Words of Protest, Words of Freedom

Poetry of the American Civil Rights Movement and Era
Herausgeber: Coleman, Jeffrey Lamar

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Poetry is an ideal artistic medium for expressing the fear, sorrow, and triumph of revolutionary times. Words of Protest, Words of Freedom is the first comprehensive collection of poems written during and in response to the American civil rights struggle of 1955-75. Featuring some of the most celebrated writers of the twentieth century-including Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, and Derek Walcott-alongside lesser-known poets, activists, and ordinary citizens, this anthology presents a varied and vibrant set of voices, highlighting the tremendous symbolic reach of the civil rights movement within and beyond the United States. Some of the poems address crucial movement-related events-such as the integration of the Little Rock schools, the murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers, the emergence of the Black Panther party, and the race riots of the late 1960s-and key figures, including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and John and Robert Kennedy. Other poems speak more broadly to the social and political climate of the times. Along with Jeffrey Lamar Coleman's headnotes, the poems recall the heartbreaking and jubilant moments of a tumultuous era. Altogether, more than 150 poems by approximately 100 poets showcase the breadth of the genre of civil rights poetry. Selected contributors. Maya Angelou, W. H. Auden, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Philip Levine, Audre Lorde, Robert Lowell, Pauli Murray, Huey P. Newton, Adrienne Rich, Sonia Sanchez, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Derek Walcott, Alice Walker, Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Duke University Press
• Seitenzahl: 384
• Erscheinungstermin: 9. März 2012
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 20mm
• Gewicht: 549g
• ISBN-13: 9780822351030
• ISBN-10: 082235103X
• Artikelnr.: 34163936

