"After Mecca": Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement Contributor(s): Clarke, Cheryl (Author) |
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ISBN: 0813534062 ISBN-13: 9780813534060 Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions Published: December 2004 Annotation: The politics and music of the sixties and early seventies have been the subject of scholarship for many years, but it is only very recently that attention has turned to the cultural productions of African Americans poets. In "After Mecca," Cheryl Clarke explores the relationship between the Black Arts Movement (BAM) and black women writers of the period. Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Jayne Cortez, Alice Walker, and others, chart the emergence of a new and distinct black poetry and its relationship to the black community's struggle for rights and liberation. Clarke also traces the contributions of these poets to the development of feminism and lesbian-feminism, and the legacy they left for others to build on. She argues that whether black women poets of the time were writing from within the movement or writing against it, virtually all were responding to it. Using the trope of "Mecca," she explores the ways in which these writers were turning away from white, western society to create a new literacy of blackness. Provocatively written, this book is an important contribution to the fields of African American literary studies and feminist theory. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Literary Criticism | Poetry - Biography & Autobiography |
Dewey: B |
LCCN: 2004007530 |
Age Level: 16-UP |
Grade Level: 11-UP |
Physical Information: 0.62" H x 5.14" W x 8.96" L (0.69 lbs) 224 pages |
Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Sex & Gender - Feminine |
Features: Bibliography, Index |
Review Citations: Multicultural Review 09/01/2005 pg. 76 |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: The politics and music of the sixties and early seventies have been the subject of scholarship for many years, but it is only very recently that attention has turned to the cultural production of African American poets. In "After Mecca," Cheryl Clarke explores the relationship between the Black Arts Movement and black women writers of the period. Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Jayne Cortez, Alice Walker, and others chart the emergence of a new and distinct black poetry and its relationship to the black community's struggle for rights and liberation. Clarke also traces the contributions of these poets to the development of feminism and lesbian-feminism, and the legacy they left for others to build on. She argues that whether black women poets of the time were writing from within the movement or writing against it, virtually all were responding to it. Using the trope of "Mecca," she explores the ways in which these writers were turning away from white, western society to create a new literacy of blackness. Provocatively written, this book is an important contribution to the fields of African American literary studies and feminist theory. |
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