Ford, Michael
MWF 10:20 AM
Park Hall 0145
This class will introduce students to the broad range of African American poetry. We will begin the class with poems by Philis Wheatley Peters published in the 1770s and end with poems published within the past few years. In between, we will study the work of at least thirty poets and delve into many of the fascinating issues that have faced African American poets and their readers over the past 250 years.
We will consider what role the elegy and the epic have played in the poetic imagining and re-imagining of history, culture, and citizenship. We will consider how and why African American poets have at times embraced, rejected, or experimented with traditional European poetic forms such as the sonnet. We will consider free verse and jazz poetry. We will consider blues poems and slam poems. We will consider odes, haiku, visual poetry, sound poetry, and various forms of poetic collage. We will consider how the business of publishing has at times aided and hindered the circulation of work by African American poets, and how Black poets have at times worked to create their own avenues for publication. We will consider the role poetry played in the fights for emancipation and civil rights in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, and how poets have responded to 21st century movements such as Black Lives Matter.
While I have not chosen all the course readings, I am certain that I will require the following two books. These will be the most expensive books for the class, and I’d like to give you the opportunity to find inexpensive used copies if you would like.
Kevin Young, editor. African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song. (Library of America) ISBN-13: 978-1598536669
Gwendolyn Brooks, Blacks (Third World Press) ISBN:9780883781050