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Danner, Margaret Esse (1915–1984)
Poet, editor, and community activist Margaret
Esse Danner was born in Pryorsburg, Kentucky,
on January 12, 1915, to Caleb and Naomi Esse
Danner. Her family moved to Chicago, where she
attended Englewood High School and studied po-
etry at Loyola College, Roosevelt University, and
Northwestern University. While in Chicago, from
1951 to 1957, Danner worked for Poetry: The Mag-
azine of Verse as an editorial assistant and an assis-
tant editor with Karl Shapiro and Paul Engle, who
nurtured her creativity as a poet. She was a poet-
in-residence at Wayne State University in 1961,
at Virginia Union University in 1968–69, and at
LeMoyne-Owens College in Memphis, Tennessee.
She established Boone House Writers in 1962–64
and met such other notable poets as DUDLEY RAN-
DALL, ROBERT HAYDEN, NAOMI LONG MADGETT,
HOYT FULLER, and OWEN DODSON. Together, Boone
House and Randall’s Broadside Press made Detroit
a key part of the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT and made
Danner’s poetry a central focus in the movement.
In 1945, by winning second prize in the poetry
workshop of the Midwestern Writers Conference
at Northwestern University, Danner gained na-
tional recognition. However, she did not become
a prominent poet until the 1950s. In 1951 Danner
was awarded a John Hay Whitney Fellowship and
a trip to Africa for four poems in a series titled
“Far from Africa,” which she took in 1966 when

she went to read her poetry at the World Exposi-

tion of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. Danner’s Af-

rican poems have won praises for their form and

exact images.

Danner is the author of five volumes of poetry:

To Flower (1962); Poem Counterpoem, with Dudley

Randall (1966); Impressions of African Art Forms

(1968); Iron Lace (1968); and The Down of a This-

tle: Selected Poems, Prose Poems and Songs (1976).

Her speakers in these poems protest against white

racism and its effects on African Americans, as well

as address subjects ranging from the CIVIL RIGHTS

MOVEMENT to old age to black heritage. “The El-

evator Man Adheres to Form,” in which the black

male character has a Ph.D. but operates an eleva-

tor and has become too passive, is one of her most

anthologized poems. One of her most successful

protest poems is “The Endangered Species”; the

endangered species is a black pearl, which is less

valued because it is “such a sooty stone.” Danner

also edited two anthologies of poetry, Brass Horses

(1968) and Regroup (1969).

Danner received several grants and awards. She

has received grants from the Women’s Auxiliary of

Afro-American Interests (1950), the African Stud-

ies Association (1950), the American Society of

African Culture (1960), the African Studies Asso-

ciation Award (1961), the Harriet Tubman Award

(1965), and the Poets in Concert Award (1968).

She was a touring poet with the Baha’i Teaching