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' ' At t h is perilous juncture in Bl a ck hi s tory ., on the e ve of America's Bi-Cent enni a l a n d amidst a n ew wa ve of 'rh ird World Humanism., Drumvoicea co me s a s a partial rebuttal to those who say poetry's impact on mank ind I s cons ciousness has been insi gnificant. •rhe thesis is simple: that God's Bl a ck trombone s have historically blared through or soothed the h ars h a nd stark realities of the Afro-American ~xperience; and that the sources (records) of these blarings and soothsayings, locked i:P.•, • ,, . 1~ ·'= ''-II, '· of the folk, t-emain accessible to anyone desiring "'to ~~ap them. source,,-$pi ri ts ("roots" )r, are what the author has tried ·to coh ,, ' · up in Drurnvoices, · • ·---z•• which owes great debtlto a lengtheni ,. of marvelous visionaries., "known and unknown." ~ ·, ' , ~-~ As a reference work, this text makes a modest attempt .. t t. ~-- ;.in the tradition of Vernon Logg ins I The Negro Author ,• ~.t. ':, ,1?·~Ame:ri.c 11 ~-. jamin Brawley•s Early Negro American Writers and The N'egro Geni ~•.. ·,..,. Sterling A. Erown I s Negro Poetry and Drama ~and J. Saunders Reddin To Make A Poet Black. We have~...als& cprofitted ' :tmmenael7of110111: ~ate.~hl . ,, . '!, l .works by George Washington Williams., Benjamin E.· _Maytt, W.E.B. DuBoi s , ~~ ' John Hope Franklin, Franz Fanon, Loften Mitchell and b'ofothy Port er: . / I,. • Of the li t er~ry historians a nd c ritics, only Brown is c~nc e rned ·ei - . . ~:. .• ' . ~ elude a checklist of Bl a c k, po e ts. Lo ggins I study v i ews .._ Black . autho\ up until 1 900; and Re d ding , Bro wn an d Brawley examine them through the mid 1930s. Drumvo ices combines all previous vEm'tures in the area of the p oetry-- g i ving new int erpretations and updating en exciting history which b e g an with Lucy •r e rry wh o wro te a poem 229 years ago. :c 1 "·•'!/! elusively with poets--th ough Mrs. Po rt e r's man y offerings also in' ~ ' ·cultural safe-deposit boxes , of drums and the intricate acoustics ~ •• · 1 ' 1 �Initially conceived a s a monologue and later enlarged to its present siz,e, Drumvoic es is aimed a t s tudents and te a chers of Black poetry, literature, history a nd cu ] tu r e. However , the author hopes that all who read from t he se pages will benefit . The very general thesis stated above is consi stentJ.y implied in the book I s approach. ~ And unlike some recent works, this one does not present a consciously . •, 1 ;.{.labored construct or aestheti cal matrix, i.e., Black Nationalism, · - or . ~,,-· r,an-A.fricanism, the Black Aesthetic/\ Aliena tion, though none of -,..~\ alternatives has been overlooked whenever and wherever poets or ., i?J,. ,, . ., · · t· ha.ve dealt significantly with them. Occasionally chronology is viola elnce any time barrier is, by definition, arbitrary. R •{!It ? f n i ff fliW I . ' was impossible to find birth or death dates for some of ~ early poets} Also arbitrary is the author 1 s selection of poets t. emphasis on various styles, techniques, themes or periods. Yet ': ~the organization of the text is somewhat original since, at the' tim has ~ pt this writing, no single workadiscussed Black poetry from its be~ 1 • I' , ,/{ ginnings into the 19 60s and 1970s. As a history, Drumvoices '1 ': .. _" i 1x chapters: I; Introduction--Black Poetry: Views, Visions, Conflic!is; \ •~~ J \/II, ~-ft • ~• ' I.• ' The Black and Unknown Bards: Folk Roots; III, -· Af"-rican Voice in ! l •;.. ~c;t.ipSe: Imitation and Agita~io n(l746 -1 865); IV, Jubilee.s , Ju'jus _and ~/~ {::.I "· ·;~ ,Justices(l865-191 0 ); V, A Long Ways From Home _( l 910-1960); VI, Festivals . ~ Funerals: Black Poetry of th e L9 60s and 1970s. Finally there is Ii J a Bibliographical• Index. The historical as p ect of t hi s two-pron ged study(critical and t I •.}lominates: the rationale being t h '.=tt I ~~ text which chronicles the develo :,f·, ot the poetry is a prerequi s ite to sound critical assessment. AlsoiJ the ~· .. author ~ I was not unmindful of the f a ct tha t most anthologies or studies (~: of recen t Black p o e try are gen F:: ra.lly nlo a ded" and t o p-hea'vy with house.: hold name s; but none of t hem has ex t ende d their vision to include a �~ representative("complete" is out of th i> que~tion) look at the numerous important centers where this p o etry is b eing cr N1. ted . It seemed a worbhwhile task, then, simply t o su ggest the d emogranhic range of the rt\t4dnew poetry. Such is the attempt~in Chapt e r VI wnere the author has 4 pu11tosely decentralized a star-dominated pattern in the new poe try I I in fa.