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AMIRI BARAKA
"I believe you have to be true to people. You have to be writing something that people understand but, at the same time, something that's profound enough to have meaning past, say, the six o'clock news."
Born in 1934 in Newark, New Jersey, Amiri Baraka (Le Roi Jones) has international stature as a poet, dramatist, essayist, and political activist. Associated with the Beats in the 1950s, he became a leader in the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s. Much of his work considers the political situation of people of color in capitalist America.
"Wise I"
WHY's (Nobody Know
The Trouble I Seen)
Trad.
If you ever find
yourself, some where
lost and surrounded
by enemies
who won't let you
speak in your own language
who destroy your statues
& instruments, who ban
your oom boom ba boom
then you are in trouble
deep trouble
they ban your
oom boom ba boom
you in deep deep
trouble
humph!
probably take you several hundred years
to get
out!
"Monday in B Flat"
I can pray
all day
& God
wont come.
But if I call
911
The Devil
Be here
in a minute!
"from Wise, Why's, Y'z (Africa Section)"
The chains
& dark
dark &
dark, if there was "light"
it meant
Ghoosts
Rotting family we
ghost ate
three
A people flattened & chained &
bathed & degraded
in their own hysterical waste
below
beneath
under neath
deep down
up under
grave cave pit
lower & deeper
weeping miles below
skyscraper gutters
Blue blood hole into which blueness
is the terror, massacre, torture
& original western
holocaust
Slavery
We were slaves
Slaves
Slaves
...
We were
Slaves
...
They threw
our lives
a way
Beneath the violent philosophy
of primitive
cannibals
Primitive
Violent
Steam driven
Cannibals*
...
It's my brother, my sister.
At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean there's a
railroad made of human bones.
Black ivory
Black ivory
...
Think of Slavery
as
Educational!**
Who would ban your "oom boom ba boom"? Why?
Questions
1. Although "Wise I" directly addresses the history of African Americans, its language remains open to broader application. What else could it address?
2. If we "Think of Slavery / as / Educational," what can slavery teach us?
3. How do these three poems reflect or comment upon one another? How is each unique?
Activities
1. Consider what happens when Baraka repeats, with subtle variations, the word "slave." Try to do something similar with a word that carries strong feeling for you.
2. Develop a chant of your own, using percussive rhythm.
3. Research the history of slavery, focusing on its practice: in North America, in your state, in your town, or in your family. Report on your research, in prose or in poetry.
4. Make an object, mural, dance, or piece of music that expresses the Middle Passage as portrayed in "Wise, Why's, Y'z (Africa Section)."
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