Paul Laurence Dunbar "When de' co'n pones' hot & Possum" .
Heres a virtual movie of the Afro American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar reading his poems "When de' co'n pones' hot & Possum". The poems are read by African American actor orator and linguist Edward Sterling Wright for Edison Blue Amberol circa 1913. Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African-American poet to garner national critical acclaim. Born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872,
Dunbar penned a large body of dialect poems, standard English poems, essays, novels and short stories before he died at the age of 33. His work often addressed the difficulties encountered by members of his race and the efforts of African-Americans to achieve equality in America. He was praised both by the prominent literary critics of his time and his literary contemporaries.