Autorenporträt

Jeffrey Lamar Coleman is Associate Professor of English at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He is the author of Spirits Distilled: Poems.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction. Journey toward Freedom 1
"Had she been worth the blood?"
> Remembrance / Rhoda Gaye Ascher 17
The Better Sort of People / John Beecher 17
A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi
Mother Burns Bacon / Gwendolyn Brooks 19
The Last Quatrain on the Ballad of Emmett Till / Gwendolyn Brooks 23
On the State of the Union / Aimé Césaire 24
Temperate Belt: Reflections on the Mother of Emmett Till / Durwood Collins
Jr. 26
Emmett Till / James A. Emanuel 27
Elegy for Emmett Till / Nicolás Guillén 28
Mississippi-1955 (To the Memory of Emmett Till) / Langston Hughes 31
Money, Mississippi / Eve Merriam 32
Salute / Oliver Pitcher 33
"Godfearing citizens / with Bibles, taunts, and stones"
> The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock / Gwendolyn Brooks 37
Little Rock / Nicolás Guillén 39
School Integration Riot / Robert Hayden 40
My Blackness Is the Beauty of This Land / Lance Jeffers 41
"The FBI knows who lynched you"
> Poplarville II / Keith E. Baird 45
Mack C. Parker / Phillip Abbott Luce 45
For Mack C. Parker / Pauli Murray 48
Collect for Poplarville / Pauli Murray 49
"Fearless before the waiting throng"
> Medgar Evers (for Charles Evers) / Gwendolyn Brooks 53
American (In Memory of Medgar Evers) / R. D. Coleman 53
For Medgar Evers / David Ignatow 54
Blues for Medgar Evers / Aaron Kramer 55
Micah (In Memory of Medgar Evers of Mississippi) / Margaret Walker 56
"Under the leaves of hymnals, the plaster and stone"
> Escort for a President / John Beecher 60
American History / Michael S. Harper 61
Here Where Coltrane Is / Michael S. Harper 62
Birmingham Sunday / Langston Hughes 63
Suffer the Children / Audre Lorde 64
Birmingham 1963 / Raymond Patterson 64
Ballad of Birmingham / Dudley Randall 65
Ballad for Four Children and a President / Edith Segal 67
September 1963 / Jean Valentine 68
"What we have seen / Has become history, tragedy"
> Belief / A. R. Ammons 75
Elegy for J. F. K. / W. H. Auden 76
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy / Gwendolyn Brooks 80
On Not Writing an Elegy / Robert Frost 81
At the Brooklyn Docks, November 23, 1963 / Dorothy Gilbert 81
Verba in Memoriam / Barbara Guest 82
Until Death Do Us Part / Anselm Hollo 85
A Night Picture of Pownal, for J. F. K. / Barbara Howes 86
Before the Sabbath / David Ignatow 88
Jacqueline / Will Inman 89
Down in Dallas / X. J. Kennedy 89
In Arlington Cemetery / Stanley Koehler 90
Four Days in November / Marjorie Mir 92
Sonnet for John-John / Marvin Solomon 92
Not That Hurried for Grief, for John F. Kennedy / Lorenzo Thomas 93
November 22, 1963 / Lewis Turco 94
The Gulf / Derek Walcott 95
"Deep in the Mississippi thicket / I hear the mourning dove"
> A Commemorative Ode / John Beecher 102
Mississippi, 1964 / Marjorie Mir 105
The Book of Job and a Draft of a Poem to Praise the Paths of the Living /
George Oppen 106
The Demonstration / Gregory Orr 112
Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman / Raymond Patterson 113
Speech for LeRoi / Armand Schwerner 113
When Black People Are / A. B. Spellman 115
For Andy Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney / Margaret Walker 117
"We are not beasts and do not / intend to be beaten"
> Riot: 60's / Maya Angelou 125
Attica-U.S.A. / Keith E. Baird 126
finish / Charles Bukowski 127
Heroes / Karl Carter 129
Revolutionary Letter #3 / Daine de Prima 130
A Mother Speaks: The Algiers Motel Incident, Detroit / Michael S. Harper
132
Keep on Pushing / David Henderson 132
Poem against the State (of Things): 1975 / June Jordan 138
On the Birth of My Son, Malcolm Coltrane / Julius Lester 145
The Gulf / Denise Levertov 146
Coming Home, Detroit, 1968 / Philip Levine 148
If We Cannot Live as People / Charles Lynch 149
Kuntu / Larry Neal 150
Watts / Ojenke (Alvin Saxon) 152
In Orangeburg My Brothers Did / A. B. Spellman 153
"Prophets were ambushed as they spoke"
> A Poem for Black Hearts / Amiri Baraka 158
For Malcolm: After Mecca / Gerald W. Barrax 159
Malcolm X (for Dudley Randall) / Gwendolyn Brooks 159
Judas / Karl Carter 160
malcolm / Lucille Clifton 161
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz / Robert Hayden 161
Portrait of Malcolm X (for Charles Baxter), Etheridge Knight 163
Malcolm X-An Autobiography / Larry Neal 164
At That Moment / Raymond Patterson 166
If Blood Is Black Then Spirit Neglects My Unborn Son / Conrad Kent Rivers
167
malcolm / Sonia Sanchez 168
For Malcolm Who Walks in the Eyes of Our Children / Quincy Troupe 169
For Malcolm X / Margaret Walker 171
That Old Time Religion / Marvin X 171
"In the panic of hooves, bull whips, and gas"
> Ode to Jimmy Lee / Jim "Arkansas" Benston 176
The Road to Selma / June Brindel 178
Selma, Alabama, 3/6/65 / Louis Daniel Brodsky 180
The Sun of the Future / Thich Nhat Hanh 181
Race Relations / Carolyn Kizer 183
Alabama Centennial / Naomi Long Madgett 185
On a Highway East of Selma, Alabama / Gregory Orr 186
Crumpled Notes (found in a raincoat) on Selma / Maria Varela 188
"Set afire by the cry of / BLACK POWER"
> The Black Mass Needs but One Crucifixion / Kathleen Cleaver 197
apology (to the panthers) / Lucille Clifton 199
Revolutionary Letter #20 / Diane di Prima 200
For Angela / Zack Gilbert 201
May King's Prophecy / Allen Ginsberg 202
Black Power (For all the Beautiful Black Panthers East) / Nikki Giovanni
204
Newsletter from My Mother: 8:30 a.m., December 8, 1969 / Michael S. Harper
205
[let the fault be with the man] / Ericka Huggins 206
The Day the Audience Walked Out on Me, and Why / Denise Levertov 207
One-Sided Shoot-out / Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee) 208
Revolution