Born in
Brooklyn, New York, US, Dodson attended
Thomas Jefferson High School (Brooklyn) June 1932. Studied at
Bates College (B.A. 1936) and
at the
Yale School of Drama (M.F.A. 1939). He taught at
Howard University, where he was chair of the Drama Department, from 1940 to 1970, and briefly at
Spelman College and
Atlanta University. James V. Hatch has explained that Dodson "is the product of two parallel forces—the Black experience in America with its folk and urban routes, and a classical humanistic education." Dodson's poetry varied widely and covered a broad range of subjects, styles, and forms. He wrote at times, though rarely, in black dialect, and at others quoted and alluded to
classical poetry and drama. He wrote about religion and about
sexuality—he was gay, though he was briefly engaged to Priscilla Heath, a Bates classmate. He was closely associated with poets
W. H. Auden and
William Stanley Braithwaite, but his influences were difficult to pin down. In an interview with Charles H. Rowell, he said: :Well, every writer, at the beginning of his career, is influenced by somebody. Surely it's true that the ragtime rhythms of
Langston Hughes and the order of
Countee Cullen, his devotion to the church, have influenced me. But you know if you listen to
Bach and then listen to the early
Haydn you can see a cross between the two--you can see that Bach was influenced by Haydn. Then, if you listen to Haydn at his maturity and then listen to
Beethoven, then you can see that Beethoven was influenced at the beginning of his career. And if you listen to the greatest Beethoven and then you listen to the early
Brahms, you can see that the early Brahms was influenced by the later Beethoven. Then he became his own style. He got his own idea of life. You admire your father, and you imitate his gestures and his stance--the way he talks, the way he holds his glass, the way he kisses his wife. There is something about him that influences you. But then as you grow older, you begin to get your own style, your own class, your own idea of what is going on. Oh, yes, it's true that Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen influenced me. In drama, he cited
Henrik Ibsen as an influence, though again as an initial relationship later to be reworked and half-forgotten. ==Works==