https://digitallis.isg.siue.edu/files/original/382390ab6c05d8f127b7ae3fbcd6d447.pdf da48b7c97632c6ef1ea70ac4e2524ec0 PDF Text Text DTTRODUCTIOH CHAPTER I BLACK POETRY: II VIEWS, VISIONS, CONFLICTS .. . the double obligation of being both Negro and American is not so unified as we are often led to believe." Countee Cullen I During the last decade, Black American poetry emerged from its assigned position as an illegitimate--sometimes embarrassing--child of American literature to an official flower in the garden of world writing. Everywhere, on all continents, Black poetry is vigorously read, listened to and sometimes imitated. "Often imitated but never duplicated," quip the disc jockeys on Black-oriented radio stations--assuring their listeners that the "soul" or "heirloom" of their tradition is alive, well, and locked in ancestral safe-deposit boxe£. However, a silent reading of the DJ 1 s casually delivered quip belies the charismatic power and verbal dexterous·ness in "how" it is said. But, the '~ow" is always important in Black poetry and it will be one of the cornerstones in the discussions that will follow. To say that Black poetry is read and heard all over the world is not to say that it is studied in equitable proportion to other kinds of poetry. Indeed the current rash of anthol- ogies, individual collections, and the re-issuing of previously published volumes, suggest that a literary vacuum of criminal 1 �proportions has existed. The publishing flood, coupled with the appearance of new Black publishing houses, makes this vacuum glaringly, paradoxically obvious. The absence of Black poetry (or Black literature) courses from English departments at predominantly white colleges and public schools is ignominously aided and abetted by the culpable neligence at many predominantly Black learning centers--which often religiously place Walt Whitman over Paul Lawrence Dunbar, W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot over Jean Toomer and Melvin B. Tolson, Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg over Owen Dodson and Robert Hayden, and Marianne Moore and Edith Sitwell over Gwendolyn Brooks and Margaret Walker. One could go on, of course, reciting the cultural and literary negligence so officially a part of the academic and grants-in-aid scenes. The purpose here, however, is to explore, with teacher, student and layman, the vast richness of Black poetical and mythical life. II The study or teaching of Black poetry presents many frustrations, challenges and problems. Instructors preparing themselves to teach the subject must be aware of the many pitfalls, not least among them being the tendency of teacher and student alike to stray from the study of the poetry into political and rhetorical catharses. "Black" is a political work in the United States--and in most of the world--and to study or teach anything "Black" is to become embroiled in 2 �controversy and burdened with sociopolitical stress. That thin line between the ideological implications of a poem and those "trials scenes" so many classrooms and groups find themselves victims of is a line walked by all teachers and students of the Black Experience. In approaching Black poetry, then, one must "set" the atmosphere by dealing, from the outset, with substantive background materials. By "substantive" I mean the deepest philosophical, religious, ethical, artistic and cosmological tenets of Black life and expression. Thus a further intent of this handbook is to examine the scope and range of Black poetry via folk origins, methods of delivery, language, phonology, religiosity, racial character, recurring themes, individual and group identity, and poetic devices as they are developed indigenously or borrowed from other poetic traditions. III Like all bodies of writing , Black literature s,tems from a folkloristic trunk, making the job of teacher or student twofold: one) to deal with the great and complex storehouse of folk materials and themes; and two) to explore the chronological development of Black poetry--from about 1746 to the present. There are harmless differences among scholars over just where to start the study of Black written poetry. For example, in The Poetry of the Negro, Hughes and Bontemps begin with Lucy Terry's "Bars Fight," the account of an Indian massacre in Deerfield, Mass., in 1746. The Negro Caravan (an inclusive 3 , . �anthology edited by Brown, Davis and Lee) omits the Terry poem. Caravan was first issued in 1941 while the poetry anthology was published in 1949. The former begins its poetry section with Phillis Wheatley who first published poetry in 1770. Also omitted from Caravan is the work of Jupiter Hammon whose poetry was published in broadside in 1760. In Calvacade (Negro American Writing from 1760 to the Present), published in 1970 and edited by Davis and Redding, neither Terry nor Hammon appear and the poetry section begins with Phillis Wheatley. Early Black American Poets (Robinson) acknowledges Terry but Johnson's The Book of American Negro Poetry opens with Dunbar. Kerlin's Negro Poets and their Poems (1923) makes no mention of either "Bar's Fight" or its author; but Dudley Randall's The Black Poets {1971) does include the poem. ~t.14-ig~ This ~ only a random survey from the dozens of general and specialized