Essay About Beat Movement And Leroi Jones

Leroi Jones A.K.A Amiri Baraka
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Notes For a Speech by LeRoi Jones
African blues
does not know me. Their steps, in sands
of their own
land. A country
in black & white, newspapers
blown down pavements
of the world. Does
not feel
what I am.
Strength
in the dream, an oblique
suckling of nerve, the wind
throws up sand, eyes
are something locked in
hate, of hate, of hate, to
walk abroad, they conduct
their deaths apart
from my own. Those
heads, I call
my “people.”
(And who are they. People. To concern
myslef, ugly man. Who
you, to concern
the white flat stomachs
of maidens, inside houses
dying. Black. Peeled moon
light on my fingers
move under
her clothes. Where
is her husband. Black
words throw up sand
to eyes, fingers of
their private dead. Whose
soul, eyes, in sand. My color
is not theirs. Lighter, white man
talk. They shy away. My own
dead souls, my, so called
people. Africa
is a foreign place. You are
as any other sad man here
american.
LeRoi Jones a.k.a. Amiri Baraka, poet, playwright, activist and urban born black man. The beat movement, a literary reimagining that peaked creatively approximately forty odd years ago, was one that drew attention to several different walks of life. One being the group of inspired black youths of America, struggling