Ray Durem
1915—1963
Ramón (Ray) Durem was born in Seattle. He served in the US Navy before enrolling at the University of California-Berkeley, where he joined the Communist Party in 1931. Durem joined the Loyalists during the Spanish Revolution and was wounded during the Battle of Brunete. While recuperating at an American hospital, he met a nurse, Rebecca Schulman, who became his first wife. Returning to the front, Durem participated in the Ebro offensive and was eventually repatriated to the United States.
Durem became a union organizer and left the Communist Party after the end of World War II. By the 1950s, he had divorced Schulman, remarried, and moved to Mexico. His best-known work dates from this period, when his poems were published in small journals, newspapers, and anthologies, including Langston Hughes’s New Negro Poets, USA (1964). Durem’s fiercely political work was important to poets and activists of the Black Power Movement, especially the posthumously published collection Take No Prisoners (1971). Durem died of cancer in Los Angeles.
Durem became a union organizer and left the Communist Party after the end of World War II. By the 1950s, he had divorced Schulman, remarried, and moved to Mexico. His best-known work dates from this period, when his poems were published in small journals, newspapers, and anthologies, including Langston Hughes’s New Negro Poets, USA (1964). Durem’s fiercely political work was important to poets and activists of the Black Power Movement, especially the posthumously published collection Take No Prisoners (1971). Durem died of cancer in Los Angeles.