anthologies. However, it seems that many teachers of Black poetry begin with Phillis Wheatley despite the fact that at least two Black poets were writing before her. Each one of these earlier poets was a slave, privileged by masters and taught {or allowed to learn) to read and write. Generally, they were spared the sustained hardships experienced by the majority of their brothers and sisters of color. -=Butmore w1JJ be said of them in Chapter Ill. In preparing this outline, I have allowed that some --en- -~~ will want to cover the full history and range of Black poetry while others may be interested in periods or 4 �regions. I have also assumed that many persons will want to move systematically through the poetry--establishing some sense of historical dev·e lopment and tradition in Black history, Black music, and the broad web Black culture in general. Hence, one of the main ingredients of this outline--as we move from chapter to chapter--will be the study of related and integral forms of expression such as folksongs, spirituals, blues, jazz, rhythm&: blues and what is known today as soul music. As stated earlier, however, the Black Experience is complex and frustrating. 1 At each juncture in the study of the poetry, for example, one teaching it will meet difficulties which may at first seem insurmountable. Some of these difficulties will be presented in familiar questions: Is a poet considered Black if be writes consistently--or temporarily--out of the "white" experience? 1. Can a Black poet really record Black experiences Most attempts to define the Black Experience have failed. And though I am dealing primarily with Black (North) American poetry, there will be references to other parts of the Black World. When one considers the cross-fertilization of folk and literary culture in this country, together with the existence of hybrid cultures all over Latin America and other parts of the world, the term "Black Experience" does indeed rebel against definition. It is hoped, however, that through continual return to the idea of the Black Experience (and discussion of Black life), the complexity and range of the term can be appreciated ·( also see bibliography). 5 �and feelings in English? Can a white poet write a Black poem {like the white musician who has developed a "feel" for Black music and has learned to master the technical vocabulary of that music)? Can white people "understand" Black poetry? Should white critics of Black poetry be taken seriously? 2 Black poetry primarily emotion and lacking in intellect? there a Black Aesthetic? poetry? Is Is Can a white professor teach Black How does Black Language differ from white language or English? And does Black poetry express the universal human condition? Black and white students will ask these questions (of themselves, each other, and teacher), indicating that they want more realistic and direct answers to some of the in-house issues which have consumed Black activists, artists, academicians, and white scholars of the Black Experience. The Black and white teacher confronting a racially-mixed class, an all-Black class or an all white class, will sometimes confront a distressing panorama of anger, rejection, fear, condescension,' accusation, anti-intellectualism, intellectual snobbishness, racism, distrust--and any number of other combustions of the contemporary student personality. The Black poets do not make burdens lighter since they, critically and thematically, are dispersed along a boundless spectrum of opinions, attitudes, creative 2. For a balanced discussion of this and related subjects, see Mphahlele's Voices in the Whirlwind. 6 �approaches, ideologies, techniques and literary ph i losophies. The teacher or student preparing for either a semester or year-long course (or for a "Black" unit to be integrated into a Humanities course, an American literature course, or a Black interdisciplinary project) should become steeped in the literature and lore of the Black past in order to give tentative answers and carry on adequate discussions when questions such as those above arise. After having been exposed to Black poets of national statute--via television pro grams such as Soul and Black Journal, at campus readings and conferences, Black Arts f es ti vals and coi,it::un i t y book parties--man:r students ( es pee ially Black students) may be informed, at the popular level, about the opinions and reading styles of the poets. However, neither student nor teacher must--and this point has to be stressed again and again--succumb to the temptation to "skip all poetry up until 1965. 