Amiri Baraka, incendiary and emotive poet was born Everett LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey, on October 7, 1934. His
father, Colt Jones, was a postal supervisor; Anna Lois Jones, his
mother, was a social worker. He attended Rutgers University for two
years, then transferred to Howard University, where in 1954 he earned
his BA in English.
He served in the Air Force from 1954 until 1957,but was given a dishonourable discharge
after accusations of communism. He then
moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan. There he joined a loose
circle of Greenwich Village artists, musicians, and writers.
He married the- poet Hettie Cohen and began co-editing the avant-garde literary magazine Yugen with her. That year he also founded Totem Press, which first published works by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/03/jack-kerouac-march-12-1922-october-21.html and others.
His early work was associated with Beat
and Black Mountain poetics, and used his writing to duplicate in fiction,
poetry, drama and other mediums the aims of the black power movement in
the political arena, .and the struggle of American blacks for
justice.
He published his first volume of poetry, Preface to a Twenty-Volume Suicide Note, in 1961. From 1961 to 1963 he was co-editor, with Diane Di Prima,https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2020/10/diane-di-prima-pioneering-feminist-beat.html of The Floating Bear, a literary newsletter. His increasing mistrust of white society was reflected in two plays, The Slave and The Toilet, both written in 1962.
His reputation as a playwright was established with the production of Dutchman
at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York on March 24, 1964. The
controversial play subsequently won an Obie Award (for "best
off-Broadway play") and was made into a film.
After the murder of Malcolm X https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/02/malcolm-x-no-sell-out-19525-21265.htmlin 1965,
Bakara left the predominantly white literary world of Greenwich Village
for Harlem, where he founded the Black Arts Repetory Theatre and began
an intense involvement in Black Nationalism.The company, which produced plays that were intended for a black
audience, dissolved in a few months. He moved back to Newark, and in
1967 he married poet Sylvia Robinson (now known as Amina Baraka). That
year he also founded the Spirit House Players, which produced, among
other works, two of Baraka's plays against police brutality: Police and Arm Yrself or Harm Yrself.
He took the Bantu-Muslim name Imanu Amiri Baraka, which means
'spiritual leader,' 'prince' and 'blessed one,' he also became the main
theorist of the Black Aesthetic movement, which sought to replace white
models of consciousness with African/American language and values.Later
he embraced the philosophy of Marxism and became a supporter of third
world liberation movement.He also supported the revolutionary overthrow
of the capitalist system , for both black and white.
Scorning art for art’s sake and the
pursuit of black-white unity, Baraka was part of a philosophy that
called for the teaching of black art and history and producing works
that bluntly called for revolution.
“We want ‘poems that kill,'” Baraka wrote
in his landmark “Black Art,” a manifesto published in 1965, the year he
helped found the Black Arts Movement. “Assassin poems. Poems that shoot
guns/Poems that wrestle cops into alleys/and take their weapons leaving
them dead/with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland.”
He was as eclectic as he was prolific: His influences ranged from Ray
Bradbury and Mao Zedong to Ginsberg and John Coltrane. Baraka wrote
poems, short stories, novels, essays, plays, musical and cultural
criticism and jazz operas. His 1963 book, “Blues People,” has been
called the first major history of black music to be written by an
African-American. A line from his poem “Black People!” “Up against the wall mother f—–” became a counter-culture slogan for
everyone from student protesters to rock bands.
He became respected for his pointed social criticism and fiery
writing style, his voice incendiary, emotive, confrontational, He
believed poetry should rattle readers, rather than serve as decoration.
In
2002, as poet laureate of New Jersey, Baraka drew accusations of
anti-Semitism over his poem Somebody Blew Up America, which referenced
the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Baraka
refused then-New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey's request for him to
resign and, in response, a state law was passed eliminating the position
of poet laureate.
"Poetry
is underrated," Baraka told the New York Times in 2012, "so when they
got rid of the poet laureate thing, I wrote a letter saying 'This is
progress. In the old days, they could lock me up. Now they just take
away my title.'"
Somebody Blew up America
This controversy threatened to cloud the poems larger message.As
journalist Jeremy Pearce explains " the poem announces the plight of the
downtrodden through history, repeatedly asking 'who' is responsible for
political oppression across the globe. I thank Amiri Bakara for
rekindling the fire of politics in poetry.
The divisive politics of race and power continued to engage him. To Bakara, the vital connection between art and politics couldn't be more clear, " There's a great flock of lies that have to be refuted, and only poetry can do that."
The divisive politics of race and power continued to engage him. To Bakara, the vital connection between art and politics couldn't be more clear, " There's a great flock of lies that have to be refuted, and only poetry can do that."
Amiri Baraka's numerous literary prizes and honors include
fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for
the Arts, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Rockefeller Foundation Award for
Drama, the Langston Hughes Award from the City College of New York, and a
lifetime achievement award from the Before Columbus Foundation.
