Bernice Love Wiggins

Bernice Love Wiggins (also Bernice Love Clay, March 4, 1897 – January 27, 1936) was an African-American poet writing during the Harlem Renaissance period. Her work was published in the El Paso Herald, the Chicago Defender, the Houston Informer, Her one volume of poems, Tuneful Tales, was published in 1925.

Biography Wiggins was born on March 4, 1897, in Austin, Texas. Her father, Jessie Austin Love, was also a poet. He had also attended college, and was the Sunday school director for the Holiness Church in Austin. In the introduction, Coleman shares that at an early age she had "natural poetic feelings".

Wiggins married Allen D. Wiggins in 1915. Her poetic tone and style link her to the Harlem Renaissance. She "condemned the injustice of laws against prostitution" in her poem "The Vampire".