11 IV True, there is great and growinG interest in the Black poetry produced out of what has been variousl~r called the Black Consciousness/Black Power/Black Nationalist/Black Arts/Neo-PanAfrican Movement. Yet one who defies the Black (or any) tradition will find himself engulfed in a maelstrom of conjecture and ideological hysteria; and the class, whose posture will be anti-historical, will be riddled with soap opera-type rhetoric about revolution and liberation and will s mack, again, of anti-intellectualism. Harold Cruse (The Crisis of the Negro 7 �Intellectual) points out that each generation of Black artists and activists suffers fro m a lack of historical/cultural tinuity. con- That is, they fail to study (or are unaware of) the mistakes and the pitfalls of past struggles and consequently find themselves in predicaments not dissimilar to those of their predecessors. Needless to say, such "cultural amnesia" is not the state from which one approaches the study of Black poetry. As observed earlier, the poets are not in agreement concerning what Black poetry is supposed to do, why it is written or whether whites can (or should) write or criticize it. 3 Reasons for the diverse beliefs and positions are numerous: the situation attending the birth and upbringing of the poet (note, for example, the distinctions between Claude McKay and Countee Cullen); his religious affiliation (Robert Hayden is of the f Baha'i faith; Askia Muhammad Toure is a Sunni Muslim; El-Muhajir 3. An important point at this ju ncture of Black poetry. For there is growing feeling among some poets and writers (many of who will not express the mselves in public) that there are concerted attempts to muzzle, circumvent or circumscribe some authors because of their personal political view points or their brand of writing. For further allusion to this, see back issues of the Journal of Black Poetry, Black World, and other periodicals dealing with the contemporary Black Arts scene. 8 �(Marvin X) is a member of the Nation of Islam (common called Black Muslims); K. Curtis Lyle was raised in the Catholic church; Sonia Sanchez expouses an Islamic position); his political leaning (which, in the case of many writers, is also religious); his preparation for poetry (did he go to a well-known writers school, pick bis talent up via individual study or apprentice under another writer); his associations with other poets (many Black poets, for example, hobnob (and this is historically true) with writers of other races; I met one Black poet in 1970 who had two masters' de grees but had not heard of Melvin Beaunorus Tolson!--a Black poet praised by the white literary establishment as having bested Eliot, Pound, Stevens and company in his technical virtuosity ); his current personal situation (does he live in the inner city? teach? time? play a musical instrument? write full write in other ,~enres? read primarily Black poets?), and his feelings on the question: t¼re you a poet first and then Black; or are .you Black first and then a poet?" Harmless as it raay seem, that rhetorical utter has entrapped scores of Black writers in ideological and political prisons-from which some would like to extricate themselves by asking simply: '~·Ihat difference does it make? 11 For the many poets, however, it matters a great deal and they have written profusely on the implications of this question and the several others listed earlier. The teacher or discussion leader must sample opinions of writers and students, sharing the diversity of opinions with the same vigor and thoroughness that 9 �the diverse creative works are shared. Such parity allows for a continual balance in criticism, social undercurrents and the poems themselves. be illustrative. Perhaps some examples here would Novelist Ralph Ellison has suggested that he is a writer first and that his racial identity is subordinate to that fact. Poet Robert Hayden has taken a similar stand (see introduction to Kaleidoscope, Poems by American Negro Poets, 1967). The same position had been take·n several decades earlier by poet Countee Cullen. In his critical- biographical introduction to Cullen's poetry (The Book of American Negro Poetry, 1922), James Weldon Johnson observed that: Some critics have ventured to state that Cullen is not an authentic Ne gro poet. This statement, of necessity, involves a definition of "a Negro poet" and of "Negro Poetry." There might be several definitions framed, but the question raised is pure irrelevance. Also there is in it a faint flare-up of the old taboo which would object to t he use of "white" material by the Negro artist, or at least regard it with indulgent condescension. Cullen himself has declared that, in the sense of wishing for consideration or allowances on account of race or of recognizing for himself any limitation to "racial" themes and forms, he has no desire 10 �or intention of being a Negro poet . In t h is he is not only within his ri ght; he is ri gh t. (italics mine) Johnson went on to note that because Cullen "revolts against" racial enclosures, the "best of his poetry is motivated by race." One could make a similar comment today about Ellison or Hayden. The works for which both are internationally acclaimed delve into the deepest regions of the Black man's psyche and feelings. Meanwhile some younger poets--those who gained exposure in the 1960's--and several poets and critics who straddle both generations lash out, sometimes not so diplomatically, at what they see as compensatory actions and unnecessary self-deprecation by the older poets. Pulitzer Prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks said in a preface to Poems From Prison that Etherid ge Knich t was not t h e "stifled artiste." The comment represented an i mplied rebuttal to Black and white "academic" poets. Elsewhere Miss Brooks referred to the "inelegance" of some Black poetry as being consis~ent with the bleak, drab landscape of hopelessness and despair felt by some inner-city dwellers. (Other critics, h owever, support the