Michael S. Harper facts for kids

Michael Steven Harper (born March 18, 1938 – died May 7, 2016) was an American poet and a professor of English at Brown University. He was also the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island from 1988 to 1993. His poems were greatly inspired by jazz music and important moments in history.

Harper believed that listening to musicians taught him a lot about how to write. He learned about the true feeling of words and how to make them powerful. He wrote ten books of poetry. Two of his books, Dear John, Dear Coltrane (1970) and Images of Kin (1977), were even nominated for the National Book Award. Many of his poems are now used as examples of African-American literature and jazz poetry in different collections.

Early Life and Education

Michael Harper was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was the first of three children in his family. His grandfather, Roland Johnson, was a respected doctor from Canada. He was the doctor who helped deliver Harper at home. His grandfather also encouraged him to study medicine at Los Angeles City College first.

His father, Walter (who went by Warren), worked as a post office supervisor. He even helped create "overnight" mail delivery. His mother, Katherine Louise, was a medical secretary. Harper once said, "My parents did not have much money, but they had a great record collection." This love for music later helped him combine poetry with jazz in his work.

His younger brother, Jonathan Paul, was born in 1941. His younger sister, Katherine Winifred, was born in 1943. The family grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a part of Brooklyn. In 1951, they moved to Los Angeles, where Harper went to Dorsey High School. As a teenager, Harper wanted to be independent. He wanted to work, create, and learn on his own.

In 1955, he started at Los Angeles City College. He first studied to become a doctor. Later, he switched to literature and earned a degree in 1959. He then went to Los Angeles State College (now California State University, Los Angeles). There, he earned a B.A. and a MA in English by 1961. While studying, he worked part-time at the post office. He called this job his "real education."

Harper then joined the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. He did not like the popular writing style of using strict syllable counts. He called it "incredibly mechanical." He felt that most of what he learned in Iowa City was not from the workshop itself. Instead, it came from the important Civil Rights Movement happening at that time. He earned his MFA degree in 1963.

Harper's Career as a Poet and Professor

Michael Harper began teaching English at Contra Costa College in California. His poems started appearing in small magazines. In 1968, he became a poet-in-residence at Lewis & Clark College and taught at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Later that year, he sent a collection of his poems to a competition. The famous poet Gwendolyn Brooks helped him submit it. He did not win, but Brooks called his work her "clear winner." Harper said that Brooks helped him start his career.

With Brooks' support, Harper's first book was published in 1970 by the University of Pittsburgh. It was even reviewed in Time magazine. In 1996, Gwendolyn Brooks gave Harper the George Kent Poetry Award.

In 1970, he taught at California State College in Hayward, California. He then joined the English department at Brown University. There, he taught literature and poetry to college students. He also led the Masters in Creative Writing program for several years. Many of his students went on to become writers, teachers, or work in the arts. Students often called him "MSH," "the Chief," or "the Big Man." He taught at Brown University until he retired in 2013. He was the longest-serving English professor there.

In 1993, a writer named Nathan A. Scott said that Harper's work was very respected. He felt it deserved to be much more widely known. After Harper retired, a former student, George Makari, said that Harper "deeply entered our personal lives." He challenged them to think differently about themselves and grow creatively.

Personal Life and Family

Michael Harper was married and had three children: a daughter named Rachel, and two sons, Roland and Patrice. Rachel is also a writer. Harper later divorced. He lived in Providence, Rhode Island, until he passed away on May 7, 2016.

Harper had two children who passed away very early in life. This sad experience inspired some of his first poems, including his well-known poem "Nightmare Begins Responsibility."

Harper's Poetic Works

Harper often wrote about important and famous African-Americans. These included people like Jackie Robinson and Richard Wright. He also wrote about John Brown, who fought against slavery. In an interview in 2000, he shared that musicians taught him the most important lesson about writing. It was about the true feeling of words and how to make them powerful and meaningful.

Harper's poems often featured his wife, Shirley (who he called "Shirl"), their children, and their family history. He also wrote about friends and many black historical and cultural figures. Harper believed that "A good poem is a true poem." He said it often cannot be easily summed up in a simple phrase. This idea is clear in his work, especially in "Blue Ruth: America" (1971). In this poem, the United States is shown as being sick in a hospital bed. In 2009, he talked about how important it is for people to speak clearly. He noted that people had trouble understanding President Barack Obama because he talked about important things, while most people were used to short "sound bites."

Here are some of Michael Harper's poetry collections:

• 1970: Dear John, Dear Coltrane – This book was nominated for the National Book Award.
• 1971: History Is Your Own Heartbeat – This book won the Black Academy of Arts & Letters Award for poetry.
• 1972: Song: "I want a Witness"
• 1975: Nightmare Begins Responsibility
• 1977: Images of Kin – This book won the Melville-Cane Award and was nominated for the National Book Award.
  • 1973: Debridement (later included in Images of Kin)
• 1985: Healing Song for the Inner Ear
• 1995: Honorable Amendments
• 2000: Songlines in Michaeltree: New and Collected Poems
• 2000: Poems (University of Illinois Press)
• 2001: Debridement: Song I Want a Witness & Debridement
• 2002: Selected Poems, ARC Publications

Harper also created poetry combined with jazz music:

• 2004: Double Take: Jazz - Poetry Conversations – This was a collaboration with bass clarinetist and composer Paul Austerlitz.
• I Do Believe in People: Remembrances of Walter Warren Harper (1915–2004)
• Chant of Saints: A Gathering of Literature, Art and Scholarship (1979, edited with Robert B. Stepto)

Awards and Honors

Michael Harper received many awards and honors for his poetry and teaching:

• 1972: National Academy of Arts and Letters Award. Black Academy of Arts and Letters Award for "History is your own Heartbeat."
• 1976: Received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a special award for talented individuals.
• 1977: Received a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. Also received the Massachusetts Council of the Arts Award.
• 1978: Images of Kin: New and Selected Poems was nominated for the National Book Award. He also received the Melville-Cane Award from the Poetry Society of America.
• 1987: Received the Governor's Award from the Rhode Island Council for the Arts. He also received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Trinity College.
• 1988: Named the first Poet Laureate of the state of Rhode Island. This means he was the official poet for the state.
• 1990: Received the Robert Hayden Memorial Poetry Award. He also received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Coe College, Iowa.
• 1991: Received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Notre Dame College in Manchester, NH.
• 1994: Received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Kenyon College. He also gave the graduation speech there.
• 1996: Gwendolyn Brooks presented him with the George Kent Poetry Award for Honorable Amendments.
• 1997: Received the Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts from the Rhode Island Council for the Arts.
• 2001: Received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Rhode Island College.
• 2005: Served as a judge for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, a very important award.
• 2008: Received the Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Poetry Society of America. This is a major award for a poet's entire career.