Naming Black Poetry -- ep. by Howard Rambsy II

A brief take on evolving labels for Black poetry, tracing shifts from Negro poetry to Black poetry to African American poetry through anthology titles reflecting changing cultural identities.

Script by Howard Rambsy II
Narration by Kassandra Timm

Transcript

In the foreword to his 1927 anthology Caroling Dusk, Countee Cullen wrote that he titled the collection an anthology of verse by Negro poets rather than an anthology of Negro verse, which he believed would be more confusing than accurate.
 
 

Over time, however, the ways people described this body of poetry changed—from verse by Negro poets to 

Negro poetry, then Black poetry, and eventually African American poetry.

The history of those shifts deserves our attention.

You’re listening to Remarkable Receptions—a podcast about African American artistic production, the circulation of ideas, and more.

There have always been multiple ways of referring to poetry written by Black writers. In 1922, James Weldon Johnson published his now well-known anthology The Book of American Negro Poetry. A year later, Robert Kerlin released Negro Poets and Their Poems. And in 1927, Cullen published Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the word Negro began to fade from common usage. Editors, keeping with the language of the moment, increasingly linked poetry to the word Black. In 1969, Dudley Randall published Black Poetry: A Supplement to Anthologies Which Exclude Black Poets. Two years later, he released another anthology titled The Black Poets. In 1972, Woodie King Jr. edited Black Spirits: A Festival of New Black Poets in America. That same year, Bernard W. Bell edited Modern and Contemporary Afro-American Poetry.

In 1974, Arnold Adoff released a children’s anthology titled My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, editors frequently used the term Black poetry. But by the mid-to-late 1990s, another shift was underway. Increasingly, editors began using the term African American poetry. In 1997, Jerry W. Ward Jr. edited Trouble the Water: 250 Years of African-American Poetry. And in 2020, Kevin Young edited African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song.

All these titles for poetry anthologies tell a story. The movement from American Negro poetry to verse by Negro poets to Black poetry to African American poetry reflects a rather remarkable shifting of cultural identities and evolving ways of naming a literary continuum. 

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This episode was written by Howard Rambsy, edited by Elizabeth Cali, and read by me, Kassandra Timm.

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