Michael S. Harper

Michael Steven Harper (March 18, 1938 – May 7, 2016) was an American poet and English professor at Brown University, who was the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island from 1988 to 1993. His poetry was influenced by jazz and history.

Among the influences which shaped his writing, he said that the most important lesson he learned from musicians was phrasing, the authenticity of phrasing, and the transcendence and spiritual mastery. He published ten books of poetry, two of which—Dear John, Dear Coltrane (1970) and Images of Kin (1977)—were nominated for the National Book Award. Many of his poems have been included as examples of African-American literature and jazz poetry in various anthologies.

Early life and education Harper was born in Brooklyn as the first of three children into a lower-middle-class black family. His maternal grandfather, Roland Johnson, was a well-respected Canadian physician and was the delivery doctor for Harper at their home. He was also the primary influence in his early decision to pursue pre-med at Los Angeles City College.

His father Walter (who went by his middle name, Warren) was the originator of "overnight" mail and worked as a post office supervisor. His mother Katherine Louise, née Johnson was a medical secretary. Of his parents Harper once remarked, "My parents did not have much money, but they had a great record collection." This would of course later influence his work, blending poetry with jazz.

His younger brother Jonathan Paul was born in 1941 and died in a motorcycle accident in 1977. His younger sister, Katherine Winifred, was born in 1943. They grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a north-central portion of Brooklyn, until his family moved in 1951 to their homestead in Los Angeles, where he attended Dorsey High School.

In 1993, Nathan A. Scott wrote in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics that "Harper has created a body of work which, though it has won much respect and admiration, deserves to be far more widely known than it is."

Shortly after his retirement from Brown, former student George Makari remarked that Harper "deeply entered our personal lives, challenged us to rethink who we thought we were, [and] asked us to leave behind childhood and enter a kind of creative crisis."

Work Harper wrote about important and historically influential African-Americans, including Jackie Robinson and Richard Wright. In an interview he said that the most important thing he learned from musicians was phrasing, the authenticity of phrasing, and the transcendence and spiritual mastery.

Harper often wrote about his wife, Shirley (commonly referred to as "Shirl"), their children, and their ancestors, as well as friends and various black historical and cultural figures. On poetry, Harper stated: "A good poem is a true poem. Often it cannot be distilled into a slogan, or an easy thesis." 1985: Healing Song for the Inner Ear 1972: National Academy of Arts and Letters Award. Black Academy of Arts and Letters Award for "History is your own Heartbeat". 1976: Receives Guggenheim Fellowship. 1977: Receives grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. Receives Massachusetts Council of the Arts Award. 1978: Images of Kin: New and Selected Poems nominated for the National Book Award. Receives Melville-Cane Award from the Poetry Society of America. 1987: Governor's Award from the Rhode Island Council for the Arts. Honorary Doctor of Letters at Trinity College. 1988: Named first Poet Laureate of the state of Rhode Island. 1990: Receives Robert Hayden Memorial Poetry Award. Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at Coe College, Iowa. 1991: Honorary Doctorate of Letters at Notre Dame College in Manchester, NH. 1994: Honorary Doctor of Letters at Kenyon College. Delivers commencement address. 1996: George Kent Poetry Award for Honorable Amendments, presented by Gwendolyn Brooks. 1997: Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts, Rhode Island Council for the Arts. 2001: Honorary Doctorate of Letters, Rhode Island College 2005: Serves as a judge for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. 2008: Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Poetry Society of America.