the contemporary moment, one should also note
the importance of his pedagogy to African-Ameri-
can studies. He has been a central and influential
teacher to a generation of critics and poets, includ-
ing Robert Dale Parker, Anthony Walton, Herman
Beavers, and Suzanne Keen. Walton states that
one of the key insights about books he learned in
Harper’s classroom is that they “could be weapons,
against ignorance, against forgetfulness, against
revisionism” (808). Such a statement deeply reso-
nates with Harper’s poetic output as well.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Antonucci, Michael. “The Map and the Territory: An
Interview with Michael S. Harper.” African Ameri-
can Review 34, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 501–508.
Cooke, Michael G. Afro-American Literature in the
Twentieth Century: The Achievement of Intimacy.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
Dodd, Elizabeth. “The Great Rainbowed Swamp:
History as Moral Ecology in the Poetry of Michael
S. Harper.” Isle 7, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 131–145.
———. “Michael S. Harper: American Poet.” Cal-
laloo 13, no. 4 (Fall 1990): 749–829.
Lenz, Gunter H. “Black Poetry and Black Music: His-
tory and Tradition: Michael Harper and John
Coltrane.” In History and Tradition in Afro-Ameri-
can Culture, edited by Gunter H. Lenz, 277–319.
Frankfurt: Campus, 1984.
O’Brien, John. “Michael Harper.” In Interviews with
Black Writers, 95–107: New York: Liveright, 1973.
Rowell, Charles H. “‘Down Don’t Worry Me.’ An In-
terview with Michael S. Harper.” Callaloo 13, no. 4
(Autumn, 1990): 780–800.
Stepto, Robert B. “After Modernism, After Hiber-
nation: Michael Harper, Robert Hayden and Jay
Wright.” In Chant of Saints: A Gathering of Afro-
American Literature, Art, and Scholarship, edited
by Michael S. Harper et al., 470–486. Urbana: Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, 1979.
———. “Michael S. Harper, Poet as Kinsman: The
Family Sequences.” Massachusetts Review 17 (Au-
tumn 1976): 477–502.
Walton, Anthony. “The Chief.” Callaloo 13, no. 4 (Fall
1990): 807–809.
Keith FeldmanHarris, E. Lynn (1957– )
One of black America’s most prolific contempo-
rary novelists and social activists, E. Lynn Harris
is a member of the board of trustees of the Hur-
ston/Wright Foundation and the Evidence Dance
Company and is the founder of the E. Lynn Har-
ris Better Days Literary Foundation. Harris was
born in Flint, Michigan, and reared by his mother.
When Harris was four, his family moved to Little
Rock, Arkansas, where he began working odd jobs
to help meet the family’s financial needs. Deter-
mined and motivated to better his situation, Harris
attended the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville,
from which he graduated with a bachelor’s degree
in journalism in 1977.
In 1983, Harris met author-poet MAYA ANGE-
LOU, an Arkansas native, who encouraged him to
write, “even if it’s just one word a day.” Inspired
by Angelou’s I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS
(1970) and JAMES BALDWIN’s GO TELL IT ON THE
MOUNTAIN (1953), Harris began to write full time
in 1990, leaving behind a secure, well-paying com-
puter sales position at IBM. He invested $25,000
from his savings to self-publish his first novel,
INVISIBLE LIFE (1991), and traveled door-to-door
to black-owned businesses—from bookstores to
hair salons—to promote it. Word of mouth led to
greater fortunes. As customers (mostly women)
began to request Invisible Life, sales reached more
than 10,000 copies. ESSENCE magazine named In-
visible Life one of 1992’s best novels. This recog-
nition secured Harris a contract with Doubleday
Books, led to a reprint of Invisible Life, and placed
the novel in national mainstream bookstores be-
yond the parameters of the black community, in-
evitably increasing Harris’s readership and sales.
Although Harris has been criticized for his nov-
els’ lack of substance, as well as for creating char-
acters that lack depth, Harris is a strong, consistent
stylist who adheres to a linear, plot-driven narra-
tive, which attracted, from the beginning, a power-
ful female constituency. As a result of an early life
shared with sisters and a determined single mother
who had left an abusive relationship to improve
the quality of her children’s lives, Harris draws on
his own familial experiences to render what for
him are honest depictions of black women. This236 Harris, E. Lynn