SPOKEN

WORD
THE BLACK ARTS
MOVEMENT
THE HISTORY OF SPOKEN
WORD
• African story
• telling Griots
• History passed down orally
• Poetry, music, song, dance, lessons,
narratives
SPOKEN WORD IN THE BLACK ARTS
MOVMEMENT
• 1965 - mid 1970s
• Riots, Murder of Malcolm X
• LeRoi Jones wrote in 1965 , “we want
• poems that kill” Political and artistic
• influences
Attack and eliminate white
• mainstream literary sensibilities
Radical performative speech and
• expression = literary power
Precedence to vernacular poetry, the
dramatic arts, and Hip-Hop
Jayne
cortez
• Born in Arizona, 1936
• Author of ten books of poems and has
performed her poetry with music on 9
recordings
•
1954; Married Ornette Coleman
•
1964; Cofounded Watts Repertory Theater
•
Program
1969; Pissstained Stairs and the
•
Monkey Man’s Wares 1st Collection
• 1972: Bola Press
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcC
HXSIFLfg
The last
poetz
• May 19, 1968, Marcus Garvey Park.
East Harlem
•
Jalal Mansur Nurridin, Umar Bin Hassan,
Abiodun Oyewole, Nilaja Obabi
•
1970; self titled debut album
•
Late 60s – early 70s, Student
Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, Students for a
•
Democratic Society, Black
Panther Party
Social ills: poverty, racism,
classicism toward African
Americans
• This Is Madness (1971), jazzoetry
• Key releases: The Last Poets, This Is
Madness, Chastisement.
Gil scott-
heron
• April 1, 1949, Chicago, Ill.
• Musical story telling: Poet, Writer,
• “Prophet” & Griot Jackson, Tennessee ‘til
• age 12
• NYC – Age 13 until death in
• May 2011 The Fieldston
school, full scholarship
•
Black & Blues, Small Talk at 125 &
• Lenox, The Revolution Will Not Be
Televised (1970)
“Witty satires, not so funny
reality” Whitey on the
Moon
Nikki
giovanni
• “We write because we believe the
human spirit cannot be tamed and
should not be trained”
•
Black American, a daughter, a mother, a
professor of English
•
Born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr,
Knoxville, Tennessee
•
Grad. Fisk University w/ Honors, 1967
•
Published Black Feeling, Black Talk
(1967), Black Judgment (1968)
•
Poems “The True Import of Present
Dialogue” and “The Great Pax White”
•
“Ego Tripping”
THE
END
Sourc
es
• Mphande, Lupenga. “African Oral Literature”. Oxford African American Studies Center. Africana: The
Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition. Web. 23 Oct. 2012.
• Aiello, Thomas. “Black Arts Movement”. Oxford African American Studies Center. Encyclopedia of African
American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century. Web. 23
Oct. 2012.
•
Garret, Van. G. “Cortez, Jayne”. Oxford African American Studies Center. Encyclopedia of African
American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century. Web. 23
• Oct. 2012.
Wilkinson, Michelle J. “Cortez, Jayne”, Oxford African American Studies Center. The Concise Oxford
Companion to African American Literature. Web. 23 Oct. 2012
• ”Jayne Cortez.” jaynecortez08.com. Web. 23 Oct. 2012.
• “Jayne Cortez”. Afropoets.net. Web. 23 Oct. 2012.
• Hinton, Kaavonia. “Scott-Heron, Gil”. Oxford African American Studies Center. African American National
• Biography. Web. 23 Oct 2012.
Foster, Lloren A. “Scot-Heron, Gil”. Oxford African American Studies Center. Encyclopedia of African
• American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century. Web. 23
• Oct 2012.
"Nikki Giovanni : Bio." Nikki Giovanni : Bio. Nikki Giovanni, n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2012. http://nikki-
giovanni.com/ibio.shtml.
Fowler, Virginia C.. "Giovanni, Nikki." Black Women in America, Second Edition. Ed. Darlene Clark HineNew
York: Oxford UP, 2008.
Oxford African American Studies Center. Mon Nov 12 01:43:02 EST 2012.
<http://www.oxfordaasc.com/article/opr/t0003/e0161>