ENGL 129(F) Twentieth-Century Black Poets (W)*
From Langston Hughes to contemporary poets such as Amiri Baraka and Angela Jackson, African American poets have been preoccupied with the relations of
poetry to other traditions. Vernacular speech, English poetry, jazz and other musical forms, folk humor and African mythology have all been seen as essential
sources for black poetry. This course will survey major poets such as Hughes,
James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Robert Hayden, Gwendolyn Brooks,
Baraka, Jackson, and Yusef Komunyakaa, reading their poems and their essays
and interviews about poetic craft. We will ask how black poetry has been defined and whether there is a single black poetic tradition or several.
Format: discussion/seminar. Requirements: twenty pages of writing in the form
of a journal on the readings and several short papers.
No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 19). Preference given to first-
year students.