Conrad Kent Rivers
Conrad Kent Rivers was an influential African American poet born on October 15, 1933, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He spent his early years in Philadelphia and attended school in Savannah, Georgia, where he won the Savannah State Poetry Prize while still in high school. After serving in the army, Rivers graduated from Wilberforce University in 1960 and pursued further studies at several universities while teaching high school in Chicago and Gary, Indiana. His notable works include poetry collections such as "Perchance to Dream, Othello" and "These Black Bodies and This Sunburnt Face," as well as plays like "Dusk at Selma" and "Who's Afraid of Malcolm X?" which reflect themes of racism, violence, and self-respect. Influenced by writers like Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, Rivers expressed his struggles with identity and societal injustice through his poetry. He passed away at the young age of thirty-four, yet his legacy continues with the Conrad Kent Rivers Memorial Poetry Award, established to honor his contributions to literature and culture. His posthumous collection, "The Wright Poems," further solidified his impact on African American literature.
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Subject Terms
Conrad Kent Rivers
Playwright
- Born: 1933
- Birthplace: Atlantic City, New Jersey
- Died: 1968
Biography
Influential African American poet Conrad Kent Rivers was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on October 15, 1933, the son of Cora McIver and William Dixon Rivers. He grew up in Philadelphia, but also attended school in Savannah, Georgia. In 1951, while in high school, Rivers won the Savannah State Poetry Prize for his poem “Poor Peon.” After serving in the army from 1953 to 1955, he entered Wilberforce University, graduating in 1960, and did graduate-level work at Temple University, Indiana University, and Chicago Teacher’s College; during this time, he also taught high school in Chicago and Gary, Indiana.
Rivers published Perchance to Dream, Othello (1959) during his senior year at Wilberforce, and These Black Bodies and This Sunburnt Face (1962) shortly thereafter. Rivers’s poems began to appear in many magazines and anthologies such as the Antioch Review, the Kenyon Review, the Ohio Poetry Review, and the Negro Digest. Rivers also published the playDusk at Selma (1965), but died on March 24, 1968, at the age of thirty-four, just before The Still Voice of Harlem (1968) was published in London. A play by Rivers, Who’s Afraid of Malcolm X? was produced in 1967; he also wrote To Make a Poet Black, another play, the title of which comes from a Countee Cullen poem.
Rivers’s work showed the influences of writers such as Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Ray McIver, Rivers’s uncle. Rivers also named Carl Sandburg as a major influence on his writing. He said regarding his work, “I write about the Negro because I am a Negro, and I am not at peace with myself or the world. I cannot separate my consciousness from the absolute injustice of hate.” Racism, violence, black history, and self-respect are recurring themes in Rivers’s work.
In 1972, a posthumous collection, The Wright Poems, was published by Paul Breman as part of the Heritage Series of Black Poetry; the book was made up of poems Rivers either wrote about or dedicated to Richard Wright. The Conrad Kent Rivers Memorial Poetry Award is named in Rivers’s honor; the first of these awards went to Carolyn Marie Rodgers in 1968.