African American poets

  • Four Black poets

    Four black poets read and talk about their work. Herb Kohl introduces the poets: Monte Vista High School students Greg Rooks, Steven Capers, Sharon Boone, and Karen Buverick. All the poets are affiliated with “What’s Happening,” an independent student magazine based out of Columbia University and run by Elaine Avedon. |Note from box cover: “Kohl…

  • Four local Washington, D.C. poets / interviews by Hazel Robinson

    “A poet is — a diary of the soul.” Thus begins one of Hazel Robinson’s poems and that thought is the theme of this program. Four local poets–Tamu Moore, Erskie Freeman, Mary Greer, and Hazel Robinson–read their poems and talk about how and why and when they write.

  • Gwendolyn Brooks and LeRoi Jones poetry reading (Part 2 of 2)

    This is the second reel of the session during which Gwendolyn Brooks and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) read from their own poetry at the Negro Writers conference at Asilomar in August 1964. On this reel Jones reads his poetry for the first half of the recording, and the second half contains a lively question and…

  • Gwendolyn Brooks and LeRoi Jones poetry reading

    This is a recording of the session during which Gwendolyn Brooks and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) read from their own poetry at the Negro Writers conference at Asilomar in August 1964. “The Negro writer in the United States” was a five-day seminar hosted by the University of California at Berkeley Extension Program, held at the…

  • Conversation with Ishmael Reed

    Eleanor Sully talks with Ishmael Reed, author of “The Free-Lance Pallbearers” and “Yellow Back Radio Broke Down,” about his own work in relation to the tradition of black writing in America. Possibly first aired during Sully’s “New Writers” series on KPFA.