He taught poetry at the New School for Social Research in New York,
literature at the University of Buffalo, and drama at Columbia
University. He also taught at San Francisco State University, Yale
University and George Washington University. For two decades, Baraka was
a professor of Africana Studies at the State University of New York in
Stony Brook. He was co-director, with his wife, of Kimako's Blues
People, a community arts space,
On January 7, 2014, Amiri Baraka passed away, aged 79. His death marked the passing of one of the greatest and most important American thinkers of the last century.In
a statement following his death, Newark Mayor Luis Quntana hailed
Baraka as a man who "used the power of the pen to advance the cause of
civil rights".
Amiri
Baraka's poetry and prose transcended ethnic and racial barriers,
inspiring and energising audiences of many generations," Mr Quintana
said, His voice has since been used to speak out against
oppression and injustice. Amiri's revolution was fought with
words,that I hope continue to be shared and not silenced, and shine a
light, reflecting the worlds
mirrors, both in it's beauty and ugliness. Here are some of is poems
Political Poem
( for Basil)
Luxury,then, is a way of
being ignorant, comfortably
An approach to the open market
of least information. Where theories
can thrive, under heavy tarpaulins
without being cracked by ideas.
( I have not seen the earth for years
and think now possibly " dirt" is
negative, positive, but clearly
social. I cannot plant a seed, cannot
recognize the root with clearer dent
than indifference. Though I eat
and shit as a natural man. (Getting up
from the desk to secure a turkey sandwich
and answer the phone: the poem undone
undone by my station, by my station,
and the bad words of Newark.) Raised up
to the breech, we seek to fill for this
crumbling century. The darkness of love,
in whose sweating memory all error is forced.
Undone by the logic of any specific death. (Old gentlemen
who still follow fires, tho are quieter
and less punctual. It is a polite truth
we are left with. Who are you? What are you
saying? Something to be dealt with, as easily.
The noxious games of reason, saying, " No, No,
you cannot feel, " like my dead lecturer
lamenting thru gipsies fast
1964
The New World
The sun is folding, cars stall and rise
beyond the window. The workmen leave
the street to the bums and painters' wives
pushing their babies home. Those who realize
how fitful and indecent consciousness is
stare solemnly out on the emptying street.
The mourners and soft singers. The liars,
and seekers after ridiculous righteousness. All
my doubles, and friends, whose mistakes cannot
be duplicated by machines, and this is all of our
arrogance. Being broke or broken, dribbling
at the eyes. Wasted lyricists, and men
who have seen their dreams come true, only seconds
after they knew those dreams to be horrible conceits
and plastic fantasies of gesture and extension,
shoulders, hair and tonques distributing misinformation
about the nature of understanding. No one is that simple
or priggish, to be alone out of spite and grown strong
in its practice, mystics in two-pants suits. Our style,
and discipline, controlling the method of knowledge,
Beatniks, like Bohemians, go calmly out of style. And boys
are dying in Mexico, who did not get the word.
The lateness of their fabrication: mark their holes
with filthy needles. The lust of the world. This will not
be news. The simple damning lust.
float flat magic in low changing
evenings. Shiver your hands
in dance. Empty all of me for
knowing, and will the danger
of identification,
Let me sit and go blind in my dreaming
and be that dream in purpose and device.
A fantasy of defeat, a strong strong man
older, but no wiser than the defect of love
1969
Ka' Ba
A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and black people
call across or scream across or walk across
defying physics in the stream of their will
Our world is full of sound
Our world is more lovely than anyone's
tho we suffer, and kill each other
and sometimes fail to walk in the air
We are beautiful people
with african imaginations
full of masks and dances and swelling chants
with african eyes, and noses, and arms,
though we sprawl in gray chains in a place
full of winters, when what we want is sun.
We have been captured,
brothers. And we labor
to make our getaway, into
the ancient image, into a new
correspondence with ourselves
and our black family. We need magic
now we need the spells, to raise up
return, destroy, and create. What will be
the sacred words?
( for Basil)
Luxury,then, is a way of
being ignorant, comfortably
An approach to the open market
of least information. Where theories
can thrive, under heavy tarpaulins
without being cracked by ideas.
( I have not seen the earth for years
and think now possibly " dirt" is
negative, positive, but clearly
social. I cannot plant a seed, cannot
recognize the root with clearer dent
than indifference. Though I eat
and shit as a natural man. (Getting up
from the desk to secure a turkey sandwich
and answer the phone: the poem undone
undone by my station, by my station,
and the bad words of Newark.) Raised up
to the breech, we seek to fill for this
crumbling century. The darkness of love,
in whose sweating memory all error is forced.
Undone by the logic of any specific death. (Old gentlemen
who still follow fires, tho are quieter
and less punctual. It is a polite truth
we are left with. Who are you? What are you
saying? Something to be dealt with, as easily.
The noxious games of reason, saying, " No, No,
you cannot feel, " like my dead lecturer
lamenting thru gipsies fast
1964
The New World
The sun is folding, cars stall and rise
beyond the window. The workmen leave
the street to the bums and painters' wives
pushing their babies home. Those who realize
how fitful and indecent consciousness is
stare solemnly out on the emptying street.
