Selected Poems

Paul Laurence Dunbar was the most promising young colored man” in nineteenth-century America, according to Frederick Douglass, and subsequently one of the most controversial. His plantation lyrics, written while he was an elevator boy in Ohio, established Dunbar as the premier writer of dialect poetry and garnered him international recognition. More than a vernacular lyricist, Dunbar was also a master of classical poetic forms, who helped demonstrate to post–Civil War America that literary genius did not reside solely in artists of European descent. William Dean Howells called Dunbar’s dialect poems evidence of the essential unity of the human race, which does not think or feel black in one and white in another, but humanly in all.”

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-û1906) was born to two former slaves. While working as an elevator operator, he published his first poetry collection. His second collection in 1895 thrust him into the national spotlight and garnered praise from the white and black elite. He ultimately produced twelve books of poetry, several stories and plays, and five novels.

Herbert Woodward Martin is a professor at the University of Dayton. He is an active fan and promoter of Dunbar-'s work.