Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) was born October 7, 1934 in Newark, New Jersey. He was an American poet and playwright who published provocative works that assiduously presented the experiences and suppressed anger of Black Americans in a white-dominated society. After graduating from Howard University (B.A., 1953), Jones served in the U.S. Air Force but was dishonourably discharged after three years because he was suspected (wrongly at that time) of having communist affiliations. He attended graduate school at Columbia University, New York City, and founded (1958) the poetry magazine Yugen, which published the work of Beat writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Following the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, Jones became increasingly focused on Black nationalism. In 1968, he adopted the name Amiri Baraka, and his writings became more divisive. In the mid-1970s he became a Marxist, though his goals remained similar. “I [still] see art as a weapon and a weapon of revolution,” he said. Source

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?

Published:

1972

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Black Arts Movement

Anthology Years:

2021

2023

Themes:

Agency

Intersectionality & Culture