A Black Arts Poetry Machine: Amiri Baraka and the Umbra Poets

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A vital hub of poetry readings, performance, publications and radical politics in 1960s New York, the Umbra Workshop was a cornerstone of the African American avant-garde. Bringing together new archival research and detailed close readings of poetry, A Black Arts Poetry Machine is a groundbreaking study of this important but neglected group of poets. David Grundy explores the work of such poets as Amiri Baraka, Lorenzo Thomas and Calvin Hernton and how their innovative poetic forms engaged with radical political responses to state violence and urban insurrection. Through this examination, the book highlights the continuing relevance of the work of the Umbra Workshop today and is essential reading for anyone interested in 20th-century American poetry. Cover Half title Series page Title Copyrights Contents Abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction: Amiri Baraka, the Umbra Workshop and the Writing of Literary History Baraka and Umbra ‘A populist modernism’?: Umbra and the politics of form ‘A conspiracy to blow up New York’ Black arts legacies and chronologies of mourning Chapter summaries and methodology 1 ‘A Tale of Two Cities’: Umbra, Internationalism and the Death of Lumumba ‘This is the time!’ On Guard for Freedom protest the UN ‘A new perspective opens up’: On Guard after the Lumumba protest Ishmael Reed’s ‘Patrice’ and aesthetic distancing Rights and riots: Lorenzo Thomas’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ ‘Cry Freedom’: Askia Touré ‘There’s no hiding place in a horn’: A word on music Conclusion 2 ‘Poems That Kill’: Amiri Baraka’s Magic Words ‘Black Dada Nihilismus’ (1963): ‘A cult of death’ ‘Black Art’ (1965): A politicized objectivism ‘Black People!’ (1966): Magic and the law 3 ‘Space of a Nation’: David Henderson Writes the City The poetry of David Henderson: An introduction ‘Harlem to Lower East Side’ ‘Keep on Pushing’ ‘Yin Years’ 4 Language, Violence and ‘the Collective Mind’: Calvin C. Hernton Calvin C. Hernton: An introduction ‘The Gift Outraged’ ‘Jitterbugging in the Streets’ ‘On Racial Riots in America’ ‘Dynamite Growing out of Their Skulls’ ‘The psychology of the damned’ ‘Manhood’ and gender Conclusion 5 ‘Home Is Never Where You Were Born’: Calvin Hernton’s ‘Medicine Man’ Umbra poets and the South ‘Chattanooga Black Boy’ ‘Medicine Man’ ‘Dressed at last to kill’ Gris-gris ‘Thirty times ten removed’ ‘To those residing in evil bite’: Cannibalism and incorporation ‘Singing in that rock!’ Conclusion: Mourning, melancholia and shame 6 ‘Return to English Turn’: Tom Dent Tom Dent: An introduction New York to New Orleans ‘Return to English Turn’ 7 Memory and Myth in Lorenzo Thomas’s ‘The Bathers’ Introduction Umbra and Birmingham ‘The Bathers’ Conclusion: ‘If Our Heads Are Harder’ Notes Bibliography Index