Writer Arna Bontemps
Arna Bontemps (1902-1973) Poet, novelist, librarian. Bontemps was born in Louisiana to a Creole family. During the Great Migration his family moved to California, where he spent his childhood. After he graduated from Pacific Union College he was drawn to Harlem during the Renaissance in 1924. Bontemps published poetry while teaching at Harlem Academy. In both 1926 and 1927, he received the Alexander Pushkin Prize of Opportunity, a National Urban League published journal. He also won the Crisis Poetry Prize, the official journal of the NAACP, in 1926. Throughout his life, Bontemps continued to write poetry, novels, and children's books, as well as teach at universities.
The Day Breakers
We are not come to wage a strife
With swords upon this hill,
It is not wise to waste the life
Against a stubborn will.
Yet would we die as some have done.
Beating a way for the rising sun.
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