Friday, September 30, 2011

100 Black Arts Era Poems

Over the years, I've covered and returned to a large number of poems published during the black arts era. Here, I provide a list of 100 of those poems.

Note: * Connotes a poem written prior to the black arts era, but which circulated widely from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s in anthologies.


A - H

"Saint Malcolm" By Johari Amini
"The Evolver" By Amiri Baraka
"Black Art" By Amiri Baraka
"A Poem for Black Hearts" By Amiri Baraka
"Black People" By Amiri Baraka
"Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" By Amiri Baraka*
"Malcolm X" By Gwendolyn Brooks
"We Real Cool" By Gwendolyn Brooks*
"Martin Luther King" by Gwendoyn Brooks
"Riot" By Gwendolyn Brooks
"Bean Eaters" Gwendolyn Brooks*
"kitchenette building" By Gwedolyn Brooks*
"Strong Men" By Sterling Brown*
"Southern Road" By Sterling Brown*
"Good Times" By Lucille Clifton 
"How Long Has Trane Been Gone" By Jayne Cortez
"I Am New York City" By Jayne Cortez
"From the Dark Tower" By Countee Cullen*
"Heritage" By Countee Cullen*
"Incident" By Countee Cullen*
"Yet Do I Marvel" By Countee Cullen*
"The Song of the Smoke" By W. E. B. DuBois*
"America" By Henry Dumas
"The Puppets Have a New King" By Henry Dumas
"I laugh Talk Joke" By Henry Dumas
"Black Star Line" By Henry Dumas
"Funk" By Henry Dumas
"An Ante-Bellum Sermon" By Paul Laurence Dunbar*
"We Wear the Mask" By Paul Laurence Dunbar*
"Sympathy" By Paul Laurence Dunbar*
"When Malindy Sings" By Paul Laurence Dunbar*
"I know I'm not Sufficiently Obscure" By Ray Rurem*
"I Am A Black Woman" By Mari Evans
"Vive Noir!" By Mari Evans
"For Saundra" By Nikki Giovanni
"My Poem" By Nikki Giovanni
 "Nikki-Rosa" By Nikki Giovanni
"True Import of Present Dialogue: Black vs. Negro" By Nikki Giovanni
"Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)" By Nikki Giovanni
"Bury Me in a Free Land" By Frances E. W. Harper*
"The Slave Auction" By Frances E. W. Harper*
"The Slave Mother" By Frances E. W. Harper*
"Dear John, Dear Coltrane" By Michael S. Harper
"Here Where Coltrane Is" By Michael S. Harper
"El-hajj Malik El-shabazz" By Robert Hayden
"Frederick Douglass" By Robert Hayden*
"Middle Passage" By Robert Hayden*
"Runagate Runagate" By Robert Hayden*
"Keep on Pushing" By David Henderson
"Jitterbugging in the Streets" By Calvin C. Hernton
"Cross" By Langston Hughes*
"I, Too" By Langston Hughes*
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" By Langston Hughes*
"Song for A Dark Girl" By Langston Hughes*
"The Weary Blues"  By Langston Hughes*

I - P

"My Blackness is the Beauty of This Land" By Lance Jeffers
"On Listening to the Spirituals" By Lance Jeffers
“Jazz Is My Religion” By Ted Joans
"Tired" Fenton Johnson
"In Memoriam: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr." By June Jordan
"It Was a Funky Deal" By Etheridge Knight
"For Malcolm, A Year After" By Etheridge Knight
"The Idea of Ancestry" By Etheridge Knight
"I Sing of Shine" By Etheridge Knight
"Hard Rock Returns to the Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane" By Etheridge Knight
"Malcolm Spoke/Who Listened?" By Haki Madhubuti
“Don’t Cry, Scream” By Haki Madhubuti
"Assassination" By Haki Madhubuti
"But He Was Cool (or: He Even Stopped  for a Green Light)" By Haki Madhubuti
"We Walk the Way of the New World" By Haki Madhubuti
"America" By Claude McKay*
"If We Must Die" By Claude McKay*
"The Lynching" By Claude McKay*
"Tropics in New York" By Claude McKay*
"Malcolm X--An Autobiography" By Larry Neal
"The Summer After Malcolm" By Larry Neal
"Don't Say Goodbye to the Pork-Pie Hat" By Larry Neal

Q - Z

"Ballad of Birmingham" By Dudley Randall
"Booker T. and W. E. B." By Dudley Randall
"The Last M.F. " By Carolyn Rodgers
“Poems for Malcolm” By Carolyn Rodgers
"Me, In Kulu Se & Karma" By Carolyn Rodgers
"Jesus Was Crucified" By Carolyn Rodgers
"Breakthrough" By Carolyn Rodgers
"summer words of a sistuh addict" By Sonia Sanchez
"blk/rhetoric" By Sonia Sanchez
"Malcolm" By Sonia Sanchez
“a/coltrane/poem" By Sonia Sanchez
"Poem at Thirty" By Sonia Sanchez
"liberation/poem" By Sonia Sanchez 
"A Needed Poem For My Salvation" By Sonia Sanchez
"right on: white america" By Sonia Sanchez
"malcolm" By Welton Smith
"Did John's Music Kill Him?" By A. B. Spellman
"Juju” By Askia Toure
“Ode to John Coltrane” By Quincy Troupe
"For Malcolm X" By Margaret Walker
"For My People" By Margaret Walker
"We Have Been Believers" By Margaret Walker
"On Being Brought From Africa to America" By Phillis Wheatley*

******
This entry is part of a series--30 Days of Black Arts Poetry.

2 comments:

Mary Rose said...

This is a great blog series, Howard. I'm interested to know if you personally have any favorite Black Arts Movement poets and/or poems?

H. Rambsy said...

Thanks Mary.

Favorites? Hmmmm....that's a good question. Well, I'm a big fan of works by Larry Neal and Carolyn Rodgers. So a number of their poems move me. But I really like Neal's "Don't Say Goodbye to the Pork-Pie Hat" and Rodgers's "The Last M.F."

I enjoy the recorded version(s) of "Ego-Tripping" by Nikki Giovanni.

I like Baraka's work, but I admit I'm drawn to more of his post-black arts works.

Quincy Troupe's Coltrane poem is really outstanding. Love Haki Madhubuti's "But He Was Cool." Sanchez has one entitled "blk/rhetoric" that I find myself always returning to. Sanchez's poem "A Needed Poem for My Salvation" is another favorite.

Oh...and another one that I always look out for is Jayne Cortez's "I Am New York City."

Etheride Knight's "It Was a Funky Deal." Check. "The Puppets Have a New King" by Henry Dumas. Check. And "Funk" also by Dumas. Check.