position of poet-critic Larry Neal tbat t110 Black Experience should not be defined in terms of "negatives.") During the late Sixties, Miss Brooks became a ki nd of matriarch of the New Black Poetry Moveraent (at least i n Chicago), ceased publishing with Harper and Row, and began to rel ease h er writings t brough Broadside Press--a new Detro i t- based Blac k publish ing 11 �house under the supervision of Dudley Randall, a poet, librarian, critic and translator. Miss Brooks' new con- sciousness, she declares, came about as a result of having attended a Black writers conference in 1968 at Fisk University where she heard and mixed with poets Imamu Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Don L. Lee, Nikki Giovanni, novelist John Oliver Killens, and a host of other writers, activists and artists. The violent social explosions in the cities, the Vietnam war that took so many Black lives and crippled so many others, the persistent emergence of Africa--all, Miss Brooks said, aided in the development of her new consciousness. written that it 11 She has frightens 11 her to think that if she had died before she reached fifty, "I would have died a 'Negro• fraction." Hayden, disclaiming the Gwendolyn Brooks' position, assumes he has been 'Black' all along and continues to reject any singular, unarguable position on the Black Aesthetic, or the poet-first, Black-second/Black-first, poet-second controversy. Assessing Baraka, Hayden admits that he recognizes the younger poet's power but deplores "his Black nazism. 11 J. Saunders Redding, a dean of the Black critical establishment, feels there is no such thing as a "Black Aesthetic"; Poet Paul Vesey (formerly Samuel Allen) calls it "a voyage of discovery--! think it will y ield return not as greatly as in music, perhaps, wh ere the black aesthetic dominates an entire cultural area of the west." 12 Many poets and critics, �on the other hand, ignore questions dealing with aesthetics, the level of Blackness in their work, to whom they direct their poems, and out of what mood or spirit they write. At the same time there are trends, some regional and some national, that teachers and students can identify. Needless to say, identifying and exploring these trends is immensely rewarding. Some prerequisites to an understanding of trends and attitudes that stem from the on-going creative process, including the poets' knowledge of their own as well as the general literary tradition are: a study of slavery, as it was instituted by Europe and refined in the United States; an examination of Black social history, and a scrutiny of West African and Afro-American folklore. The thorough teacher or student of Black poetry will want to steep himself in the history of Western Civilization; he will also develop an appreciation for the complex web of Black-white interrelationsjips in America, and prepare to navigate the often tense-filled readings and discussions. V Slavery is not the most pleasant situation to explore; and investigators of Black poetry quickly notice that practically every poet writes about lynchings--especially poets writing after the Civil War. Those poets who do not deal with actual lynchings, as we have come to know or interpret them, deal with half-lynchings, character or cultural defilement and the 13 �mental and physical destruction of Black humanity . If a discussion of slavery is unpleasant, then, a consideration of lynching is horrifying. However, skilled teachers and students will maneuver judiciously through the rough waters of su~h sessions--keeping emotional deluges to a minimum by admitting facts and clear interpretations. During such occasions, everyone must be on guard less the classroom becomes a courtroom. At the same time, a convener who cannot preside over vigorous and thorough discussions of these painful events and details may find himself, at later junctures, trying to bridge even wider gulfs of doubt, frustration, mistrust and alienation. Again, the teaching and studying of Black poetry (or any aspect of the Black Experience) assumes the complexities of the Black Experience itself. Nevertheless, t h e study of Black poetry is infinitely rewarding because it is a vehicle which distills the particular insights and perspectives of Black Americans into concise and authentic forms: mer 6 ing the rich rural-Biblical-urban idioms with colorfully luscious imagery and (in many cases) peerless technical proficiency in the use of literary English and Western poetic i'orms. When students are coni'ronted with the various poems on lynchings, for example, study can be underscored by an examination of language, form, posture, poetic toolery and overall achievement or effeciveness of the poems. In Richard Wright's "Between the World and Me II the lynched poet becomes the persona; the oak tree narrates the lynching in Dunbar's "The Haunted Oak." 14 . �Cullen speaks as "I" in "Scottsboro, Too, Is Horth Its Song" which admonishes white American poets for remaining silent over unjust treatment of Black men while they sing: ••• sharp and pretty Tunes for Sacco and Vanzetti, I said: Here toe's a cause devinely spun For those whose eyes are on the sun, Here in epitome Is all disgrace And epic wrong, Like wine to brace The minstrel heart, and blare it into song. In McKay's "The