The Heritage of African Poetry


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A History of African American Poetry


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




West African Poetry


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Previous studies of African poetry have tended to concentrate either on its political content or on its relationship to various European schools. This book examines West African poetry in English and French against the background of oral poetry in the vernacular. Do the roots of such poetry lie in Africa or in Europe? In committing their work to writing, do poets lose more than they gain? Can the immediacy of oral performance ever be recovered? Robert Fraser's account of two centuries of West African verse examines its subjugation to a succession of international styles: from the heroic couplet to the austerity of experimental Modernism. Successive chapters take us through the Négritude movement and the emergence of anglophone free verse in the 1950s to the rediscovery in recent years of the neglected springs of orality, which is the subject of the concluding chapter.




The Book of American Negro Poetry


Book Description

The work of James Weldon Johnson (1871 - 1938) inspired and encouraged the artists of the Harlem Renaissance,a movement in which he himself was an important figure. Johnson was active in almost every aspect of American civil life and became one of the first African-American professors at New York University. He is best remembered for his writing, which questions, celebrates and commemorates his experience as an African-American.




The Harlem Renaissance


Book Description

This Very Short Introduction offers an overview of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural awakening among African Americans between the two world wars. Cheryl A. Wall brings readers to the Harlem of 1920s to identify the cultural themes and issues that engaged writers, musicians, and visual artists alike.




Slave Songs and the Birth of African American Poetry


Book Description

In this insightful and provocative volume, Rameyreveals spirituals and slave songs to be a crucial element in American literature. This book shows slave songs'intrinsic value as lyric poetry, sheds light on their roots and originality, anddraws new conclusions on anart form long considereda touchstone of cultural imagination.




Echoes of the Sunbird


Book Description

This volume presents a broad overview of the work of seven of Africa's leading poets. Five of them have received international recognition: Niyi Osundare and Chinua Achebe, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize; Osundare and Antonio Jacinto, the Noma Prize; and Jose Craveirinha, the Camoes Prize. The poems concern political, personal, and social themes and are written with aesthetic simplicity and lyricism. The contributors believe that poets, rather than being exiles from their communities, are prophets, seers, and singers and have a place in everyday life. Most of the poems have been published previously. Several, however, are new, and their appearance in this volume along with an introductory essay written by each poet, makes this anthology important, original, and fresh.




The Black Mind


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Africa Arise


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This skillfully crafted poetic masterpiece titled, "Africa Arise" is a collage of African inspiration poems designed to celebrate the beauty of African diversity in terms of its people, luminous landscapes and wildlife. In this catalogue of emotionally provocative yet intellectually stimulating book, the author unpacks uncommon syllables of how the African continent has stood the test of time and arisen with great resilience, endurance and forbearance, in the face of raging storms and tidal waves and yet remained unfulstered.In esoteric language, the author has skillfully decoded the coded syllables on African identity, diversity and heritage, which for ages have remained an inexplicable subject. This book brims with provocative insights that provide a unique and ground-breaking entry into the wealth of untold tales and unexplored mysteries of the African land. It unveils the treasure and beauty of the African land and sends a clarion call and consciousness to all Africans to treasure and cherish it. Mother Africa is uniquely endowed by nature and beautified with the natural landscape scenery, heritage and diversity yet it is on the verge of losing the mark of its identity. Therefore, this treatise is a wake-up call for all Africans to awaken from a deep slumber and revive the pride of Africanism and embrace the core values of love, solidarity, and human dignity. Moreover, the poems hails, commend and celebrate the female heroes of the African heritage (Imbokodo), for their demonstration of resilience in the face of adversity, and siege and rising against the unjust and gruesome societal tides that has boxed them under the shadows of men.This publication is jam-packed with poetic insights that will take you through a journey out of the convictions and ordinary perceptions of Africanism to plunge into the greater depths of understanding the essence of African identity. The intellectually challenging, deeply provoking and incredibly inspiring, hard-to-get poetic rhythms and rhymes encapsulated in this book are set to revolutionise the lens through which you view the African continent and its people. The depth and density of poetic syllables it contains requires the reader to make a conscientious effort to digest its morsels, hence it is designed for those who are set on expeditions and adventures to explore the African content.Drawing from a plethora of his wealth of skills in poetic rhymes, Frequency Rhymes has written a book of startling grandeur and scope that rant and raves about the great panorama of African heritage from the primeval cataclysms that explored the continent to the economic upheavals facing much of the continent today. In incredible poetic language, the author tells the extraordinary story of how Africa overcame ferocious obstacles of war, hunger, and genocides to emerge as one of the greatest on the face of the earth. To stay relevant to current poetic trends, his writing style is delivered in an idiosyncratic and eccentric style, a very modern mix of meme-culture, quirky slang and unapologetic youth coolness. For this reason, the author is a revolutionary new voice in African poetry, emerging with authority, to claim his space and audience.The wealth and riches with which Africa is endowed in terms of the abundance of natural resources such as gold, silver and diamonds and the diversity of cultures makes Africa such a thrilling society with a unique identity. For this reason, the author describes Africa as the land of dreamers, adventurers, and explorers. In this vast and vivid panorama of historical wealth, the author discusses the fortunes of Africa which are naturally available to the African people. With compelling narrative, he expounds on how Africa can transform the jangling discords of the continent into a beautiful symphony of unity and oasis of freedom.




The Heritage Series of Black Poetry, 1962–1975


Book Description

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.