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AFRICAN-AMERICAN POETRY, with its wellsprings in jazz and
vernacular culture and its inescapable political dimension,
stands among the most important bodies of literary work of
the twentieth century. This collection of essays and six
lively interviews with practicing poets, arising from the
now-famous Furious Flower Conference of 1994, provides a
mosaic of the major critical and aesthetic issues emerging
from the poetry and its literary milieu.
African-American poets writing in the last fifty years
have raised their voices in the struggle against racism,
sexism, political and economic exploitation, violence, and
injustice. Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Haki Madhubuti,
Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi Jones), Joyce Ann
Joyce, Sherley Anne Williams, Michael S. Harper, Margaret
Walker and many others have created lyrical beauty in their
exploration of public and private concerns. Unlike any
previous scholarship, The Furious Flowering of African
American Poetry draws readers into a dialogue with leading
poets and critics of African-American literature and
culture. The interviews and critical essays address the
adequacy and appropriateness of theoretical models for
assessing the work of black poets, the construction of a
literary framework in which to place the poets and their
work, and the art and purpose of the poets themselves.
Furious Flowering offers students, scholars,
readers, and writers of African-American poetry a chance to
take part in an unprecedented discussion of a complex
literary culture.
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"A blessing . . . a service . . . a race woman's gift in
the tradition of benevolent ancestors. This book brings
together voices of middle-aged militants and brilliantly
sophisticated new generations. It is an alchemical chorus,
filled with words, music, chants, kitchen-table
conversation, august critical intelligence. This book is
standard-setting--you cannot know American poetry without
reading it. All hail its editor . . . all praise to the
black academic activism it represents."
--Houston A. Baker Jr., University of
Pennsylvania
"Anybody writing about the literary history of Black
poetry should be interested in really understanding what the
poets were trying to do. The first thing that any critic
writing about Black poetry should do is read the poetry.
There are many people writing about my poetry who read 'A
Song in the Front Yard,' 'We Real Cool,' and 'The Bean
Eaters.' Then they're through. They know nothing about my
book Winnie which marks a very significant change in my
writing. . . . They need to know that I am interested in
Winnie Mandela, not just in Harriet Tubman and Sojourner
Truth. They need to know that I am interested in what goes
on in the streets. . . ." -
--from the interview with Gwendolyn
Brooks
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