Black Arts
The Black Arts movement was one of the most important times in the African-American literature. It encouraged black people to establish their own publishing houses, magazines, journals, and art institutions. The movement was set in motion by the assassination of Malcolm X. The movement influenced the world of literature, portraying different ethnic voices. Before the movement, literature lacked variance, and the ability to express ideas from the point of view of racial and ethnic minorities which were not valued by the conventional. Sometimes referred to as the Black Aesthetic, the movement's literature usually addressed issues such as interracial tension, sociopolitical awareness of African history and culture and how blacks tie into the United States. Many adherents viewed artists as activists responsible for the formation of racially separate conditions. This movement was the only American literary movement to advance social
enlightenment.
enlightenment.
Amiri Baraka, born in 1934, in Newark, New Jersey, USA, is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist who has recited poetry and lectured on cultural and political issues extensively in the USA, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. He has been the subject of numerous documentary films.
Ka-ba
By: Amiri Baraka
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ka-ba/
Poem Summary: The poem Ka'ba by Amiri Baraka is about the struggles of African Americans throughout history in the past and present. He says we kill each other but we are beautiful people. This relates to the past but mostly the present because every year there is so much black on black crime and so many black young men and some woman who shoot off guns killing other blacks. Although this is bad, we also are creative and beautiful people. We are just as smart as any other race even if some of us do choose to make idiotic decisions. This poem tells how we work hard as a whole in certain ways to survive and have a good and decent life. Some of us ended up better off than others but that doesn't make us any different from one another or another race. This poem shows how we are all connected and how we all started of here in America and still are working for ourselves.
Literary Elements
In the poem Ka'ba by Amiri Baraka, there are three literary elements. The first one is imagery, "a closed window", "a dirty coartyard", "black people call across or scream or walk across", and "african eyes, and noses, and arms" all show examples of imagery because in your head after reading these lines there is the purpose of imagining. An example of personification is, "a closed window looks down". Also, "A closed window looks down on a dirty courtyard", and "we sprawl in gray chains in a place full of winters" is a hyperbole because these lines are exaggerations.