Harryette Mullen is best known as a poet but has also written short stories, essays, and non-fiction prose. Mullen, who has been called the "Queen of Hip Hyperbole" by the Hispanic writer, Sandra Cisneros, has published five volumes of poetry, and her work has been included in several anthologies. Given Mullen's creative use of homophones, metaphors, puns, and aphorisms, even her short poems are densely layered with meaning and imagery. She writes from the vantage point of being African-American, female, and a feminist. Her poetic style is influenced by Black Arts Movement, feminist, and formally innovative writers. She is not a "Language Poet," although like them she writes beyond the boundaries of "mainstream" poetry.

Source: Contemporary Black Biography