Etheridge Knight

Etheridge Knight (April 19, 1931 – March 10, 1991) was an African-American poet. 
Knight left school after 9th grade. He was underage in 1947, but he signed his parents' signatures to join the U. S. Army in 1947. He fought in the Korean War and he was hurt by flying metal. He left the Army in 1951. He became addicted to drugs and alcohol. He broke laws to make money for his addiction. In 1960 he was arrested for robbery. He was put into the Indiana State Prison. Later, he said, “I died in Korea from a shrapnel wound and narcotics resurrected me. I died in 1960 from a prison sentence and poetry brought me back to life.”
He started writing poetry in prison. Sometimes he was visited there by poets Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, and Dudley Randall. They talked with him about his writing. He was let out of prison in 1969 and married Sanchez. His drug addiction soon led to their divorce.
From 1969 to 1972 he was the poet in residence at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Hartford, and Lincoln University.
Knight was given money from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1972 and 1981 and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 1974. He was given the Shelley Award by the Poetry Society of America in 1985. In 1990 he got a bachelor’s degree in American poetry and criminal justice from Martin Center University in Indianapolis.
Knight died of lung cancer in 1991.