David Henderson (poet)

David Henderson (born 1942) is an American writer and poet.

Early life

David Henderson was born in 1942 in Harlem, New York City, New York,^[1] and was raised in Harlem and the Bronx. As a university student he studied communications, writing and Eastern Studies but never finished his degree. His first poem was published in 1960 in the weekly African-American newspaper The Black American.

Umbra

In 1963 Henderson co-founded Umbra, both a literary collective and literary magazine with other Black writers and artists in New York's Lower East Side.^[2] Henderson began as co-editor and then later became the general editor. Other notable editors and regular contributors to Umbra magazine include Tom Dent, Ishmael Reed, Brenda Walcott, N. H. Pritchard, Askia Toure, Lorenzo Thomas, Al Haynes and Calvin C. Hernton, among others. Nikki Giovanni and Quincy Troupe were also published in Umbra magazine.

Notable works

Henderson's first collection of poetry, entitled Felix of the Silent Forest, was published in 1967 under the Kriya Press imprint, with an introduction by Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones).^[3]

In 2009 an expanded version of his 1978 critically acclaimed biography of Jimi Hendrix, Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, was re-published with additional photographs and musings by Henderson.^[4]

Awards and fellowships

• 1971: Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award
• 1992: California Arts Council, New Genre Poetry Grant
• 1999: Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Artist Grant
• 1999: New York Foundation for the Arts, Artist Fellowship

References