The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader

by Baraka, Amiri; Harris, William J

• ISBN13: 9781560252382
• ISBN10: 1560252383
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-11-22
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

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 This updated edition contains over 50 pages of previously unpublished work, as well as a chronology and full bibliography.

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

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