Photograph of poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar in the Public Domain
Paul Laurence Dunbar was doing a lot before most people even knew his name. Born in 1872 to parents who had been enslaved, Dunbar grew up with stories, songs, and a deep love for language. By the time he was in high school, he was already writing poetry—and not quietly, either. He was president of his school’s literary society and editor of the school newspaper. Casual.
One of the most interesting things about Dunbar is that he was bilingual in a literary sense. He wrote both in standard English and in Black dialect. The dialect poems made him famous, but they also frustrated him. He once wrote, “I have grown sick of dialect poems,” because publishers often ignored his more complex work. Still, he mastered both forms, and that skill is part of what made him unforgettable.
If you’ve ever felt like you had to hide parts of yourself to be accepted, Dunbar gets it. His most famous poem, “We Wear the Mask,” says it plainly:
“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.”
That line still resonates more than a century later.
Alice Dunbar Nelson Image in the Public Domain
Fun fact: Dunbar worked as an elevator operator to support himself while writing poetry on the side. Another fun (and painful) fact he was only 33 when he died of tuberculosis. Yet in that short life, he published poetry, novels, short stories, essays, and had an interesting and tumultuous marriage to writer Alice Dunbar Nelson. The marriage between these two is filled with letters that could rival a soap opera but also was matched with the same volatility. Schuges of Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Paul Laurence Dunbar wasn’t just a poet of his time—he was a poet ahead of it. His work reminds us that talent can bloom even under pressure, and that sometimes the quietest voices are carrying the heaviest truths.
