Books: The Undaunted Pursuit of Fury

. . . We want poems

like fists beating niggers out of Jocks

or dagger poems in the slimy bellies

of the owner-Jews . . .

. . . We want "poems that kill."

—LeRoi Jones ("Black Art")

For a white man to read LeRoi Jones or almost any other black poet is like being held in a dark room while listening to an angry voice threaten him in a language he is not expected to appreciate or understand. The angry voices belong to poetry guerrilla fighters who talk "Black English" and ignore accepted aesthetics. They neglect...

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