Transbluesency: Selected Poems, 1961-1995

Finally in print in a single volume, a selection from Baraka’s mostly out-of-print collections of poetry, from 1961 to the present. Starting with Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note and concluding with recent limited-edition chapbooks and broadsides, this selection traces the more than thirty year career of a major writer who – along with Ezra Pound – may be one of the most significant, and least understood, American poets of our century.
Edited by noted poet and translator Paul Vengelisti, Transbluesency offers an ample selection of works from every period of Baraka’s extraordinarily innovative, often controversial struggle as a serious and ideologically committed American artist – from Beat to Black Nationist to Marxist-Leninist. This volume reveals a writer shaping a body of poetry that is well a body of knowledge; a passionate reflection upon the cultural, political, and aesthetic questions of his time.