https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/66d193593a066368d6a70174e1dee101.pdf 6576a25fba3c250e52dca291818e3051 PDF Text Text J:'REFAC.1:£ At this perilous juncture in Black history, on the eve of America's Bi-Centennial and amidst a new wave of Third World Humanism, Drumvoices comes as a partial rebuttal to those who say poetry's impact on mankindrs consciousness has been insignificant. The thesis is simple: that God 1 s Black trombones have historically blared through or soothed the harsh and stark realities of the Afro-American ~xperience; and that the sources(records) of these blarings and soothsayings, locked in cultural safe-deposit boxes . of drums and the intricate acoustics of the folk, ~emain accessible to anyone desiring to tap them. Such source.-spir·i ts ("roots") are what the author has tried to conjure up in Drumvoices, Gtiiiiiii~z-• which owes great debts to a lengthening line of marvelous visionaries, "known and unknown." As a reference work, this text makes a modest attempt to follow in the tradition of Vernon Logginst The Negro Author in America, Benjamin Brawley •s ·arly Negro American riters and The Negro Genius, Sterling A. Brown;s Negro Poetry and Drama . and J. Saunders hedding•s 'l'o Make A Poet BJ.ack .. We have_..also profi'bted immensely from- related' works by George Washington Williams, Benjamin E. Mays, W.E.B. DuBois, John Hope Franklin, Franz Fanon, Loften Mitchell and Dorothy Porter. Of the liter~ry histori ans and critics, only Brown is concerned exclusively with poets--though Mrs. Porter's many offerings also include a checklist of Black poets. Loggins ' study views :liilllll Black authotup until 1900; and Redding, Brown and Brawley examine them through the mid 1930s. Drumvoices combines all previous ventures in the area of the poetry--giving new interpretations and updating an exciting history which began with Lucy Terry who wrote a poem 229 years ago .. �Initially conceived as a monologue and later enlarged to its present size, Drumvoices is aimed at students and teachers of Black poetry, literature, history and culture However, the author hopes that all who read from these pages will benefit. The very general thesis stated above is consistently implied in the book 1 s approach. And unlike some recent works, this one does not present a consciously labored construct or aesthetical matrix, i e., Black Nationalism, 0~ Pan-Africanism, the Black Aesthetic/\ Alienation, though none of these alternatives has been overlooked whenever and wherever poets or critics have dealt significantly with them Occasionally chronology is violated since any time barrier is, by definition, arbitrary. (Jt was impossible to find birth or death dates for some of the early poets } Also arbitrary is the authors selection of poets and emphasis on various styles, techniques, themes or periods. Yet the organization of' the text is somewhat original since, at the time h as of this writing, no single work~discussed Black poetry from its beginnings into t h e 1960s and 1970s. As a history, Drumvoices includes six chapters: I, Introduction--Black Poetry: Views, Visions, Conflicts; II, The Black and Unknown Bards: Folk Roots; III, African Voice in EclipS?: Imit a tion and gitation(l746-1865); IV, Jubilees, Jujus and Justices(l 8 65-1910); V, A Long Ways From Home{l910-1960); Vi, Festivals an cf VI!, C.onc.i"~ion; A-Frer-Thoug,h{:t. and Funerals: Black fo etry of the L960s and 1970~AFinally there is a Bibliographical index. The historical aspect of this two-pronged study(critical and historical) dominates: the rationale being tha t ~~text which chronicles the development of the poetry is a prerequi s ite to sound critical assessment. Alsoi the author was not unmindful of the fact that most anthologies or studies of recent Black po e try are generally "loaded" and top-heatv-y with household names; hut none of them has extended their vision to include a :rt �representative( 11 complete 11 is out of the question) look at the numerous important centers where this poetry is being created. It seemed a worthwhile task, then, simply to suggest the demographic range of the l"hAd• new poetry. Such is the attempt ~in Chapter VIifhere the author has purposely decentralized a star-dominated pattern in the new poetry ~C.C,\.Wd~ in favor of a more truthful and historicalVJPicture of its development. One can pick up a journal or book in practically any library and read glowing praise of the new poetry; hence the author has simply referred readers to these comments instead of re-hashing them here. unfortunately, significant studies of 1eth and 19th century Black poetry were not available to the author while chapters on these areas were being written . But Jean Shermants Invisible Poets: Afro-Americans of the 19th Century and M.A. Richmond•s Bid the Vassal Soar: Interpretive Essays on the Life and Poetry of Phillis Wheatley and George Moses Horton, when finally received, provided additional insight and caused some slight reshuffling of this text. Of great service, however, was Early Black American Poets, William Robinson's important anthology(with notes); at this writing, it remains the bestts'burce for the period. The author is also indebted to a number of important works on 20th century Black poetry: Jean Wagner 's Black Poets of the United States; Frgm ~aul t.Q, Lang.stQn Hughes, Arthur P. Davis' Laurence Dunba_.: ~rn..w...l1.a~~..-Afx:o-:-8meri CWl Wrjters, ]900-]960, Donald Gibson's Ma.sl~rn, l3J.a.c.k.~ , Blyden Jackson's and Louis Rubin's ~la~ I!RJ<:t:cx,J..:. Am,~;I;,:;i,Ca .• George P. Kent Is Blackness ®4.. the.,.A,giz;euture ..,Q,t West,e;i;:n CuJ.ture and Joy Flasch I s I~in ,I?,. T,QlsQn, A book does not just happen and the fuel for this one has been pouring in over a number of years and from a great many sources. Germinating ideas came from various quarters: students, friends, teachers, and most importantly, from colleagues at Southern Illinois University's ~xperiment in Higher Education in East St . Louis . The �literally hundreds of poets., writers and thinkers {in Watts, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, Detroit, Cleveland, et~.)/ with whom tht. Cllf~O.. ha.$ t\ met and talked through nights and days, now stand faceless and nameless, but they are as much a part of this book as the author himself. Of special significance were the critical re a dings of sections ~r-,end an<! of this text by Ted Hornback, C1yde Taylor who 'ft- 0 "former teacherj i&lii 9 · ;!1~udl r~"thn,k'mg tlnd.\''f--W~~"Jjand £El;J' critic Charles Rowell who should have been commissioned to write the chapter on folklore. Likewise, for their patience, assistance and great stores of information, de.b+ tS Owed to librarians at California State University , (Sacramento) ., the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture obe""L in Colleg (whkhhasa. MIJqy, ({JUe,7idn e,/'taP~tJ-/!rn~Nc4nA.) (New York Public Library), A.t he r oorland-Spingarn riesearch Genter at Howard University, Oberlin College, and Southern University in Baton Rouge. While a book does not just happen in the mind, neither rloes it miraculously appe a r on the page. Hours of meticulous and relentless work wa s invested by my graduate assistant Julie Blattler who worked with bibliographical and textual problems. Younger to /It$, 8Latf1e,. and n1ysel.F assistants A:tr lhcso 1:mbtn• included Keith Jefferson a nd Ronald Tibbs. However, a lion's share of producing this book was assumed by Marie Collins, supervisor of Sac ramento 1 s Oak Park School of (sevt~(A.l 1ter.s,ons t;J Afro-American Thought, who typedA criticized and otherwise committed q),,a_11 /r.s. ~,-e fJ.UO dve. herself to the project. ~Beverley Williams, CSUS English secretary, also shared a portion of the typing load. Finally, my gracious editor, Marie Brown, deserves a huga salute for her encouragement, concern, and continued support of the writing-research through to the end. Onward,Btha EO ETS! "F'ugene • rtea.mona. March 5, 1975 Sacramento, California � 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_19 Title A name given to the resource First typed draft 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.