The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader

Amiri Baraka - dramatist, poet, essayist, orator, and fiction writer - is one of the preeminent African-American literary figures of our time. The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader provides the most comprehensive selection of Baraka's work to date, spanning almost 40 years of a brilliant, prolific, and controversial career, in which he has produced more than 12 books of poetry, 26 plays, eight collections of essays and speeches, and two books of fiction. This updated edition contains over 50 pages of previously unpublished work, as well as a chronology and full bibliography.

Amiri Baraka is a critic, poet, playwright, and activist. He lives in Newark, NJ. William J. Harris is associate professor of English at SUNY-Stony Brook.

Preface to the Reader

xi

Amiri Baraka

Editor's Note

xv

Introduction

xvii

William J. Harris

Chronology

xxxi

THE BEAT PERIOD (1957-1962)

1

(18)

From Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note (poetry, 1961)

3

(13)

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

3

(1)

Hymn for Lanie Poo

4

(6)

In Memory of Radio

10

(1)

Look for You Yesterday, Here You Come Today

11

(3)

Notes for a Speech

14

(2)

From New American Poetry (poetics, 1960)

16

(3)

How You Sound??

16

(3)

THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD (1963-1965)

19

(104)

From Blues People (music criticism, 1963)

21

(30)

African Slaves/American Slaves: Their Music

21

(12)

Swing --- From Verb to Noun

33

(18)

From The Dead Lecturer (poetry, 1964)

51

(25)

A contract. (for the destruction and rebuilding of Paterson

51

(1)

An Agony. As Now.

52

(1)

A Poem for Willie Best

53

(6)

Short Speech To My Friends

59

(1)

The politics of rich painters

60

(2)

Rhythm & Blues

62

(4)

Crow Jane

66

(3)

For Crow Jane/Mama Death.

66

(1)

Crow Jane's Manner.

66

(1)

Crow Jane In High Society.

67

(1)

Crow Jane The Crook

68

(1)

The dead lady canonized.

69

(1)

I Substitute for the Dead Lecturer

69

(2)

Black Dada Nihilismus

71

(2)

Political Poem

73

(1)

The Liar

74

(2)

Dutchman (play, 1964)

76

(24)

From The System of Dante's Hell (novel, 1965)

100

(23)

The Heretics

100

(23)

THE BLACK NATIONALIST PERIOD (1965-1974)

123

(126)

From Home: Social Essays (collected essays, 1966)

125

(46)

Cuba Libre

125

(36)

The Legacy of Malcolm X, and the Coming of the Black Nation

161

(8)

State/meant

169

(2)

From Tales (stories, 1967)

171

(8)

The Screamers

171

(6)

Words

177

(2)

From Black Music (music criticism, 1968)

179

(31)

Jazz and the White Critic

179

(7)

The Changing Same (R&B and New Black Music)

186

(24)

From Black Magic (poetry, 1969)

210

(15)

A Poem Some People Will Have To Understand

210

(1)

Citizen Cain

211

(1)

Letter to E. Franklin Frazier

212

(1)

Leadbelly Gives An Autograph

213

(1)

Numbers, Letters

214

(1)

Western Front

215

(1)

T. T. Jackson sings

216

(1)

Return of the Native

217

(1)

A Poem for Black Hearts

218

(1)

SOS

218

(1)

Black Art

219

(1)

Poem for HalfWhite College Students

220

(1)

W. W.

221

(1)

Ka 'Ba

221

(1)

The World Is Full of Remarkable Things

222

(1)

leroy

223

(1)

Black People!

224

(1)

From Four Black Revolutionary Plays (1969)

225

(15)

Great Goodness of Life (1966)

225

(15)

From It's Nation Time (poetry, 1970)

240

(3)

It's Nation Time

240

(3)

Afrikan Revolution (poem, 1973)

243

(6)

THE THIRD WORLD MARXIST PERIOD (1974-)

249

(334)

From Hard Facts (poetry, 1975)

251

(11)

When We'll Worship Jesus

251

(3)

A New Reality Is Better Than a New Movie!

254

(2)

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat

256

(2)

Das Kapital

258

(2)

A Poem for Deep Thinkers

260

(2)

From Poetry for the Advanced (poetry, 1979)

262

(11)

Pres Spoke in a Language

262

(1)

Dope

263

(4)

Am/Trak

267

(6)

What Was The Relationship of the Lone Ranger to the Means of Production? (play, 1979)

273

(29)

In the Tradition (poem, 1982)

302

(9)

From Daggers and Javelins (essays, 1984)

311

(29)

The Revolutionary Tradition in Afro-American Literature

311

(11)

Aime Cesaire

322

(11)

Ngugi wa Thiongo

333

(7)

From The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka (1984)

340

(60)

Error Farce

340

(27)

The Black Arts (Harlem, Politics, Search for a New Life)

367

(33)

From The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues (1987)

400

(95)

Primitive World: An Anti-Nuclear Jazz Musical (play, 1983)

400

(50)

Jimmy! (eulogy for James Baldwin, 1987)

450

(7)

Black People & Jesse Jackson II (essay, 1988-89)

457

(23)

Why's/Wise

480

(15)

Wise 1

481

(1)

Wise 2

481

(2)

Wise 3

483

(1)

Wise 4

484

(1)

Wise 5

485

(1)

Wise 6

486

(2)

Wise 7

488

(1)

Wise 8

488

(1)

Wise 9

489

(1)

Wise 10

490

(1)

Rough Hand Dreamers (Wise 11)

491

(1)

A farmer come to the city (Wise 12)

491

(1)

Wise 13

492

(3)

New and Previously Unpublished Works

495

(88)

The Black Arts Movement (essay, 1994)

495

(11)

Malcolm As Ideology (1995)

506

(15)

An Introduction (unpublished)

521

(4)

Robert Williams

Sweet Lorraine (essay, unpublished, performed as a tribute to Lorraine Hansberry, 1996)

525

(3)

Portrait of the Lion: Willie ``The Lion'' Smith, A Script for the New-Arkestra (musical drama, performed 1997-1998 at NJPAC & NYU)

528

(17)

Black Reconstruction: Du Bois and the U.S. Struggle for Democracy and Socialism (1998)

545

(15)

Allah Mean Everything! Pt One (poem, unpublished 1998)

560

(3)

Margaret Walker (essay, 1999)

563

(3)

Understanding Readiness (1999)

566

(1)

Sassy Was Definitely Not the Avon Lady (narrative, performed at Sassy Tribute, March 1999 NJPAC, published in Digging, 1999)

567

(3)

Mumia, ``Lynch Law'' and Imperialism (1999)

570

(5)

The Great Max Roach (1999)

575

(2)

My Man Came by the Crib the Other Day ... (short story, 1999)

577

(6)

Select Bibliography

583

(4)

About the Editor

587

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The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials