Books by Kalamu ya Salaam

The Magic of JuJu: An Appreciation of the Black Arts Movement  /   360: A Revolution of Black Poets

Everywhere Is Someplace Else: A Literary Anthology  /  From A Bend in the River: 100 New Orleans Poets

Our Music Is No Accident   /  What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self

My Story My Song (CD)

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Reviews

 Kalamu ya Salaam with Kwame Alexander, eds.  360° A Revolution of Black Poets. BlackWords/Runagate Press, 1998

At poetry slams, in coffee houses and cafes, on spoken word CDs, and even featured in Hollywood movies, a new and exciting renaissance of Black poetry is emerging out of the oral tradition of African-American culture. 360: A Revolution of Black Poets presents the cutting edge of this poetic firestorm sweeping across America.

Featuring five pages per poet, 360 presents forty established and emerging Black poets in an anthology of contemporary verse. Stylistically there is everything from rap-like performance verse to haiku, political rants to lyrical love songs, narrative tales to personal meditations. 360 is a treasure map of Black poetry.

360 is published in conjunction with a two-day series of poetry readings, workshops, and film screenings at the Baltimore Museum of Art (Sept. 11) and the University of Maryland-College Park (Sept. 12).

Edited by New Orleans writer/producer Kalamu ya Salaam with writer/publisher Kwame Alexander, 360 includes sharp-edged new work from Amiri Baraka, a historic founder of the sixties Black Arts Movement, complemented by a moving elegy for a friend with cancer from activist/poet Tony Medina, editor of an award-winning anthology on political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal.

Grand divas Sonia Sanchez, author of Wounded in the House of a Friend and Does Your House Have Lions, and Mari Evans, author of the classic I Am a Black Woman, are displayed side by side with the youthful albeit sophisticated musings of Apollo Showtime winner Jessica Care Moore and Pulitzer prize nominee Ruth Forman. Haki Madhubuti, who has sold over 3 million books, and poetry slam World Heavyweight Champ Quincy Troupe mix it up with performance poet D-Knowledge (featured in Poetic Justice and Higher Learning) and Dark Room Collective founder Thomas Sayers Ellis.

—Book Description at Amazon.com

The book is framed by two eloquent essays—I could almost call them manifestos—by the editors. Kwame Alexanders foreword puts the book, and the September 98 poetry festival at the Baltimore Museum of Art that it commemorates, into the context of a history of black poetry, deftly blended with some wonderful passages of memoir. Kalamu ya Salaam’s afterword is more theoretical and polemic in tone: "Black poetry is popular poetry, meaning  precisely that whether college-educated or street-wise, people like to hear Black poetry. Our audiences react to poetry readings as if they were in church, in a nightclub, or in bed with a lover."

—Sam Schmidt, November 1998

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Kwame Alexander: FORWARD: Evolution of a New Era in Black Words (excerpt) We are the direct literary descendants of the Black Arts Poets: Amiri Baraka, Mari Evans, Haki Madhubuti, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Askia Toure, Sam Greenlee, June Jordan., Wanda Coleman, Larry Neal, Eugene Redmond, Carolyn Rodgers, Kalamu ya Salaam, The Last Poets, Jerry Ward, E. Ethelbert Miller, Keropatse Kgositile, Ntozake Shange, Quincy Troupe, and on and on.

We have among us emerging Black poets, a plethora of literary talent and potential: Thomas Sayers Ellis, wadud., Toni Asante Lightfoot, Kysha N. Brown, Tony Medina, Jessica Care Moore, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Glenis Redmond Sherer, Nadir Lasana Bomani, Shonda Buchanan, Tyehimba Jess, Kupenda Auset, DJ Renegade, asha bandele, Goldie Muhammad, Saul Williams, Ras Baraka, Kevin Powell, Michael Datcher, D-Knowledge, Stacey Lyn Evans, Ruth Foreman, A.K. Toney, and on and on. If these writers (including this author) can avoid ego-posturing and the trappings of the ever-increasing trendy commercialization of the arts, we will undoubtedly be prepared to accept the inevitable task of moving Black poetry forward in the next millennium. All that remains is for us to do it. . . .

The idea for 360° developed after I decided to start a publishing company that would provide publishing opportunities for the many talented literary voices of the Hip-Hop Generation. Thus BlackWords, Inc. was born. Through subsequent discussions (some more intense than others), with colleagues, friends and fellow poets several key issues were put on the table relative to the necessity of a conference with a strong focus on emerging writers. While these issues were by no means new they were new to these emerging literary voices, and thus needed to be dealt with in a public forum . . .

This anthology rejects the notion that Black poetry is exclusive to a particular theme or set of specific circumstances (other than how we got here). These poems and poets are representative of three generations of Black Words; of over thirty years of creative “Black Fire.” This book is a mapping of where Black poetry ahs been and where it is headed. The course looks beautiful. . . .

360° reflects that courage. An understanding of where we came from; an appreciation of who we are, and an acceptance of where we are going. We poets are eagerly crossing a literary bridge. Having been taught that we can make history, we are doing it. And that is Revolutionary!

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Table of Contents

Source: Kalamu ya Salaam with Kwame Alexander, eds. 360º A Revolution of Black Poets. Alexandria, VA: BlackWords, 1998.

posted 3 February 2007

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updated 16 October 2007