Sherley Anne Williams

Poet

Birthday August 25, 1944

Birth Sign Virgo

Birthplace Bakersfield, CA

DEATH DATE Jul 6, 1999 (54)

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About

African-American poet, author, and academic who wrote The Peacock Poems and Working Cotton, among other poetic and prose works. She also published a non-fiction work entitled Giving Birth to Brightness: A Thematic Study in Neo-Black Literature.

Before Fame

She studied English at California State University in Fresno. Later, she pursued graduate study at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Trivia

She received a 1984 Fulbright grant that funded travel to Ghana.

Family Life

She grew up with three sisters in the Fresno, California housing projects. Sadly, her father died of tuberculosis when she was just eight years old.

Associated With

She and poet Carla Harryman were literary contemporaries and fellow Californians.