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Books by Kalamu ya
Salaam
The Magic of JuJu: An Appreciation of the Black Arts Movement
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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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What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self
By Kalamu ya Salaam
In
What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self,
Kalamu ya Salaam -- poet, activist, cultural worker and contributor to
the best-selling Black Erotica -- takes us on an introspective journey
in search of the answers that African Americans struggle to obtain. His
reflections capture our movement and complacency, involvement and
noninvolvement from the mid-sixties to the present. Salaam insists,
"The central issue of What Is Life? is to focus on the
difficult and contradictory, to grapple with the hard issues."
What happened to Civil Rights? Did the Black Power Revolution fail?
Who benefited from integration? What happened to the Black
revolutionaries? Where are tha measses of Black people headed as we
engage the nineties? Encased in piercing poetic insight, What Is Life/
offers hope and direction and moves us closer to constructing a
"realistic and effective ideology to serve our continuing
development"
—Third World Press (1994) Kalamu ya salaam's words are pensive,
painful. Informative. They say we were. We are. We shall be if we
continue to walk and talk this newly found freedom. And above all, his
words say resist. Resist. Resist.
—Sonia
Sanchez, poet and
professor, Temple University
Baring one's soul in public is not an easy task, but
greater self-assurance rewards those who venture boldly into such
philosophic dialogue. . . . Kalamu ya Salaam uncovers a host of unresolved
personal crises of accountability to our life's mission. Are we Africans
in America? African-Americans? Or more American than African depite our
rhetorical symbolism . . . For many of us, it will be painful to admit
that we failed both at systematic change through revolution as well as
maintaining alternative institutions in the face of irreconcilable
differences.
—Hannibal
Afrik, Council of Independent Black Institute
Kalamu ya Salaam (the
Pen of Peace)), the poet laureate of New Orleans, is to
Black poetry what Louis Armstrong and Wynton Marsalis
are to jazz. In What Is Life? he intones a
powerful tune that tells children of the African
diaspora how we speak our ancestral African name and
find oneness in the expression. Essentially, What Is
Life? is that vital ray of rhythmic darkness that
encircles all of the librations of life (even the evil
ones) and transforms them into an organic spiritual
light that reveals and heals as it multiplies itself in
grace and glory. read it and be healed.
—Morris F.X. Jeff, Jr.
This is clearly an important and engaging
work. It offers a brilliant balance between poetry and prose, the
aesthetic and the instructive, experiences had and lessons learned,
daily hassle and continuing hope, being and doing Black anyhow. It will
remain throughout the years a testament of possibility for those of us
who still embrace the whirlwind and wonder of love and struggle.
—Maluana Karenga, Professor and Chair,
Department of Black Studies, Cailfornia State University, Long Beach
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updated 9 April 2008
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