I lived from 1882-1930. I was from the United States, and am in the Americas category.
I was influenced by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Raymond Garfield Dandridge was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1882 and died there on February 24, 1930.
He finished elementary school and begun work as a porter at the local YMCA whilst continuing to study for his High School Diploma at Hughes Center High School at night.
He was an active young man keen on athletics and swimming until he wis disabled in 1911 at the age of 29. It is uncertain whether his subsequent paralysis was caused by a stroke or by polio but he lost the use of both legs and his right arm. He taught himself to write right-handed and subsequently published a number of books of poetry.
He often wrote in the vernacular style which caused comparisons with Paul Laurence Dunbar and criticism of the artificiality of the spelling and phraseology he employed. However his work was claimed by critics of the time to be evocative of real life.
He not only wrote dialect work but was equally at home in Standard American English, over half of his published work being written in that form.
By means of his poetry he strove to “support the social liberation of African Americans” and was well respected by a wide audience.
JS
He finished elementary school and begun work as a porter at the local YMCA whilst continuing to study for his High School Diploma at Hughes Center High School at night.
He was an active young man keen on athletics and swimming until he wis disabled in 1911 at the age of 29. It is uncertain whether his subsequent paralysis was caused by a stroke or by polio but he lost the use of both legs and his right arm. He taught himself to write right-handed and subsequently published a number of books of poetry.
He often wrote in the vernacular style which caused comparisons with Paul Laurence Dunbar and criticism of the artificiality of the spelling and phraseology he employed. However his work was claimed by critics of the time to be evocative of real life.
He not only wrote dialect work but was equally at home in Standard American English, over half of his published work being written in that form.
By means of his poetry he strove to “support the social liberation of African Americans” and was well respected by a wide audience.
JS
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