Spoken Wor(l)ds: African American Poetry From Black Arts to Hip Hop (1960-2012)

Spanning 1960 to the present (roughly from the Black Arts to the Hip Hop movements), this course will focus on contemporary African American poetry as represented in the writings and performances of writers, political figures, and musicians—including Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nina Simone, John Coltrane, Stokely Carmichael, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Haki Madhabuti, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, June Jordan, Nikki Giovanni, Gil Scott Heron, Audre Lorde, Carolyn Rodgers, Askia Toure, Etheridge Knight, Amiri Baraka, The Last Poets, Rita Dove, Dick Gregory, Marvin Gaye, Anita Baker, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Queen Latifah, Sister Souljah, Sarah Jones, Ursula Rucker, Talib Kweli, Jessica Care Moore, Saul Williams, Staceyann Chin, Mos Def, JayZ, Tupac Shakur, Erykah Badu, J. Ivy, and others. We will examine these various genres of Black oral (and written) expressions, paying particular attention to the role that poetry played in creating Black aesthetics, it’s role in giving language to the politics of the moments, and the theories advanced by the poems and poets. We will also look at the role that the space(s) that informed the poems played in shaping its content, theme, and form, as well as wrestle with questions of form with regard to the poems on the stage (oral) and on the page (written). Other themes that we will query include questions regarding intergenerational dialogue and disconnect (within and between movements) and the notion of performing, constructing, reflecting, criticizing, and creating a Black aesthetic and politic within a particular movement or historical moment. In addition to completing two analytic/critical essays and leading class discussion at least once in the semester, students will be required to keep weekly creative and critical journal entries/responses inspired by the works we study, and create/direct (as a class) a final presentation of Black poetry that requires memorizing and performing two poems (one of which must be from a writer on the syllabus; the other may be their own work/journal entry). This final presentation must be open to the Sarah Lawrence public.