Description: Black Music, Black Poetry offers readers a fuller appreciation of the diversity of approaches to reading black American poetry. It does so by linking a diverse body of poetry to musical genres that range from the spirituals to contemporary jazz. The poetry of familiar figures such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes and less well-known poets like Harryette Mullen or the lyricist to Pharaoh Sanders, Amos Leon Thomas, are scrutinized in relation to a musical tradition contemporaneous with the lifetime of each poet.
Review Quotes: 'Black Music, Black Poetry makes an important contribution to African American Studies, not least because Gordon Thompson has assembled a group of scholars who actually, truly listen to the music-and whose critical practice therefore exemplifies what interdisciplinarity at its best looks (and sounds) like.' JÃ1/4rgen E. Grandt, University of North Georgia, USA, author of Kinds of Blue: The Jazz Aesthetic in African American Narrative (2004) '... these essays provide rich insight into the fascinating subject of jazz, improvisatory music, and poetry, and how their forms and structures enhance each art form. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.' Choice