Synopsis
This new book of previously uncollected poetry (1984-1995) demonstrates Baraka's gift for the music of thought, and reveals his continued mastery of tone and performance. Engaging in the primary issues of African-American music and contemporary politics, and imbuing his homages to such grand figures of America as Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Sarah Vaughn, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane with a passion that has not abated over the years, Baraka glories in his own virtuosity.
Reviews
Baraka has managed to sustain his revolutionary ardor throughout increasingly conservative times, and this volume of previously uncollected poems will surprise no one who has followed the poet and activist's career. The collection covers his familiar theme of "the hole/ in the American soul" produced by racism, and Baraka continues to trumpet the power of black style, the "exhaltation & joy" found in the sounds of musicians such as John Coltrane and Thelonius Monk. Baraka isn't shy about attacking his enemies and critics ("What do you think/ of the movie/ 'X'?/ Spike/ Lie!"). His total commitment to a free-form poetics makes all of his work better when read aloud than on the page. When his jazz-influenced oral style works, it can be breathtaking: "When love is perfected, when love/ is understood./ When love is the law/ & the measure/ The ruler & ruled & body of/ of what is body mind of/ what is mind/ When love and the Soul/ are uncovered/ then you will always/ sound like/ Duke Ellington." When it doesn't, it can be almost a parody of itself: "Black snake the tongue of the world a blue/ chord coming the milky way, the jizm/ the stars shot out in." While Baraka's constant anti-Eurocentrism can be tiring, at his best he never forgets his own advice: "the universe/ is rhythm, and whatever is only is as/ swinging."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
For more than three decades Baraka has lifted his strong and resonant voice as a poet, dramatist, essayist, and activist, protesting and celebrating the injustices and the blessings, the tragedies and the triumphs of African American life. This volume gathers together 11 years worth of new, uncollected poems, and the swing of Baraka's musical lines makes itself felt in the very first poem, which is titled, aptly enough, "J. said, 'Our whole universe is generated by a rhythm.'" Music and poetry are saving graces, and jazz musicians, from Louis Armstrong to John Coltrane, ride the waves of these surging poems, icons of the creative spirit, of freedom and improvisation. One of Baraka's most cherished words is ascendancy, and his poems (some as terse as a curse, others as luxurious as a courtship) are, indeed, uplifting as they dissect the cruelty of oppression and hypocrisy, then revel in the hot funkiness of love, the liberation of integrity, and the comfort of spirituality. This is a potent follow-up to Baraka's selected poems, Transbluesency (1995). Donna Seaman
Baraka (Sky's, Wise, Y's, LJ 11/1/94) greets the reader in a state of rage. The Klan, Nazis, big business, nonartists, Vikings, Napoleon-you name it, Baraka strikes out against it. In his best poems ("The X Is Black," "The Snake of Lightning Thunder Clouds"), the anger becomes justified; his weaker poems are often simply catalogs of enemies, past and present. As was his forte in his early work, Baraka (a.k.a. Leroi Jones) remains capable of startling, often humorous language and imagery: in a poem praising knees we learn: "These knees are/ Called/ knee grows" or the speaker is one of "the unheard, the ones/ for whom democracy is a republican/ pornograph." Later poems also become more lyrical. "Othello, Jr.," a wonderful jazz riff based on the O.J. trial, begins a series of blues and jazz poems capturing the rhythms and spirit Baraka explored years ago in his critical book, Blues People (1980). This volume is essential for libraries, if only because it chronicles the progression of a major literary spokesman.
Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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