Every Goodbye Ain't Gone: An Anthology of Innovative Poetry by African Americans (Modern and Contemporary Poetics (Paperback)) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0817352791 ISBN 13: 9780817352790

Publisher: University of Alabama Press, 2006

Synopsis

Just prior to the Second World War, and even more explosively in the 1950s and 1960s, a far-reaching revolution in aesthetics and prosody by black poets ensued, some working independently and others in organized groups. Little of this new work was reflected in the anthologies and syllabi of college English courses of the period. Even during the 1970s, when African American literature began to receive substantial critical attention, the work of many experimental black poets continued to be neglected. ""Every Goodbye Ain't Gone"" presents the groundbreaking work of many of these poets who carried on the innovative legacies of Melvin Tolson, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Robert Hayden. Whereas poetry by key figures such as Amirt Baraka, Tolson, Jayne Cortez, Clarence Major, and June Jordan is represented, this anthology also elevates into view the work of less studied poets such as Russell Atkins, Jodi Braxton, David Henderson, Bob Kaufman, Stephen Jonas, and Elouise Loftin. Many of the poems collected in the volume are currently unavailable and some will appear in print here for the first time. Coeditors Aldon Lynn Nielsen and Lauri Ramey provide a critical introduction that situates the poems historically and highlights the ways such poetry has been obscured from view by recent critical and academic practices. The result is a record of experimentation, instigation, and innovation that links contemporary African American poetry to its black modernist roots and extends the terms of modern poetics into the future.

About this title

About the Author

Aldon Lynn Nielsen is Kelly Professor of American Literature at The Pennsylvania State University and author of Black Chant: Languages of African American Postmodernism and Integral Music: Languages of African American Innovation. Lauri Ramey is Associate Professor of English at California State University, Los Angeles, and author of Black British Writing and Sea Change.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Every Goodbye Ain't Gone

An Anthology of Innovative Poetry by African Americans

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS

Copyright © 2006 The University of Alabama Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8173-5279-0

