Aldon Lynn Nielsen

Lauri Ramey

What I Say: Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America is the second book in a landmark two-volume anthology that explodes narrow definitions of African American poetry by examining experimental poems often excluded from previous scholarship. The first volume, Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone, covers the period from the end of World War II to the mid-1970s. In What I Say, editors Aldon Lynn Nielsen and Lauri Ramey have assembled a comprehensive and dynamic collection that brings this pivotal work up to the present day. The elder poets in this collection, such as Nathaniel Mackey, C. S. Giscombe, Will Alexander, and Ron Allen, came of age during and were powerfully influenced by the Black Arts Movement, and What I Say grounds the collection in its black modernist roots. In tracing the fascinating and unexpected paths of experimentation these poets explored, however, Nielsen and Ramey reveal the tight delineations of African American poetry that omitted noncanonical forms. This invigorating panoply of work, when restored, brings into focus the creatively elastic frontiers and multifaceted expressions of contemporary black poetry. Several of the poets discussed in What I Say forged relationships with members of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry movement and participated in the broader community of innovative poetry that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s and continues to exert a powerful influence today. Each volume can stand on its own, and reading them in tandem will provide a clear vision of how innovative African American poetries have evolved across the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. What I Say is infinitely teachable, compelling, and rewarding. It will appeal to a broad readership of poets, poetics teachers, poetics scholars, students of African American literature in nonnarrative forms, Afro-futurism, and what lies between the modern and the contemporary in global and localized writing practices.

Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America

What I Say

Showcases brilliant and experimental work in African American poetry. Just prior to the Second World War, and even more explosively in the 1950s and 1960s, a far-reaching revolution in aesthetics and prosody by black poets ensued, some working independently and others in organized groups. Little of this new work was reflected in the anthologies and syllabi of college English courses of the period. Even during the 1970s, when African American literature began to receive substantial critical attention, the work of many experimental black poets continued to be neglected. Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone presents the groundbreaking work of many of these poets who carried on the innovative legacies of Melvin Tolson, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Robert Hayden. Whereas poetry by such key figures such as Amiri Baraka, Tolson, Jayne Cortez, Clarence Major, and June Jordan is represented, this anthology also elevates into view the work of less studied poets such as Russell Atkins, Jodi Braxton, David Henderson, Bob Kaufman, Stephen Jonas, and Elouise Loftin. Many of the poems collected in the volume are currently unavailable and some will appear in print here for the first time. Coeditors Aldon Lynn Nielsen and Lauri Ramey provide a critical introduction that situates the poems historically and highlights the ways such poetry has been obscured from view by recent critical and academic practices. The result is a record of experimentation, instigation, and innovation that links contemporary African American poetry to its black modernist roots and extends the terms of modern poetics into the future.

An Anthology of Innovative Poetry by African Americans

Every Goodbye Ain't Gone

Offers a critical history of African American poetry from the transatlantic slave trade to present day hip-hop.

A History of African American Poetry

In 1962, the Heritage Series of Black Poetry, founded and edited by Paul Breman, published Robert Hayden's A Ballad of Remembrance. By 1975, the Series had published 27 volumes by some of the twentieth-century's most important and influential poets. As elaborated in Lauri Ramey's extensive scholarly introduction, this innovative volume has dual purposes: To provide primary sources that recover the history and legacy of this groundbreaking publishing venture, and to serve as a research companion for scholars working on the Series and on twentieth-century black poetry. Never-before-published primary materials include Paul Breman's memoir, retrospectives by several of the poets published in the Series, a photo-documentary of W.E.B. Du Bois's 1958 visit to The Netherlands, poems by poets represented in the Series, and scholarly essays. Also included are bibliographies of the Heritage poets and of the Heritage Press Archives at the Chicago Public Library. This reference work is an essential resource for scholars working in the fields of black poetry, transatlantic studies, and twentieth-century book history.

A Research Compendium

The Heritage Series of Black Poetry, 1962–1975

This collection of essays provides an imaginative international perspective on ways to incorporate black British writing and culture in the study of English literature, and presents theoretically sophisticated and practical strategies for doing so. It offers a pedagogical, pragmatic and ideological introduction to the field for those without background, and an integrated body of current and stimulating essays for those who are already knowledgeable. Contributors to this volume include scholars and writers from Britain and the U.S. Following on recent developments in African American literature, postcolonial studies and race studies, the contributors invite readers to imagine an enhanced and inclusive British canon through varied essays providing historical information, critical analysis, cultural perspective, and extensive annotated bibliographies for further study.

Lauri Ramey

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