The term “Jazzoetry” was coined by The Last Poets, who used it as the name of one of their albums. The term was applied to the revolutionary style of poetry with a jazz undertone that they had popularized during its 1970s heyday. While the term may not have applied as much to the written word, in particular, before then there were Black poets who wrote with an Afrocentric flow and insightful, inspiring fervor.
Amiri Baraka is one such poet and is considered the founding father of the Black Arts Movement. He was born Everett LeRoi Jones, in Newark, New Jersey, on October 7, 1934.
Baraka (still writing under his given name LeRoi Jones) found early success, winning the Obie in 1964 for his racially charged play, “The Dutchman,” which centered on the brief but volatile relationship between a young black man and a blonde. temptress. He later opened a school that emphasized blackness in an artistic, musical, poetic, and dramatic context.
He later divorced his (white) wife and took a more nationalist outlook and changed his name to Imamu Amiri Baraka. He remarried Sylvia Robinson, who adopted the name Amina Baraka.
In 1961, Baraka published his work “Preface to a twenty-volume suicide note.” Two years later came “Blues People.” But his real notoriety came when his poetry took a stance similar to that of the Black Muslim Movement and took what many called an “anti-Semitic” tenor. Since then, he has published 17 other books, including “Four Black Revolutionary Plays” (1969), “Raise Race Rays Raize: Essays Since 1965, 1971,” “The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka” (1984), and “Somebody Exploded America” (2001).
In 2002, Baraka was named a New Jersey Poet Laureate. One of his detractors is the black lickspittle and anti-affirmative action crusader. Ward Connerley. He described Baraka as “one of America’s greatest enemies and anti-Semites”, in reference to the poem “Someone Blew Up America”. That particular paper accused Israel of having foreknowledge of the 911 attacks and did nothing to alert the Americans. Due to the ensuing controversy, Baraka resigned from his position in 2003.
Connerly elaborated: “The New Jersey Council on the Humanities and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts formed a panel that named this “artist” Poet Laureate (one year term, no less) despite the fact that he had released dozens of anti-Jewish, anti-White and pro-Black Panther rants over the past 25 years…were the hip-hop lyrics truly poetic?…Now I’m beginning to wonder if there aren’t more Amiri Barakas out there, dishing out Dirt and hate in the guise of a poet laureate from another state. It would hurt none of us to check this out.”
Technically different, Countee Cullen was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 30, 1903 (although for most of his life he claimed New York City as his birthplace. Along with Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Phillis Wheatley, and Paul Laurence Dunbar Among others, Cullen was one of the stars of the Harlem Renaissance, during this time he published several books of poetry, “Color” (1925), “Copper Sun” (1927) and “The Ballad of the Brown Girl” (1927).
Although his subjects were black, many believed that he “wrote in white.” Cullen experimented with sonnets, quatrains, and other poetic forms and was influenced by John Keats. However, his work often dealt with racial issues.”
One such poem is “Simon the Cyrenian Speaks”:
He never spoke a word to me / And yet he called my name /
He never gave me a sign / And yet I knew and I came.
At first I said: “I will not carry / His cross on my back /
Just looking to put it there / Because my skin is black.
But he was dying for a dream / And he was very meek,
And in His eyes there shone a gleam / Men travel far to seek.
He himself was my mercy bought / I did it only for Christ
What all Rome could not have wrought / With bruises of whip or stone.
There is a symmetry and a flow to his words. It is simple but powerful in its expression of suffering. Cullen died in 1946, the victim of high blood pressure.
Haki R. Madhubuti is a poet who has achieved literary prominence in the Black Arts Movement. He got his first success writing poetry during the ’60s and early ’70s writing under his given name, Don L. Lee (he changed his name in 1973). He is also an essayist and founder and publisher of Third World Press, the oldest black publisher in the United States. He is also a noted speaker and educator, serving as director of the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at Chicago State University.
Madhubuti was born in Little Rock, Arkansas on February 23, 1942, but raised in Detroit. He began his literary career in 1967 with the publication of a collection of essays titled “Think Black.” Some of his other poetic offerings include the “We Walk the Way of the World” and “Don’t Cry, Scream” collections. He has published 18 other books, including “Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous,” “The African American Family in Transition,” and “Claiming Earth: Race, Rage, Rape, Redemption.”
His perspective is decidedly pro-black, seeking to raise issues for discussion and dissemination. One of his awareness works is “Change Up”, which reads:
change it/
change it,/
let’s go for us /
both cheeks are broken now./
change it,/
pass the corner bar, /
let yr/split lift you above that quick high./
change it…/
He takes a direct approach again on “My Brothers, My Brothers”:
my brothers/
I won’t tell my brothers
who to love or not to love
I only tell you/
that/
Black women have not been/
loved enough./
I’ll tell you/
that/
we are at war & that/
Black men in America are/
be removed from/
land/
Madhubuti states, “We are only equipped to survive, but survival is not enough. We go to malls and stores to buy goods from people who don’t even like us… We are buying things and we worship property. But first we must take possession of ourselves, when you don’t know yourself, you don’t have ownership of yourself.
James Mercer Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. He died on May 22, 1967 of cancer. During that 65-year span he created a vast body of work that includes more than 25 books (16 were poetry books), twenty plays, several autobiographical works, and radio and television scripts. Some of his most notable works are “The Big Sea”, “I Wonder As I Wander”, “Shakespeare In Harlem” and “The Best of Simple”.
At the age of 17, he went to Mexico for a year, and despite being with his father, he did not find it to his liking. He also served a stretch in the military and traveled the world, including several trips to Russia and Africa. The latter influenced his writing, especially in the poem “El negro habla de ríos”.
Langston began writing poetry in the eighth grade. Years later and against his father’s wishes, he dropped out of Columbia University. Shortly after, his first poem (“El negro habla de ríos”) was published. Known primarily as a poet, Hughes gained distinction by writing plays, essays, and novels as well. He created a series of books about a goofy character he called Jess B. Simple.
But his best known work is the poem “A deferred dream”:
What happens to a deferred dream?/
Does it dry/like a raisin in the sun?
Or ooze like a sore– / And then run? /
Does it smell like rotten meat? / Or crust and sugar on top–
like a syrupy sweet? /
Maybe it just sinks in / like a heavy load./
Or does it explode?
Hughes stated: “We younger black artists are now intent on expressing our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we’re glad. If they’re not, it doesn’t matter. We know we’re beautiful .And ugly too… If the colored people are happy, we’re glad. If not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how and stand on the mountaintop, free within from ourselves”.
Hughes’ heyday was in the 1920s. After a trip to Africa in 1923, he returned and flourished during the Harlem Renaissance. He took a job with Carter G. Woodson, editor of the Journal of, but returned to Harlem in 1926. He also went back to school (University of Pennsylvania) and earned his bachelor’s degree three years later.
The influence of these four men is alive and well, and their works serve as the impetus for today’s new cadre of black poets.
Paul P. Reuben, “Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones,” Perspectives on American Literature, Chapter 10
Ward Connerly, “Amiri Baraka Hits New Low”, The Washington Times, October 11, 2002
Amiri Baraka’s profile, Wikipedia
Langston Hughes Biography, Wikipedia
Andrew P. Jackson (Sekou Molefi Baako), “Langston Hughes” No more information available