Lynching" the killing of the Black man is made ahalagous to the crucifixion; a sonnet, and awesome throughout, the poem descends to its rhyming couplet with a final ghostly irony: And little lads, lynchers that were to be, Danced round the dredful thing in fiendish glee. Certainly in these poems--and the dozens of others that employ the lynching theme--there is much fuel for papers, classroom discussion and teacher preparation. In the four poems mentioned, the poets span such diverse forms as the sonnet, the ballad (Dunbar) and free verse {Wright). Helpful in this area will be the additional inquiry, by teacher and student, into the development of white hate groups such as the Ku Klux Inan 15 �and the history of race riots in America. Riots in at least a dozen American communities in 1919, for example, helped spur McKay to write "If We Must Die", a poignant sonnet with its even more poignant and popular ending couplet-Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting backf --a poem which Winston Churchill read before the Ho-qse of Commons, during World War II, to spark his countrymen in the dim hours; during the 1972 prison rebellion in Attica, N.Y., journalists found the poem scribbled on the wall of a cell and the national press attributed it to a prisoner! Of great assistance, too is a knowledge of tre history of slave revolts (many Black poets write about them) and the patterns of violence in America. Attuned teachers and students will want to consult sources such as 100 Years of Lynching (Ginzberg ), back issues of Black and liberal white news journals and papers and especially past issues of The Crisis, the official news and opinion arm of the National Association For The Advancement of Colored People. The scholar, W.E.B. DuBois, one of tj1e first Black men to receive a Ph.D., edited The Crisis for over 20 years from its beginning in 1910. For further readings, the teacher can refer to my extensive bibliography plus appropriate sections of any of the numerous anthologies, textbooks and bibliographical sources available. VI While I admit that information and opinions contained in 16 �this handbook reflect my own biases as a teacher, critic, activist, and poet, the prescribed patterns for teaching and studying Black poetry are ones generally adhered to across the country. The organization of any course is certain to mirror at least a minimum amount of the teacher's own political and critical biases. Consequently, when lecturing on or pre- paring curricula for Black poetry, I normally allow for a flexible outline, including options in both textbook use and period emphasis. The same holds true for concentration or saturation of study with re gards to individual poets. Teachers, naturally, will have personal preferences; in fact, like the students, teachers may even have developed attachments to specific poets, attitudes about the poets or prejudices toward poets who do not reflect what they feel is a correct posture for Black poetry. Just as there is ereat and h ealthy diversity in the poetry and the poets, t h ere will be divergent attitudes and critical points of view among teach ers and students. Some of the differentiations will be due to age differences (the "generation gag "?), as is the case with the poets, and some will occur regardless of age. The Black or white teacher should arm h imself to the best of his ability with the tools of criticism and a knowledge of Black culture. He must have some idea of what part "duality" plays in the lives of Blacks and how such "twoness" is manifest in Black poetry ; he sh ould reco gnize the key issues being raised by and debated among Black artists, scholars and 17 �activists--and have some feel for t h e historical circumstances out which these issue s and debates grew; he ought to understand Baraka's reference to some Black poets as "integrationists" and "art~r poets 11 ; b e will have to know ·what many of the Hew Black poets mean wh en t h ey say t bey reject Western "forms" and refuse to be judged , y wh ite sta no. ards (Bara.ka, for exa,:iple, 1 talks about post-American forms); he will also want to recognize Black in-house humor and intracommunal disparagement in words and phrases like "nigger, "oreo, 11 "colored, 11 "the man, 11 11 11 "negro," ''Uncle Tom, dicty," "bad mouth," "bust a nut," "brother," "crumbcrushers," "main squeeze, "Mr. Charley. 11 11 11 and (For further indication of this dictional and phonological richness and t h e breadth of Black Language, see The Dictionary of American Slang, Afro-American Slang, the 11 :i'·Ta jor' s Dictionary of Glossory of Selected Terms" in The Psychology of Black Laneuage (Haskins and Butts), Abraham's Deep Down in the Jungle, Andrews' and OWens' Black Language, Claerbout's Black Jargon in ·white America, Twi ggs' Pan-African Language in the Uestern Hemisphere, Welmers' African Language Structures, Kochman's Rappin' and Stylin' Out, and Dillard's Black English. Additionally the teacher or student will want to know the motivations of some of the poets. All poets, for example, do not rate being called "poets" in the traditional (white or Black) sense. Redding, in a. recent Muhammad Spee.ks interview, accused some of t he new Black writers of lacking •moral and 18 �esthetic' integrity' and called them 'literary hustlers'. Observing