Contents

Introduction..................................................................................xiiiLloyd AddisonI by you put on...............................................................................1After MLK.....................................................................................2All the things of which there are none........................................................4Umbra.........................................................................................6William AndersonThere's Not a Friend like the Lowly Jesus.....................................................10Russell AtkinsIt's Here in the..............................................................................11Probability and Birds.........................................................................12While Waiting for a Friend to Come to Visit a Friend in a Mental Hospital.....................13Spyrytual.....................................................................................14Lines in Recollection.........................................................................15"the L L L"...................................................................................16Furious'd Garb................................................................................17Night and a Distant Church....................................................................18Christophe....................................................................................19Irritable Songs...............................................................................20Narrative.....................................................................................27At Night Keep Still...........................................................................28Imaginary Crimes in a Real Garden.............................................................29Amiri BarakaBiography.....................................................................................30The violence of the mind is the violence of God...............................................32How People Do.................................................................................33The Heavy.....................................................................................34Lefty.........................................................................................35Node..........................................................................................37The A, B, C's.................................................................................39I Investigate the Sun.........................................................................42Courageousness................................................................................43The City of New Ark...........................................................................44Jodi BraxtonConversion....................................................................................58Harold CarringtonLament........................................................................................61Woo's People..................................................................................63sting-a south carolina ave. folk tale.........................................................64Stephen ChambersHer...........................................................................................65Jayne CortezDrying Spit Blues.............................................................................66Under the Edge of February....................................................................68Phraseology...................................................................................70Indelible.....................................................................................71Opening Act...................................................................................72Into This Time................................................................................74Lawrence S. CumberbatchI Swear to You, That Ship Never Sunk in Middle-Passage!.......................................77Again the Summoning...........................................................................78In the Early Morning Breeze...................................................................79Rudy Bee GrahamA LYNCHING FOR SKIP JAMES.....................................................................80Without Shadow................................................................................83William J. HarrisA Grandfather Poem............................................................................86Practical Concerns............................................................................87De Leon HarrisonA Collage for Richard Davis-Two Short Forms...................................................88Formula for Blue Blues Babies.................................................................89Yellow........................................................................................90David HendersonDowntown-Boy Uptown...........................................................................91Sketches of Harlem............................................................................93In Williams...................................................................................94Lock City.....................................................................................96Blackman in the Desecrated Synagogue-Living in the Last Days..................................97Calvin HerntonBeing Exit in the World.......................................................................98The Wall......................................................................................99Medicine Man..................................................................................100Joseph Jarman"what we all".................................................................................104"Non-cognitive aspects of the City"...........................................................105Ted JoansThe Overloaded Horse..........................................................................108Percy JohnstonRound About Midnight, Opus #6.................................................................109Lexington Avenue Express......................................................................110to paul robeson, opus no. 3...................................................................111Dewey Square, 1956............................................................................113BLAUPUNKT.....................................................................................115Stephen JonasFor LeRoi Jones...............................................................................116BOOK V........................................................................................117".. An Ear Injured by Hearing Things".........................................................123Orgasm 0......................................................................................125A MUDDLE......................................................................................131A LITTLE MAGIC................................................................................132lens..........................................................................................133IV............................................................................................134"what you can see"............................................................................135June JordanAll the World Moved...........................................................................136Toward a Personal Semantics...................................................................137San Juan......................................................................................138Bus Window....................................................................................139Bob KaufmanI Have Folded My Sorrows......................................................................140East Fifth Street (N.Y.)......................................................................141Lorca.........................................................................................142Picasso's Balcony.............................................................................143NOVELS FROM A FRAGMENT IN PROGRESS............................................................144THE CELEBRATED WHITE-CAP SPELLING BEE.........................................................146Oregon........................................................................................148A Terror Is More Certain......................................................................149UNHISTORICAL EVENTS...........................................................................151The Biggest Fisherman.........................................................................152CROOTY SONGO..................................................................................153THE LATE LAMENTED WIND, BURNED IN INDIGNATION.................................................154Elouise LoftinA Black Lady..................................................................................155What Sunni Say................................................................................156bkln..........................................................................................157Barefoot Necklace.............................................................................158april '68.....................................................................................159scabible......................................................................................160N. J. LoftisChanges - One.................................................................................161Changes - Five................................................................................163Changes - Eight...............................................................................166Clarence MajorParagraph from English Speaking World.........................................................169A Petition for Langston Hughes................................................................170Media on War..................................................................................171Edge Guide for Impression.....................................................................172News Story....................................................................................173A Poem Americans Are Going to Have to Memorize Soon...........................................174Education by Degrees..........................................................................175Not This-This Here!...........................................................................176Mortal Roundness..............................................................................177Pictures......................................................................................179Water USA.....................................................................................180Leroy McLucasNegotiation...................................................................................181Graph.........................................................................................182Oliver Pitcher"Why don't we rock the casket here in the moonlight?".........................................183Dust of Silence...............................................................................184the remark....................................................................................186formula for tragedy...........................................................................187Washington Square: August Afternoon...........................................................188from Harlem: Sidewalk Icons...................................................................190The Infant....................................................................................191Tango.........................................................................................192The Iconoclast's Closet.......................................................................193Tom PostellGertrude Stein Rides the Town Down El.........................................................195I Want a Solid Piece of Sunlight and a Yardstick to Measure it With...........................196harmony.......................................................................................197Norman H. PritchardMagma.........................................................................................198Asalteris.....................................................................................199From Where the Blues?.........................................................................200Metagnomy.....................................................................................201Gyre's Galax..................................................................................203'.............................................................................................206junt..........................................................................................207"WE NEED".....................................................................................208Helen QuiglessConcert.......................................................................................209Ishmael ReedPaul Laurence Dunbar in the Tenderloin........................................................211Dualism in ralph ellison's invisible man......................................................212Badman of the guest professor.................................................................213Poetry Makes Rhythm in Philosphy..............................................................217Ed Robersonnews continued release........................................................................219poll..........................................................................................220Four Lines of a Black Love Letter between Teachers............................................221On the Calligraphy of Black Chant.............................................................223"it must be that in the midst"................................................................225any moment (12/4/69 4:30 A.M. chicago.........................................................227"american culture is the pot".................................................................228A. B. Spellmanthe beautiful day, V..........................................................................229john coltrane.................................................................................230the twist.....................................................................................231Blues: My Baby's Gone.........................................................................232Did John's Music Kill Him?....................................................................233The Truth You Carry Is Very Dark..............................................................235Primus St. JohnAll the Way Home..............................................................................236Benign Neglect / West Point, Mississippi, 1970................................................238The Violence of Pronoun.......................................................................239Studying 241Glenn StokesBlue Texarkana................................................................................242Cecil TaylorScroll No. 1..................................................................................244Scroll No. 2..................................................................................246"Da"..........................................................................................248Choir.........................................................................................250Lorenzo ThomasInauguration..................................................................................253Embarkation for Cythera.......................................................................254Song..........................................................................................256Twelve Gates..................................................................................257The Bathers...................................................................................259Another Poem in English.......................................................................263Melvin B. TolsonDark Laughter.................................................................................264The Chitterling King..........................................................................270Gloria TroppPoem for Ernie Henry..........................................................................286Tom Weatherlyfirst monday scottsboro alabama...............................................................287Canto 7.......................................................................................288"vocal texts evoke"...........................................................................289"fishes"......................................................................................290"gandhabba" #5................................................................................291"croatan".....................................................................................292Canto 10......................................................................................293p.w.t.........................................................................................294Contributors..................................................................................295Acknowledgments...............................................................................303

