Conrad Kent Rivers

Conrad Kent Rivers (October 15, 1933 – 1968) was an American poet, fiction writer and dramatist.

Biography Conrad Kent Rivers was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Cora McIver and William Dixon Rivers. He began writing poetry in high school and in 1951 his poem "Poor Peon" won the Savannah, Georgia, State Poetry Prize. He attended Wilberforce University, Chicago Teachers College and Indiana University. He taught high school in Chicago, Illinois, and in Gary, Indiana, while publishing poems in periodicals including the Antioch Review, Negro Digest, and Kenyon Review.

A volume of poems written about or dedicated to Richard Wright, The Wright Poems, was published by Paul Breman in 1972.

Critical appraisal and legacy Frances Smith Foster wrote:Rivers is generally considered a poet of the black aesthetic and his concern with issues such as racism and violence, black history and black pride, self-love and self-respect are part and parcel of that movement. However, he was also fascinated with traditional poetic forms and techniques and his work evidences the influence of established writers such as his uncle Ray Mclvers, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin.

Publications Perchance to Dream, Othello (1959) These Black Bodies and This Sunburnt Face (1962) Dusk at Selma (1965) The Still Voice of Harlem (1968) The Wright Poems (1972)