ALL THIS MONTH OF FEB. IT'S BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND I HERE AT LIFE IN WORDS WILL BE SHOWCASING AFRICAN AMERICAN POETS.
Imamu Amiri Baraka
AN AMAZING CONTROVERSY POET BORN ON OCT. 7, 1934. HIS ORIGINAL NAME WAS LEROI JONES BUT HE CHANGED IT. HE IS A MASTER AT POETRY, DRAMA, ESSAYS AND MUSIC CRITICISM. HE IS A ONE OF A KIND, ORIGINAL POET THAT STEPS OVER TO THE DARKSIDE AT TIMES AND KNOWS HOW TO PUSH THE BOUNDRIES OF EXPRESSION.
HE IS WHAT TRUE FREE SPEECH IS ABOUT. HE PUSHES THE TONE, AND SMACKS THE FACE OF ALL THOSE LISTENING. HE HAS MANY WORKS OF POETRY, FROM VIOLENT LACED POETRY TO CALM AND COLLECTED POETRY. FROM POETRY THAT IS FILLED WITH BLACK OPPRESSION TO RACISM, SEXISM, HOMOPHOBIA AND ANTI-SEMITISM. AT TIMES HE IS HARD TO LISTEN TO AND READ BECAUSE OF HIS CONTROVERSIAL STANDS BUT WHAT CAN NOT BE PUT DOWN IS HIS POWER OF THE WORD OF POETRY. HE IS A MASTER TALENT THAT KNOWS HOW TO GRAB THE READER AND LISTENER AND FILL THEM WITH MANY MIXED EMOTIONS. I FOR ONE BELIEVE HE IS A TRUE MASTER POET.
POEM SHOWCASE:
Ka 'Ba
A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and black people
call across or scream 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 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 grey 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 read magic
now we need the spells, to rise up
return, destroy, and create. What will be
the sacred words?
BY: Imamu Amiri Baraka
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