Reading Black Poetry

One week down, and we've covered a range of poetry, works by Phillis Wheatley, Robert Hayden, Opal Palmer Adisa, Elizabeth Alexander, Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, Natasha Trethewey, Kelly Norman Ellis, Traice Morris, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Margaret Walker, Dudley Randall, and of course, our man Langston Hughes.

Hughes, I'm reminded again and again as we cover his works, provides these wonderful windows into African American life and culture. And it's cool how Hughes was on the black studies tip before folks were even calling it black studies. At one moment, Hughes is giving voice to the tensions between a landlord and tenant and then at another moment, he's articulating the concerns of a black mother. Then at another moment, he's indicating that black Americans are, well, black American.

We'll keep reading works by Hughes and other black poets during the coming weeks, and we'll try to note some of our discoveries and observations here.

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100 Poems

So this summer, we'll see if can cover about 100 poems by black poets. It'll be about quality and quantity. The typical succinctness of verse will make it possible for us for us to cover a large number of poems in about a month.

Our first week, we'll read several poems related to slavery. At the time and after, we'll cover canonical poet such as Phillis Wheatley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Margaret Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Robert Hayden.

We'll check out poems associated with the black arts era, including Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Carolyn Rodgers, Nikki Giovanni, Larry Neal, and Jayne Cortez.

We'll cover poems by the late Lucille Clifton. And we'll cover poems by a host of contemporary poets such as Tyehimba Jess, Kevin Young, Patricia Smith, Kelly Norman Ellis, Treasure Williams, and Natasha Trethewey.

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