September 23, 2011

LeDroit Park is the home of poets

Dolores Kendrick. Photo by dbking on Flickr.

Paul Laurence Dunbar isn’t the only poet to have graced our neighborhood.  Dolores Kendrick is DC’s poet laureate and, as the Post reports, grew up in LeDroit Park in the 1930s.

Kedrick has authored four books, including “Why the Woman is Singing on the Corner: A Verse Narrative”, a 2001 work that takes place here in DC. Kendrick has an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and National Endowment for the Arts fellowship under her belt.

In the Post article Kendrick reflects on the changes she has seen in Washington:

I suppose the Washington that exists today had to come. The old Washington was segregationist and racist to the point where we couldn’t go downtown to get a hot dog. Our parents would fix us meals before we left so we would not have to endure that indignity. . . . But integration also brought its own problems. The black community somewhat disintegrated, and the seasons changed. It is a very different time, now.

Kendrick will speak at 1 pm on Sunday at the National Book Festival.

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