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| Langston Hughes at home in Harlem. |
Moving on from last week's foundational readings in American poetry, we'll spend a full week looking at literature influenced by another uniquely American art form, jazz. Our investigations will cross both generational and racial boundaries, as well as those of form.
We'll start with a healthy selection of work by Langston Hughes, the Harlem Renaissance's poet laureate, taken from Selected Poems of Langston Hughes (Vintage Classics, 1959). Because I've scanned these two pages at a time, there are extra pieces of poems thrown into the mix, but here are the titles I'd like you to read:
- The Weary Blues
- Hope
- Reverie on the Harlem River
- Morning After
- Genius Child
- Song for Billie Holiday
- Fantasy in Purple
- Trumpet Player
- Midnight Dancer
- Misery
- Dream Boogie
- Projection
- Flatted Fifths
- Dream Boogie: Variation
- Harlem
- Good Morning
You'll also want to take a look at Hughes' essay, "Jazz as Communication" and browse through his 1958 album, Weary Blues (which features musical collaborations with both Charles Mingus and Leonard Feather).
We'll also read a selection of work by LeRoi Jones, later known as Amiri Baraka, an immensely and multifariously talented writer (of poetry, plays, fiction, and criticism) and influential underground publisher who came of age in the 1950s alongside the poets of the Beat Generation, the New York School, the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, and the Black Mountain school, though never quite fitting in with any of those groups. During the turbulent 60s, he'd become politically radicalized and become a founding member of the Black Arts Movement. Here are our titles for Baraka:
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| Amiri Baraka in Newark, 2007. |
We'll also read a selection of work by LeRoi Jones, later known as Amiri Baraka, an immensely and multifariously talented writer (of poetry, plays, fiction, and criticism) and influential underground publisher who came of age in the 1950s alongside the poets of the Beat Generation, the New York School, the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, and the Black Mountain school, though never quite fitting in with any of those groups. During the turbulent 60s, he'd become politically radicalized and become a founding member of the Black Arts Movement. Here are our titles for Baraka:
- "In Memory of Radio"
- "Way Out West"
- "Symphony Sid"
- "Notes for a Speech"
- "Short Speech to My Friends": MP3
- "Black Dada Nihilismus": MP3
- "A Poem for Speculative Hipsters": MP3
- "A Poem Some People Will Have to Understand": MP3
- "Tone Poem"
- "Poem for HalfWhite College Students": MP3
- "Pres Spoke in a Language"
- "AM/TRAK"
I'm also including a few short pieces of jazz criticism by Baraka from the early 60s, to give you a taste of his work in that mode.
All of Monday's readings and listenings can be found in one file here: [ZIP]
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