Tag: reading
Amplify: Something in the Way: A discussion of Amiri Baraka’s ‘Something in the Way of Things (In Town)’
*UPDATE: Now with video!*
Knows me? You knows Amiri Baraka is the grounding voice. Fascination. inspiration. Baraka’s work shows the way forward—we so often lose the way. Freedom.
“The real problem is you don’t know the real problem.” Remind us: Keep peeled.
A great podcast was released sometime: William J. Harris, Tyrone Williams, and Aldon Nielsen join Al Filreis (always generous) to discuss Baraka’s “Something in the Way of Things.”
I’m delighted Filreis chose to play the version of the poem from the Roots’ 2002 album “Phrenology”. The album—I bought it from the Staten Island Mall on day one—was essential in showing this young introverted weirdo that his suspicions about people being easily defined was specious—contrary to everything my small island peers had suggested. Punk. Rap. Poetry. R&B. Soul. Sound collage. Techno. Profoundly compelling instrumentation. Music as preparation. As runway.
Hard to conceive I first heard Amiri Baraka’s words 16 years ago.
Anyway, the podcast discussion is accessible and criminally brief.
After I listened to it, I was sent back to my bookshelves to hunt down a collection of Baraka’s work from 2014—the year he died—SOS. The hardcover version of the work collects some of the poet’s final poems. That’s how I’ll be spending my night.
I had to share it with all of you in hopes you might share it as well. Be well.
For further study:
- Alternate recording of “Something in the Way of Things (In Town)”
- Review: Claudia Rankine on Baraka (2015)
- FBI file on Amiri Baraka via Archive.org
- Video: Gil Nobles interview with Amiri Baraka
- Our Man Jimmy: Amiri Baraka on James Baldwin (2007)
- “My father loved this city of violence. He was a Newarker to his core.”
- ‘Leadbelly Gives an Autograph’ by Amiri Baraka
- “Beat Bush! People Unite!” from “Bushwacked! A Counterfeit President for a Fake Democracy”
- from Baraka’s “Home: Social Essays”
- “Black Art”
- Rich collection of Baraka audio from ubu.com
- A great little-known poem “The Academic Cowards of Reaction”
New York
Subject Verb Agreement with Butchered Duck
when for a brief moment it is gone
now the unremarkable house two blocks northeast
burns the average color of candycorn
and by average color you mean something simple
but technical perhaps a bit too specific. no!
you mean to say what you mean to say
this is fundamental you can see the subject out your window
out beyond all that eleven degree uniform noise quiet as snow
the breath past house gift again plain
everything perceivable fences and filtered
light. your accent. can you imagine it mercurial
hunger chopping all those tender Rs into unrecognizable
duck-bits in the dawn hours from a michelin star
Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban (Self-Portrait)
Happy Birthday, Amiri Baraka.
“Craziness is no act / Not to act is craziness”
“In Baraka’s world, love of human liberation and the struggle for it is exalted.” Alexs Pate
Nice Work If, Surrounded By If
Wikipedia Poem, No. 511
you
can only
spit
between offices
or still never rhyme
versions
all over life
magazine
up reader
teeth full
of mouths
taste life
now’s
the time
reader
Ta-Nehisi Coates reads Frederick Seidel’s “Boys” and “October,” April 2009
Wikipedia Poem, No. 142
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