About Marcus Bruce Christian
Marcus Bruce Christian was an afro-american poet and writer. The author of the collection, I Am New Orleans and Other Poems. He also wrote the still-unpublished manuscript, The History of The Negro in Louisiana during his stint at the Negro Federal Writers Project at Dillard University. At his death, his family bequeathed 256 cubic feet (7.2 m3) of his diaries, criticism, manuscripts, and scholarly papers to the University of New Orleans, where they currently reside. Christian's first poem, M-O-D-O-C-S of '22 is described as his valedictory address to his night school class. He tried without success to self-publish his first collection Ethiopia Triumphant and Other Poems; disappointed at the results, he later bought his own printing press, and published his own chapbooks. Christian’s writing came to public notice when he began contributing to the Louisiana Weekly, a New Orleans black newspaper, as a poetry editor and writer. By 1932, Christian was corresponding with Arna Bontemps, also a native Louisiana writer, and Langston Hughes, who commented favorably on his contribution to the Crisis, then the literary as well as the political organ of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. His poem, McDonough Day in New Orleans broke into the mainstream, appearing in the New York Herald Tribune in 1934. He began a second manuscript partly based on his experiences at the Bluebird: The Clothes Doctor and Other Poems. He also published numerous poems and essays in other African American newspapers and magazines—like Phylon, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, and the Pittsburgh Courier.Browse all poems and texts published on Marcus Bruce Christian