Chapter One

LLOYD ADDISON I by you put on

Knew you upon the one true time two to times shifting being too badly moved in mood to come to see me born again to be something born of you much a part of heart-felt two you should be slightly half of me in part and place of you

though only partly placing one without my really being half but having here something truly in the place of time and thought having you instead feeding one feeling-view to want bathed in me water and water and watermellow shower and well-cool and felt fellow

is by the I put on the dress of something haunted by the near untrue in the Gypsy hour of fortune-telling all of a feeling incomplete

After MLK: the marksman marked leftover kill

Until deaf-dumb bullet self-improved comi-tragic time deathdrops suicidally from error of unimproved trajectory towards humankind's disintegrating vestpocket protest suitability, and its ex-it disappear-ring of steel rearbounds for vain deathproof namesake gods, watch the little black hole in the new world order undeliver-rated life-space;

if execution equals solution, let beforesight exceed where mass meetings equal civilly engineered rights obversely proportional to wishfountainpen power, and anti-rights-bodies equal ten/time square by the co-efficient light minus the magnetic exponential ...

and if the short straight pigskin pass between All-American equals the short straight bullet line pass to Other-Americannots- on an elect /rode day-o shootout in atomic space-limited time- into how many bullblooded pointillistic pigments will the first canvass camped war of the worlds explode awry?

Hereby youth articles of war a unifying field threat to destruct distrust-overlapping generations past to inherit their time of health to live, or run on sentence-structured fellowship.mad theme antics, ordering inapt peeled evil bitterthick to eat the beauty fall indigestion limbo, Armageddon Eve, a surfeit's indefinite period ...

and THOU SHALT NOT not KILL ROYALTY was here latrined behind these walls where maddog stood, and dog said let there be muzzle velocity and there was a ballistics report of delight,

enriched, the eye-witness to the creation of death said, man his tri-vestry of cloth-skintightrope walked when he should have crawled-will vindicate me ... whether in Kings or Psalms or Ecclesiastes, never blink, in Acts or Revelation: by goods the goodbye contract of the little black hole.

And as for the law of inertia, concern with man-condition will elect trick cutie state rights obtaining arrears rest warrants for perpetual motion aliases fleeing ten-to-twenty delight years of overfunny

So now rhetoric unpacked good physics call forth overcoming: uni-lateral-field anti-hymns of Ptolemaic tickled bylaws, with march-on strike for ghetto respect and labor, in Copernican accounting for a new toned iron sting in graft itches before the picture of muzzle simultaneously develops to mass spree-the-corpuscle of dropout entropic delight, to wRap tRap white nightrider wind in Brown paperbags for sailing ...

