Jean Toomer (Dec 26, 1894 – March 30, 1967) was an American poet and novelist commonly associated with the Harlem Renaissance, though he actively resisted the association, and modernism. His reputation stems from his novel Cane (1923), which Toomer wrote as a school principal at a school in Sparta, Georgia. He resisted being classified as a Negro writer, as he identified as "American". For more than a decade Toomer was an influential follower of spiritual teacher G.I. Gurdjieff. Later in life he took up Quakerism. His papers are held by the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University. Less