One of my most treasured black arts artifacts is a small volume Hey Fella Would You Mind Holding This Piano a Moment (1974) by William J. Harris, one of my grad school professors. The poems in the volume are far out and quirky in the ways that aspects of Thelonious Monk's piano playing was; the works have you leaning in a bit trying to understand then smiling to yourself when you consider the little twists and turns here and there. I imagine there were many volumes like these just below the radar contributing to and at the same time creating an alternative sense of what black poetry of the 1960s and 1970s was all about.
Related:
30 Days of Black Arts Artifacts
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