Amiri Baraka

1
Amiri Baraka

• AKA Leroy Jones

2
Biography

• Born in Newark, NJ
• Playright, activist, polemicist
• Attended Rutgers, Howard, and then went into the
  Air Force
• Spent time with the Beats (Ginsberg, etc.) but
  then went on to create the OYM (Organization of
  Young Men)

3
Biography pt. 2

• During his transitional period, rejected civil
  rights movement
• After Malcolm Xs assasination, Baraka became a
  Black Nationalist
• Also founded Black Arts Repertory Theatre (BART)
• Invented Kawaida mix of African spiritual and
  political beliefs.

4
Barakas aesthetic

• Confrontational point of view (you)
• Sound oriented
• Completely outside tradition of formal meter but
  used internal rhyme

5
Adrienne Rich

• Born in Baltimore MD to physician father and
  musician mother.
• At the end of her formal education was a
  traditional and accomplished poet.
• Married quite young and had four sons.
• Concidentally with the demise of her marriage,
  broke with traditional forms and expressed
  feminist views in free verse
• Thought of as political figure almost more than
  as a poet, later in life.

6
Richs aesthetic

• Uses the classical, mythological, historical
  education to question narratives of marriage and
  womanhood
• Uses a mix of traditional and free verse
  strategies

7
Richs strategies

• Myth, persona, symbolic stories
• Harsh tone enabled by straightforward diction
• References to historical people, biological fact,
  etc.