Images in the River

The poet William Waring Cuney (1906–1976) hails from an illustrious Afro-Texan family whose members include the charismatic politician Norris Wright Cuney (1846–1898) and his daughter, Maud Cuney Hare (1874–1936), the concert pianist and writer. Waring Cuney’s maternal line, after whom he was named, was equally eminent.

Cuney was born and raised in Washington, DC, just a few blocks from Howard University where three generations of his family studied. Despite his privileged upbringing among the city’s Black elite, Cuney embraced his family’s passionate commitment to racial uplift and civil rights; in exploring the relationship between African Americans and their environment, he was thus able to transmute into two books of poetry a broad cross section of African American life; his poems and songs explore the lives of jazz musicians, athletes, domestic and railway workers, women and children, blues singers, prisoners, sharecroppers, and soldiers. In addition, Cuney published in all the major Harlem Renaissance journals and anthologies alongside the luminaries of the period, many of whom were good friends.

Through 100 of his best poems, many never before collected or published, and a detailed biographical monograph, Images in the River: The Life and Work of Waring Cuney introduces readers to a newly recovered Harlem Renaissance poet, and to the history of a remarkable American family.