All the things of which there are none

Among all the things of which there are none I'll have a little bit of play widt / with having that one / full body of knowledge

Here with we will open buds & scatter seeds far as are accountings

And they are millions of kings these seeds that rush fro/from thither kingdoms come

who have been king-size-excited runners-up & others to manfully affirm in/thru the little white-legged spot thin slipper

& herein is our campaign of love of that ecstatic nevermind possessed of wet-torched body in a demon's/straight.manipulation democracy of the humid race

& 3-dimensioned tired twin inner-truthless compunctioned blowouts appeal to blowup/down inner outburst holding at knowledge's intense dependent foresight against head'sache to peek at the on-climbing explosion of high octangency with shouting perfection prompted to speak of cue-t-countdown 'where the performance of a second second programs to split open deadaheadlines to egg-scramble am/bushwoman

And all the things of which there are none in milk bottles stooped / necking instructions for white hippopotamus health & cow cud rentals

cricketly picked from a witchcraftsman's handbag become the noble salvage

All the things of which there are none in disconnection make no-man's landlady's pocket book

where bets around blow up to midnight's morning flat to forgive a debt's receipt informally foresaid

& with a clean body/snatch-cheer the lovebugkiller ladykiller is in-putout & all the things of witches are done to night

to have a spine-spillover joy-enthralled

dark-end day over all day cultivating green stem-merged nervous systematic kilocalories

& without & out aboutface fit of onset values here to go/aheadway-off in the fact chimera to have a flair O-well lonesome until reveling laid to a peeled-off out-of-work wonder fill-in

the good peel hysterically off & all the things of which there are nonetheless the main asideway-farers' refreshment understanding

Umbra

My sun has gone down in drum suite penumbra The mood of this rhythm my body is umbra

And the totem line behind the three-faced light tabu decline the flesh-cup curve The postmen ask What information in address envelops this female impertinence posturing behind us

this is not thigh ten-inch-pound distance weight focus this is the weight of death full to fascination bottom riddle end but dense one face-frontal curve or straight instantline say designers of fashion no rear view is beautiful to address but to the self one clean brief declension is to write to inform and to clothe to invite This is the interval of a question addressing the male The umbral body is in penumbral field a two-way cup curving female a handful of image an armsful storm a mouthy world waiting

And the lips that kiss you in penumbra have arms A body molds the darkness is thigh-pressed cradle-abdomen met and breasts the umbral breasts have softness

And the silence neuter feminine night is sighing verb-breaths to love

And handsome she has fingers to caress herself down circular the darkness is erect

feverish at its back the stars perspire pressed to her back the hands of the arms that engulf her hold her enrapt cool lips press against her throat erect the darkness is spinning in an arc PM space a perpendicular in its equator a right angle in its tropics lights erect the darkness stands goes gentle merry-go-round in the wheel with a rub in the trouble hub the axle oil gives ease spoke said muffled mute hot gerund to be is being is the night pitch the feeling pie

love is a good gentle cut

between thin spreads of dough its meats the kneading spirit is gripped

and the handle in this feeding time equipped with potfat floodlight milk to go roaring to the royal pitch pond is to the self-darkness square root the set formula to be feeling figure-field

The fall from the shoulders careening down the umbral back the act of line arcs moving to divide hill

And the black thumb of its beauty is an index figure written in sand and five fathomables of a handful in a swim

is a catch a watery whim which sets and vanishes addressed

laughing out of a darkness fluent with light and lonely

speeding round in plus-diamond closure breaking refraction naked little jewels of blackbrown white darkness cutting colors of weightlight to pair to explode compound the inner spectrum under surface-limited line

This body's conjunctive curcuit is on somnambulant current continuance of attraction

Into the flow of this river tittering ruthlessly of having being going broken rhythm at middle emotion flood a gurgle in the whirlpool erring eye at thigh/s/ hips' concourse Cleanses a touch of kinesthesia

handful of the hollow space-solid stomach

a time envelope distended fretfully lolling to tension that hands move over leaving the mouth deliciously weak hands move to clutch that having being to handle mouth's pout from distant touch thigh raised to handsome cup

In violable twilight feeling she wins watching the gaited dance

Her hair is lacklustre black justnight a vapor porous posy potted in relief sculptured to a mating cloud growing wild

her forehead is arched in appositive poise prominent in majestic sweep conceding to her lips that she O is kiss is love

her eyes seed lightdrunk aura light's winter moons are aura and aura cool light afire

her face is a slope swelling at the lips touched with a pink of sunset evenly fading dark nourished warm of watt to love ethos

turning out well thirst to will thirst where love drinks love looks full-lipped fat handsome water pinks to give a full smooth smiling peal

WILLIAM ANDERSON

There's Not a Friend like the Lowly Jesus

Suddenly, against the mountainous wall of the fireplace, soot begins to glow.

