The authors of the 1920s portrayed the hopelessness of what Gertrude Stein called "the lost generation." They represented the loss of grounding that many people, especially young adults, felt with the abandonment of the stringent Victorian morals they grew up with. Many of Fitzgerald's colleagues in literature during the 1920s shared his condemnation of the era's superficiality and used their works to broadcast their feelings. Others had different messages to convey, but all of the authors of the 1920s had important messages to deliver. Here are some of the major poets of the 1920s:

T. S. Eliot wrote poetry that serves as an excellent representation of the "lost generation" lamentations of 1920s authors. His poem "The Waste Land," in particular, demonstrates Eliot's feelings about the era he was living in. In this poem, Eliot laments the loss of the ability to love and ties this to the lack of faith in anything which he observed in the flapper society of the 1920s. He portrays his generation as incapable of love and frightened by the prospect of new, meaningful life.
"The Waste Land"

Gertrude Stein helped to shape many of the writers of the 1920s. She set up a salon in her Paris apartment where many of the American expatriate artists gathered. She encouraged many budding artists such as Picasso and Hemingway. Moreover, she wrote excellent poetry herself. She experimented with new ways to use the English language; she worked with using repetition of words to create new cadences in her poetry.
Selections of Gertrude Stein's writing and further biographical information

Langston Hughes was one of the most prominent of the Harlem Renaissance writers. His poetry celebrates African-American heritage and frequently deplores the poor treatment blacks received at the time. An example of his joyous portrayal of black culture and his longing for more freedom would be:





Dream Variations
To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done,
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
       Dark like me-
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly,
       Black like me.

James Weldon Johnson celebrated black pride in his poems, evoking the sounds of Negro spirituals, black preachers' sermons, and in some earlier poems, the black dialect. He figured importantly in the first stage of the Harlem Renaissance and published an anthology of black poetry entitled, The Book of American Negro Poetry.