DevotionReader Poetry Series: 30 Ways of Looking at Black Poetry
"Let the circle be unbroken"
Poet and literary critic Eugene Redmond, in his critical history of Black poetry—Drumvoices (1976)—explained the artistic connection between ancestral African oral tradition and the earliest Black poets
who emerged throughout the Diaspora as a result of the four centuries long Atlantic slave trade:
“…we should note the role of griots—or story tellers—in preindustrial African societies. The black poet, as creator and chronicler, evolves from these artisans—human oral recorders of family and national lore… .
We can say, then, that the black experience in the United States continues via the African continuum… .” Eugene B. Redmond, Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry, Anchor Books, 1976
Prior to Redmond, the versatile literary giant James Weldon Johnson also pointed to the ancestral link between traditional African griot-singer-poets and the first Africans in his poem, “O Black and Unknown Bards”: “Who first from out the still watch, lone and long,/ Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise/ Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?”
Black poets have fulfilled the role of griot – recording stories of our families, and preserving our diverse national identities as Black people throughout the U.S., Caribbean and South America. Here are selected stanzas from James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “O Black and Unknown Bards,” as well as links to poems by Lucille Clifton, Etheridge Knight and Audre Lorde, that in modern poems recall the African griot tradition of preserving family genealogy and significant in events in the social life through poetic form.
Poem Post #1 for 4/1/2010
O Black and Unknown Bards – James Weldon Johnson
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Selected poems carrying out the African griot's role in Black literary traditions:
Listen Children - Lucille Clifton
The Idea of Ancestry - Etheridge Knight
For the Record - Audre Lorde
Please share other Black poems you love that link our traditions -- "Each one, teach one!"
Devotionreader.com 30 Days of Looking at Black Poetry -- Day: One O Black and Unknown Bards Two Listen Children Three For the Record Four Ballad of Birmingham Five Six The Idea of Ancestry Seven I Want to Write Eight A Grandfather Poem Nine Sweet Sound Ten My Brother is Homemade Eleven Those Winter Sundays Twelve SOS Thirteen Resurrections Fourteen Jessie Mitchell's Mother Fifteen April Rain Song Sixteen I've Got A Home in that Rock Seventeen Earth Screaming Eighteen Returning Spring Nineteen Newark, for Now [68] Twenty Dawn Twenty-One Fir Twenty-Two Comin Strong Twenty-Three From a Black Feminists Conference Reflections on Margaret Walker: Poet Twenty-Four My Africa Twenty-Five Strong Men Twenty-Six Today's News Twenty-Seven My Guilt Twenty-Eight Forward, Always Forward Twenty-Nine The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa Thirty What Harriet Said