-or of a more truthful and historical pi cture of its development. pick up a journal or book in practically any l ibrary a:nd read praise of the . new poetry; hence the author has simply referred to these comments instead of re-hashing them here. ,.. U~fortun~,t ely, · significant studies of lbth and 19th century po'etry were not 'av~ilable to the author while chapters on these ',{. I 1 ·, \ · ' ' ,, areas.· w re being written. But Jean Sherman,s _____ Invisible __:.. __ __ __;.. ______ ..;__ , the 19th Sentury: and M.A. Richmond's Bid the Vassal Soar: Interpretive ,7 -, · on ·the Life and Poetry of Phillis Wheatley and George Moses Horton, provided additional insight and caused some . :li' \~l a. . re ~· slight , • .,.1 h~ffling ?f this text. Of great service, howe v er, was Ea rly Black American Poets, William Robinson's impo rtant a nthology(with notes); at ~J, writing, it remains the bestAsource for the period. The author is , · lso indebted to a number of important works on 20th century Black l'Oetry: Jean Wagner I s Black Poets of the United. States.:., .E:cgm Pau}. Laur.§U~ Dunb~r "' Wr1 tere, J9QQ-J 960 1 and Louis Rubin's BJJ,d, Donald Gibson Is ~~.la.c.k...J:.Q,eot •.s' Blyden Jackson Is ' ~a,Q~ PRJi:ttY in Am~rjca, the Aslxenturs gf_:West,ern Cu] tu.re Geo r ge P. Kent's Bl8 ckness and .Joy Flasch 's H~. J..x,t11,.P. A book does not just happen Hnd t he fueJ for this one hns been pouring in over a number of ye ar s ond from a r;riw t many sources • ._ Germinating ideas came from various qua rters : s tud en ts, fri en ds, teachers, and mor1t importantly, from co1leDr,uc~s :it ;jouthc'r•n 11linois University's .l:!;xpo rimont in Hi t;twr .e:duc ntlon in bas t St . l,nui s. The . �•r ".literally hundre ds of po e ts, writ e rs and thinke r s(in Watt·s, New Yo rk, Ch icago, . New Orleans, Athmta, Det ro it, Clevel and, ete. ~with whom • #tt «111ftoh J. t.t.S · '\ met a n d t a l ke d t hro u gh ni gh ts and days, now stand faceless and namele s s, but they are a s much a p a rt of this book as the author hims elf. Of sp eci a l si gnificance we r e the critical readings of sections { fr-1end and tli 2 I of this text by Te d t-l.ornba c k , ·, Aformc r te a cherj C1yde Taylor who ~ 0 -1_P11:ucil rt'-1h1ntir-g u,t~t-W~~"ljand 'U critic Charles Rowell who should have been commissioned to write the chapter or folklore~ • Likewise, for their patience, assistance and great stores ; tion, deb+ts.o.fAled to librari ans at California St;te University , (Sacramento), the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library), the Moorland-Spingarn Hesearch Center at Howard University, Oberlin College, and Southern University in Baton Rouge. While a book does not just hap pen in the min!i, neither doec, miraculously appear on the page. Hours of meticulous and re.lentless work was invested by my gradua te assistant Julie Blattle with bibliographical and textual problems • .· Younger • ' \ ., '. • j .,_ ·assistants in these matters included Keith Jeffer~on' ap.d I Ronald \ • Tibbs. However, a lion's sharJ of producing this book was as.awned ~- by Marie Collins, supervisor of Sacramento's Oak Park School or Afro-Ame rican Thought, who typed, criticized a nd otherwiae committe4 herself to the project. Beiterley Williams, CSUS English secretary, also shared a portion oft he typing load. Fjnally, my gracious I I editor, Marie Brown, des e rves a huge salute· for her encouragement, concern, and continued support of th e writing-research through to the end. Onward, t ha E0 ~1' S I Fugene B. r<eafnona. March S, 1975 Sacramon to , Cali f o rni f1 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Text Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context EBRWritings_08_10 Title A name given to the resource Copy of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Preface, p. I-IV, typed with handwritten edits Relation A related resource Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For digital rights and permissions, see <a href="https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml">https://www.siue.edu/lovejoy-library/about/policies.shtml</a> or contact <a href="mailto:library@siue.edu">library@siue.edu</a> for direct inquiries. In copyright. <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B.