nightmare Begins Responsibility (1974), one of his most acclaimed and complex works, contains portraits of individual courage. In Healing Song for the Inner Ear (1985), Harper gives the theme of personal history an international focus. His other works include Debridement (1973), Images of Kin (1977), Rhode Island (1981), Honorable Amendments (1995), Songlines in Michaeltree (2000), and Selected Poems (2002). He edited The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown (1980) and Every Shut Eye Ain’t Asleep (1994; with Anthony Walton), an anthology of poetry by African-Americans since 1945. Harper and Walton also edited The Vintage Book of African American Poetry (2000).

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From 1988 to 1993 Harper was the first poet laureate of Rhode Island. His other honours include a Guggenheim fellowship (1976) and the Poetry Society of America’s Frost Medal (2008).