The mourners and soft singers. The liars,
and seekers after ridiculous righteousness. All
my doubles, and friends, whose mistakes cannot
be duplicated by machines, and this is all of our
arrogance. Being broke or broken, dribbling
at the eyes. Wasted lyricists, and men
who have seen their dreams come true, only seconds
after they knew those dreams to be horrible conceits
and plastic fantasies of gesture and extension,
shoulders, hair and tonques distributing misinformation
about the nature of understanding. No one is that simple
or priggish, to be alone out of spite and grown strong
in its practice, mystics in two-pants suits. Our style,
and discipline, controlling the method of knowledge,
Beatniks, like Bohemians, go calmly out of style. And boys
are dying in Mexico, who did not get the word.
The lateness of their fabrication: mark their holes
with filthy needles. The lust of the world. This will not
be news. The simple damning lust.
float flat magic in low changing
evenings. Shiver your hands
in dance. Empty all of me for
knowing, and will the danger
of identification,
Let me sit and go blind in my dreaming
and be that dream in purpose and device.
A fantasy of defeat, a strong strong man
older, but no wiser than the defect of love
1969
Ka' Ba
A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and black people
call across or scream across or walk across
defying physics in the stream of their will
Our world is full of sound
Our world is more lovely than anyone's
tho we suffer, and kill each other
and sometimes fail to walk in the air
We are beautiful people
with african imaginations
full of masks and dances and swelling chants
with african eyes, and noses, and arms,
though we sprawl in gray chains in a place
full of winters, when what we want is sun.
We have been captured,
brothers. And we labor
to make our getaway, into
the ancient image, into a new
correspondence with ourselves
and our black family. We need magic
now we need the spells, to raise up
return, destroy, and create. What will be
the sacred words?
Short Speech to My Friends
A political art, let it be
tenderness, low strings the fingers
touch, or the width of autumn
climbing wider avenues, among the virtue
and dignity of knowing what city
you're in, who to talk to, what clothes
—even what buttons—to wear. I address
/ the society
the image, of
common utopia.
/ The perversity
of separation, isolation,
after so many years of trying to enter their kingdoms,
now they suffer in tears, these others, saxophones whining
through the wooden doors of their less than gracious homes.
The poor have become our creators. The black. The thoroughly
ignorant.
Let the combination of morality
and inhumanity
begin.
2.
Is power, the enemy? (Destroyer
of dawns, cool flesh of valentines, among
the radios, pauses, drunks
of the 19th century. I see it,
as any man's single history. All the possible heroes
dead from heat exhaustion
at the beach
or hiding for years from cameras
only to die cheaply in the pages
of our daily lie.
One hero
has pretensions toward literature
one toward the cultivation of errors, arrogance,
and constantly changing disguises, as trucker, boxer,
valet, barkeep, in the aging taverns of memory. Making love
to those speedy heroines of masturbation or kicking literal evil
continually down filmy public stairs.
A compromise
would be silence. To shut up, even such risk
as the proper placement
of verbs and nouns. To freeze the spit
in mid-air, as it aims itself
at some valiant intellectual's face.
There would be someone
who would understand, for whatever
fancy reason. Dead, lying, Roi, as your children
cane up, would also rise. As George Armstrong Custer
these 100 years, has never made
a mistake.
tenderness, low strings the fingers
touch, or the width of autumn
climbing wider avenues, among the virtue
and dignity of knowing what city
you're in, who to talk to, what clothes
—even what buttons—to wear. I address
/ the society
the image, of
common utopia.
/ The perversity
of separation, isolation,
after so many years of trying to enter their kingdoms,
now they suffer in tears, these others, saxophones whining
through the wooden doors of their less than gracious homes.
The poor have become our creators. The black. The thoroughly
ignorant.
Let the combination of morality
and inhumanity
begin.
2.
Is power, the enemy? (Destroyer
of dawns, cool flesh of valentines, among
the radios, pauses, drunks
of the 19th century. I see it,
as any man's single history. All the possible heroes
dead from heat exhaustion
at the beach
or hiding for years from cameras
only to die cheaply in the pages
of our daily lie.
One hero
has pretensions toward literature
one toward the cultivation of errors, arrogance,
and constantly changing disguises, as trucker, boxer,
valet, barkeep, in the aging taverns of memory. Making love
to those speedy heroines of masturbation or kicking literal evil
continually down filmy public stairs.
A compromise
would be silence. To shut up, even such risk
as the proper placement
of verbs and nouns. To freeze the spit
in mid-air, as it aims itself
at some valiant intellectual's face.
There would be someone
who would understand, for whatever
fancy reason. Dead, lying, Roi, as your children
cane up, would also rise. As George Armstrong Custer
these 100 years, has never made
a mistake.
Amiri Bakara: Evolution of a Revolutionary Poet
