Book contents
- The Cambridge History of African American Poetry
- The Cambridge History of African American Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Beginnings
- Part II Black Modernity
- Part III The New Black Poetries
- 13 Umbra and the Countercultures
- 14 The Literary Lives of Amiri Baraka
- 15 The Black Arts Movement Poetics of Space
- 16 Black Arts Women on Wax
- 17 Not a Luxury
- 18 A Black Cosmopolitan Poetics
- 19 A Question of Form
- 20 African American Ecopoetry
- 21 Poetry and Diaspora
- Part IV Building Our Own
- Part V Histories of The Future
- Index
- References
21 - Poetry and Diaspora
from Part III - The New Black Poetries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 May 2026
By
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of African American Poetry
- The Cambridge History of African American Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Beginnings
- Part II Black Modernity
- Part III The New Black Poetries
- 13 Umbra and the Countercultures
- 14 The Literary Lives of Amiri Baraka
- 15 The Black Arts Movement Poetics of Space
- 16 Black Arts Women on Wax
- 17 Not a Luxury
- 18 A Black Cosmopolitan Poetics
- 19 A Question of Form
- 20 African American Ecopoetry
- 21 Poetry and Diaspora
- Part IV Building Our Own
- Part V Histories of The Future
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter starts from the proposition that both poetry and diaspora entail ways of configuring relationships between the general and the particular that may deviate from dominant philosophical tendencies. Without assuming a uniformly shared style or way of thinking, I argue for diaspora as the name of a common historical situation for people of African descent. Noting the concept’s emergence in the 1960s as an alternative to and continuation of older configurations of Pan-Africanism, the chapter then offers brief sketches of some key figures – Kamau Brathwaite, Dionne Brand, and M. NourbeSe Philip – and their relationships to language, gender, and politics.
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- The Cambridge History of African American Poetry , pp. 386 - 404Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
References
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