Saturday, January 11, 2014

Obituary Note: Amiri Baraka

Shelf Awareness

Playwright, poet, critic and activist Amiri Baraka, "one of the most prominent and controversial African American voices in the world of American letters," died yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported. He was 79. 
Newark Mayor Luis Quintana told the Star-Ledger that the former New Jersey poet laureate will be sorely missed: "He was more than a poet; he was a leader in his own right."

"His fingerprints were everywhere. One cannot talk about black literature, black politics, black music, black theater or even blackness without mentioning the name Amiri Baraka," poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller wrote on his blog yesterday. "Yes, for many of us he was like a father--a guiding star. He was a cultural activist who taught us how to understand the motion of history. 


He was controversial at times because he was passionate and the times and our social condition demanded nothing less. Baraka taught us how to examine our beauty as well as our ugliness."

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