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Did you know April . . .

13th-19th Is National Library Week / April is National Poetry Month

We highlight Dudley Randall and Audre Lorde

 

 

Books by and about Dudley Randall

Julius E. Thompson. Dudley Randall, Broadside Press, and the Black Arts Movement in Detroit, 1960-1995. Jefferson: McFarland, 1999. 344 pp

The Black Poets. Edited by Dudley Randall. A Bantam Book 1971.

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Dudley Randall

Randall, a librarian by training and trade . . . figures prominently in the development of an audience for the new black poetry. Randall also served in World War II and writes poems about the war, love, violence, art, and the black presence. His well known "Booker T. and W.E.B.," digesting the Washington-Du Bois controversy, was seen by Du Bois, and this pleased Randall. The poem first appeared in Midwest Journal, 1952. Randall has also written about and translated Russian poetry. Dudley Randall-- Publishe, Editor, Poet

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Black Magic

            By Dudley Randall

Black girl black girl

lips as curved as cherries

full as grape bunches

sweet as blackberries

 

Black girl black girl

when you walk you are

magic as a rising bird

or a falling star

 

Black girl black girl

what’s your spell to make

the heart in my breast

jump           stop         shake

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The Poetry of Black America. Copyright © 1973 by Arnold Adoff. Introduction copyright © 1973 by Gwendolyn Brooks Blakely • Harper & Row • New York, N.Y. 10022

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Books by Audre Lorde

 Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches / The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde / Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

 The Black Unicorn: Poems / A Burst of Light / The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power / Cancer Journals

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Audre Lorde

After graduating from high school, she attended Hunter College from 1954 to 1959, graduating with a bachelors degree. While studying library science, Lorde supported herself working various odd jobs: factory worker, ghost writer, social worker, X-ray technician, medical clerk, and arts and crafts supervisor. In 1954, she spent a pivotal year as a student at the National University of Mexico, a period described by Lorde as a time of affirmation and renewal because she confirmed her identity on personal and artistic levels as a lesbian and poet. On her return to New York, Lorde went to college, worked as a librarian, continued writing, and became an active participant in the gay culture of Greenwich Village. Lorde furthered her education at Columbia University, earning a master’s degree in library science in 1961. During this time she also worked as a librarian at Mount Vernon Public Library and marred attorney Edward Ashley Rollins; they later divorced in 1970 after having two children, Elizabeth and Johnathan. In 1966, Lorde became head librarian at Town School Library in New York City where she remained until 1968. (BK) Lorde Life

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Naturally

          By Audre Lorde

Since Naturally Black is Naturally Beautiful

I must be proud

And, naturally

Black and

Beautiful

Who always was a trifle

Yellow

And plain, though proud,

Before.

 

Now I've given up pomades

Having spent the summer sunning

And feeling naturally free

     (if I die of skin cancer

      oh well -- one less

      black and beautiful me)

Yet no agency spends millions

To prevent my summer tanning

And who trembles nightly

With the fear of their lily cities being swallowed

By a summer ocean of naturally wooly hair?

 

But I've bought my can of

Natural Hair Spray

Made and marketed in Watts

Still thinking more

Proud beautiful Black women

Could better make and use

Black bread.

Source: In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African American Poetry, edited by E. Ethelbert Miller. Illustrated by Terrance Cummings. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1994.

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Other Poetry Collections

 Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing.  Amiri Baraka (Editor) and Larry Neal (Editor). Black Classic Press (February 28, 2007). 680 p.

Beyond the Frontier: African American Poetry for the 21st Century Edited by E. Ethelbert Miller (Editor). Black Classic Press (September 18, 2002).

Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam. Sonia Sanchez (Foreword), Tony Medina (Editor), Louis Reyes Rivera (Editor)

Every Goodbye Ain't Gone: An Anthology of Innovative Poetry by African Americans. Aldon Lynn Nielsen (Editor), Lauri Ramey (Editor). University Alabama Press (February 5, 2006)

The Poetry of Black America, Edited by by Arnold Adoff (1973).

Words with Wings: A Treasury of African-American Poetry and Art (children's). Belinda Rochelle (Editor). Amistad (December 26, 2000).

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posted 15 April 2008

 

 

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