At the ocean at that very moment, the waves spread their lips. In the folds of the sierra

nevada, a crowd of skiers rides down the snow. They hold torches, they wave and shout, so you can hear them in the hotel.

If you're in any way a prophet, you better figure why a nigger is different from yourself, or any

of the above lights. Because when I think of all the things I do to keep from

dying.

RUSSELL ATKINS

It's Here in the

Here in the newspaper - wreck of the East Bound. A photograph bound to bring on cardiac asthenia. There is a blur that mists the pages: On one side's a gloom of dreadful harsh, Then breaks flash lights up sheer. There is much huge about, I suppose those no's are people between that suffering of- (what have we more? for Christ's sake! Something of a full stop of it crash of blood and the still shock of stark sticks and an immense swift gloss And two dead no's lie aghast still One casts a crazed eye and the other's closed dull the heap twists up hardening the unhard, unhardening the hardened

Probability and Birds

The probability in the yard: The rodent keeps the cat close by; The cat would sharp at the bird; The bird would waft to the water- If he does he has but his times before. Whichever one he is he's surely marked

The cat is variable The rodent becomes the death of the bird Which we love dogs are random

While Waiting for a Friend to Come to Visit a Friend in a Mental Hospital

eyes thieve with prickled stir: the attendant has ideas about me

the attendant keeps watch, watching that abrupt wild uranium grow a bat's ears, sardine flowers, moon's eggs, stomach guitars, a double-bass rump-but he's err: one shrews to his inferences, here where the world's sharp'd sheen'd across with antiseptic spear

always be afar if it is challenge, the off-shores of the eyes direct devilishly in this "catch me" business

I have about the least to do with white-coated attendants, soft'd thither nurses, and the sleep particles-

stop looking (-a friend's gone banking and I'm waiting that is all

Spyrytual

Oh didn't it """ """ """ "" "" "" "" "" "" " "" "

"" "" "" "" rain "" "" "" "" "" Oh did """ """ n't "" "" "" it rain "" ""

Lines in Recollection

I had just arrived on the advanced slope and I did think of Grant Woods and some others: no trouble at all

to see the around'd spanned circular far moving hills orbed exciting sweep there the coy farm settled heavy shapes th' uproarious trees of startlingly beautious flowers!

the L L L oN G ONG ON G place S e

L L L L O n ) G ONg) ON G L oNg

place that PLACE

TH' ONe g'd

L place

L u N OnE Un ouNOUN g 1 moving .

Furious'd Garb

The across and rain of away. I took shred of an umbrella Furious'd garb. My key into the lock went dare. Like whoms the house, the fence, the door, the gate! A grave's lo! where I did fate, flew fluff'd! "If ye be, ye far excited, authenticate!"

The street came down with fantastic! Blast furnace wonderous'd the air with grisly spirit! Pale blown aside of out, extinguishable moon. There! Mrs. Rhone forth'd, briefly- Shroud of hers by crypt? (no, No. I mistook. Light of lamp.)

Furious'd garb.

Listen: More spoken of "reality" and face to face with it as the at desk at ink at phone at typewriter and business'd in coat and tie, et al., sons & co.

and we will think it much to go from that window into aghasts below!

Night and a Distant Church

Forward abrupt up then mmm mm wind mmm m mmm m upon the mm mmm wind mmm m mmm into the mm wind rain now and again the mm wind bells bells

Christophe

Upstood upstaffed passing sinuously away over an airy arch streaming where all th' lustres streaming sinuously shone bright where more sky Upstood upstaffed th' sumptuously ready flags full- (th' shaded soothed an' blowing softly th' underlings smoothly with horses wavering with winds tangling with manly manners thick gathering th' steeds) that forthwith up up Christophe appearing in th' imminent an th' passion overjoying the hour unfolded flaming Highly th' imperial sign shone in his glory

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: University of Alabama Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0817352791
• ISBN 13: 9780817352790
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328
• Editor: Nielsen Aldon Lynn, Ramey Lauri