that Baraka recently signed a 10-year contract with Random House, Redding said such an act is inconsistent with the poet's nationalistic assertions and positions. In a recent Black World article, novelist and poet Ishmael Reed spoke disparagingly of some of the new Black critics ("Blackopaths") and poets ("nationtime poets," was the reference). Poet-essayist Lee has chided poet Nikki Giovanni for being an "individual" who lacks technical abilities; and in a recent issue of Jet magazine a reader irately asked if Miss Giovanni deserved respect after accepting a Woman-of-the-Year award from a national wh ite women's organization. Miss Giovanni and Reed were nominated for Pulitzer Prizes in 1973. Hayden, a member of the older group of poets, wh o was only 17 years old when the Harlem Renaissance burned out, feels that Lee (praised by Gwendolyn Brooks, Hoyt Fuller of Black World, Randall and Baraka) has potential as a poet but lacks discipline and seems unable to separate poetic technique from ideological ranting . On the other hand, Stephen Henderson, author-editor of Understand The Uew Black Poetry praises Lee relentlessly and says his popularity is "tantamount to stardom". Henderson, who holds a Ph .D., is currently chairman of the new Humanities division at Howard University where Lee is a writer-in-residence. Miss Brooks gives Lee credit (in her introduction to The Poetry of Black America) for spawning much of the contemporary Black consciousness literature. 19 �Any seriously dealing ·with the development of Black poetry as a body of writing, must be aware of these intense feelings and positions. One must also organize orderly discussions or readings around the divergent views; in this way the classroom or rap sessions do not become melees and participants get a complete picture of the richness and vastness of Black poetry and the political, social and h istorical tensions out of' which the poetry is generated. Writing on the New Black Poetry, (The United States in Literature, Miller, Hayden and 0'Neal), Hayden says: The emergence of a so-called school of Black Poetry in America h as been one of the si gnificant literary developments of the modern period. Although the Harlem Renaissance of t he 1920's brough t certain Afro-American poets into prominence, it was not until t h e intensification of the c iv il ri ghts struggle during t h e 1 960 1 s that a separate group of black poets began to take sh ape. Avowedly nationalistic (th at is, racially proud) and scornful of western aesthetics, these poets continued the protest traditio n, h istorically associated with Ne gro writers. But t h ey were more radical in outlook t h an t h eir predecessors. Unlike the Harlem group, they rejected entry into the mainstream of American literature as a desirable goal. Th ey insisted t h at their poetry 20 �could not be judged by white standards, urging its importance as an expression of black consciousness. LeRoi Jones--the most influential of the young activist poets--Don L. Lee, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Mari Evans, Etheridge Kni ght, and David Henderson attune their lyres to the 'black esthetic.' Not yet satisfactorily defined, this term, originating in the sixties, may be interpreted as a sense of the spiritual and artistic values of blackness. It is, perhaps, a logical (some would say 'ch auvinistic') reaction to negative American racial attitudes. Perhaps the concept is best summarized by the slogan 'Black i s beautiful.' Those wh o accept this point of view re gard Ne gro subj ect matter as their exclusive domain, feelin g t hat only those who h ave shared 'black experience' can articulate it. Older poets wh ose work shows some ali gnment with the New Black Poetry include Margaret Walker and Gwendolyn Brooks, winner of the Pulitzer in 1950. 'Whether poetry should be valued prini R.,.. i ]."tr f 01" t ~~P. n11i nue. ·i 11ner exper ience i t I �that often recurs in discussions of true function of art today. Hayden's opening comments, then, corroborate tbe opening sentence to this introduction--that Black poetry , re gardless of one's position on it, is one of the most important movements on the literary scene today. Yet, while it is exciting to study this "poetry in process" (if you please), tbe enthusiast must be on guard not to skip the tradition (tbe folk precedents) in favor of plunging into a Black poem that heaps wrath on Watergate conspirators, or urban policemen who shoot rioters and looters. Swirling around and through the whole range of Black poetry, then, is the complex and multi-leveled nature of Black life. VII Many of the "literary hustlers" to whom Redding refers have capitalized on tbe topical and episodic issues--with little or no training in the Black tradition or writing. Hence, the student must assume that just because a statement is "relevant," it is poetry! will 11 The Black or white researcher dig ••• deeper to the gold 11 --in the words of James David Carruthers-- and "establish" a sound tradition against which to measure the Black poetry of today. If the Black poet in question fails, he fails because be collapses from the weight of the past--instead of being buoyed up by it. In establishing this sound tradition, the teachers and students must realize, first, that the Black Experience