Afro-modernist aesthetics & the poetry of Sterling A. Brown

by Mark A. Sanders

Sterling A. Brown's poetry and aesthetics are central to an understanding of African American art and politics of the early twentieth century. This study redefines the relationship between modernism and the New Negro era in light of Brown's uniquely hybrid poetry and vision of a heterodox, pluralist modernism. Reading Brown's three collections of poetry in light of their respective historical contexts, Sanders examines the ways in which Brown reconfigured black being and created alternative conceptual space for African Americans amid the prevailing racial discourses of American culture. Brown's poetics call for conceptions of the Harlem Renaissance, black identity, artistic expression, and modernity to be revised in ways that recognize the range, depth, and complexity of African American life.