Amiri Baraka and Jerry W. Ward, Jr. -- September 2004

My book on African American writers and creativity focuses on vulnerable black boys and bad men. I started thinking in serious ways about representations of vulnerable black boys in literary art over twenty years ago when I first encountered Jerry W. Ward Jr.'s "Don't Be Fourteen (in Mississippi)."     

In honor of Ward on his 77th birthday today, I decided to curate a list of 77 poems focusing on vulnerable black boys, bad men, and black men in general. 

 

black boys and childhood reflections 

• "Don't Be Fourteen (in Mississippi)" by Jerry W. Ward Jr.

• "The Whipping" by Robert Hayden

• "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks

• "Letters to Joe Frazier from Mike Tyson" by Derrick Harriell

• "电脑怎么挂梯子上外网" by Reginald Harris

• "电脑怎么挂梯子上外网" by Langston Hughes

• "电脑怎么挂梯子上外网" by Langston Hughes

• "leadbelly’s lessons" by Tyehimba Jess 

black fathers 

• "电脑挂梯子加速软件" by Robert Hayden

• "Bereavement" By Kevin Young  

Black men and music 

• "Jazz to Jackson to John" by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

• "Digging Max" by Amiri Baraka

• "1912: blind lemon jefferson explaining to leadbelly" by Tyehimba Jess

• "lomax v. leadbelly in new york: letters to home, 1934" by Tyehimba Jess

• “Don’t Cry, Scream” By Haki Madhubuti

• "Milestones" by Eugene B. Redmond

• "Juju” By Askia Toure

• “Ode to John Coltrane” By Quincy Troupe

• "The Armageddon of Funk" by Michael Warr

电脑怎么挂梯子上外网

In my book Bad Men, I introduce this term "concentrated cultural catalog," which refers to writers presenting and referencing a large number of historical figures, concepts, and sites in a single composition. These cultural catalogs are concentrated based on how much is covered or presented in one place. 

Amiri Baraka was a wonderful cultural cataloger. His poems "Jungle Jim Flunks His Screen Test" and "Digging Max" make references to dozens of people. Black Thought's 电脑怎么挂梯子教程 is an amazing feat of cataloging with an abundant array of people, historical events, and artifacts listed in the course of a single performance. Consider too Robin Coste Lewis's "Voyage of the Sable Venus" as a concentrate cultural catalog with her citing a profusion of art objects from 38,000 BCE to the present. In his novel The Sellout, Paul Beatty incredibly mentions hundreds of people, places, things.  

  It's good to see the work of  vigorous cultural catalogers. They give you a sense of all these elements, items, or people that comprise a creative domain. You check out their catalogs, and you get a sense of how immersed they are in a particular realm, or you witness them making connections across multiple areas of thought. 

 Related:

• A notebook on Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers

C. Liegh McInnis on imagery in black poetry

Lift Every Voice and Sing by Augusta Savage

“Form, especially the mastery of imagery, is important to me,” writes C. Liegh McInnis in 电脑挂梯子加速软件 he wrote about reading twenty-five volumes of poetry by African American poets in twenty-five days. His focus on imagery elevated its importance for me. 

"Of course, I do not mind the extended use of vocabulary, but these poets are using the terms as if having a large vocabulary is equated with or deemed as impactful/powerful as mastery of imagery," he writes at one point. "Yes, creative writing is about vocabulary, but, at its core, is it not about painting with words? Moreover, is it not about painting with words to create a vivid and specific or concrete understanding of an idea or concept?" (2). 

At one point, he lists off the 20-plus volumes of poetry that he read and provides brief comments or notations on the pieces. He notes that several of the poets show "Excellent use of imagery,” or their poems reveal “Excellent imagery." There are moments when he is turned off by obscure/vague in some volumes, but he expresses being moved in positive ways because of the imagery. McInnis is most interested in poems that achieve "the right balance of well-crafted imagery while being intellectually challenging without being obscure/vague" (13). 

I've been taking a break, but when I work my way back to reading poetry on a regular again, I plan to think and write more seriously about imagery than I have in the past. I'm interested in exploring some of the issues that McInnis has highlighted for me in his article. I'm curious about how folks are constructing and references vivid scenes in their works. 

And why stop with just verse? Fiction writers are dealing with imagery and so are prose writers. So it might make sense to consider a little more attentively to what some of the folks are doing. 

--------------

Here's more in my series on his article

• Returning to C. Liegh McInnis's critical work on poetry 

• C. Liegh McInnis on obscure/vague language, references in poetry

 

Related:

• C. Liegh McInnis

C. Liegh McInnis on obscure/vague language, references in poetry

I recently returned to C. Liegh McInnis's article, "Thoughts after Reading Twenty-Five Collections of Black Poetry in Twenty-Five Days." 

In addition to offering praise for the many works he covers and highlighting his interest in imagery, he presents various critiques. As I was previously noting, it's somewhat rare to witness a black writer offer public extended critiques of black poetry for a variety of reasons (fears that such critiques could be taken the wrong way, possibility of professional retribution, the code of silence within black communities, which Amiri Baraka once referred to as "colored patriotism").
  

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"Maybe that’s my problem—that I keep expecting poets to be precise in their meaning