is not monolithic--although 22 �recurring trends and broad i r.1plica.tions do exist in the areas of language, religion, humor, dance, music and eeneral life style. Oddly enough, however, there is often more consistency in what Blacks know about popular "American" culture. L~ There are several reasons for such a paradoxical i rabalance and lack of .focus--many of them locked in the eni gmatic see-saw of Black history. Ellison observed in t he 1940's that if Black leaders ever unraveled t he puzzle of the zoot suit and the dark glasses (meaning t he secret of Black urban "styling" habits), they could, perhaps, take the political and psychological reigns of Black masses from whites. observation was accurate. Ellison's James Baldwin has written that, in Europe, he looked at the great Renaissance masterpieces and felt ashamed that his race had not produced such work. Baldwin was not aware that the great Italian painter, Pablo Picasso, had borrowed h eavily from African motifs, nor that the architect, Lee-Corbousier, was greatly influenced by thatched-roof huts used in Africa by Balwin's ancestors. The implications of this part of my disc ussion are many and far reaching because central to the idea of teaching and learning is what teachers and students expect from each other. 4. Ellison's, For an exciting r ecitation and indictment via a "cultural quiz", listen to poet-critic Stanley Croucb•s Ain't No Ambulances for no Ni gc;ah s Tonieh t (Flying Dutchman). 23 �Crouch's and Baldwin's observations are ti mely' and i mportant. They suggest to us that many, if not most, of t h e students who are in Black poetry (Black Studies) classes do not have a working knowlede e of the tradition out of wh ich the poetry grew. It bas beco me popular, in some quarters, to i gnore this fact which Ellison and others have so painfully and poignantly expressed. The teacher who assumes that a class of Black (or white) students is knowledgeable about the Black literary tradition is in for real trouble and many disappointments. The fore going point cannot be stressed too often or too emphatically. Interestingly enough , t he majorit:r of t be persons who want to know something about Black poetry are not preoccupied with the craft of poetry--wi th the bows and wh~rs of poetry. Rather the students and casual readers, Black and white, seem to be more interested in the sociological (some teachers say "pathological") aspects of the poetry. The situation varies, of course, fro m campus to campus, fro m atmosph ere to atmosphere, and from Black to white to interracial settings. Here again the enthusiast has to draw tbe line and keep the persuit of the poetry "ti ght" in terms of the discipline demanded by the poetry itself. Another problem the investi gators confront is how to organize segments when an appreciation of the material is what is sought. Th e "appreciation" approach could be the result of one's initial conception of t h e poetry or dictated 24 �by level of interest and preparation. A casual reader, for example, would not study the same poems with the same intensity as would a senior or graduate-level English major. Nevertheless, the teacher, students and poetry lovers must bear in mind that they are investigating Black poetry and not merely some literary imitation of traditional Western poetry--even though the two converge time and time again. Here, too, the point cannot be over-emphasized because in the context of racial and intellectual mixtures, the melting pot is all too often likely to boil over. Example: white students, well grounded in t h eir own literary tradition and having a skeletal knowledge of Black Culture will want to surge ahead. Not recognizing that many Black (and some white) students do not know the meanings of simple poetic devices (such as metaphors, similes, alliteration and onomatopoeia), the insensitive teacher and "aggressive" students could press on to the point of premature destruction of group participation. Such situations occur over and over. ' Even the best teachers of literature often take for granted that every student has been drilled in the use of fi gurative language. Ironically, many of the students have been "drilled" in the figures; but, the holes opened b y t h e drilling allowed the information to go in one ear and out the other! Many students, in the whir of words in the classroom and group discussions will not say they do not know t he names of poetic devices-especially if they happen to be Black students and think the 25 �instructor expects them to be "experts" on the Black Experience. On the other hand, the intellectual snobbery that often accompanies the development of student "clicks" should not be allowed to prevail in a course in Black poetry. Luckily, for teacher, student and general reader, the curves and crests and peaks in the study of Black poetry keep bringing all aspects of human nature full circle. 26 � 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. 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_07_54 Title A name given to the resource Copy of draft of Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry: A Critical History, Introduction and Chapter I 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> Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Redmond, Eugene B.