BLACK MUSIC AND BLACK POETRY
BLACK STUDIES 54
ENGLISH 15
Professor Andrea Benton Rushing
Autumn 2007
Class meetings: Tuesday and Thursday 10a. to 11:20a
Meeting room: Cooper House Seminar Room
My office:11 Johnson Chapel
Office hours: By appointment
Office phone: 542-2412
Black Studies Department: 542-5800
English Department: 542-2231
Music is the central art form in African American cultures. This beginning,
survey course considers the relationship between poetry and music from the
oral and written poetry of slavery to contemporary hip-hop. We will pay
special attention to the ways poetry uses musicians as subjects and builds on
such musical forms as spirituals, the blues, rhythm and blues, reggae, and
jazz. The course will begin with the importance of music in the Western
African cultures from which most enslaved Africans came and pay careful
attention to lexicon, rhythm, refrain, pitch, tone, timbre, cadence, and calland-response. Students will be expected to read poetry, hear it read by its
creators, and listen to its musical inspirations and manifestations. We will
pay special attention to such periods as the Harlem Renaissance of the
1920s, the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and today's hiphop music. We will read such poets as Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown,
Michael Harper, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and Brenda Marie Osbey;
and hear music by classic musicians like Billie Holiday and John Coltrane
and newer voices like Mos' Def, John Legend, and india.arie. Throughout
the course we will focus on the relationship between artists and their
audiences and the unique role of cities such as New York, Chicago, and New
Orleans.
COURSE OUTLINE
Tuesday 9/4: Introduction
Thursday 9/6: Introduction and Hip Hop Music
Reading: Selections from: Know What I Mean
Excerpt from Callaloo
Tuesday 9/11: Introduction, Foundational Texts
Reading: Introduction to Understanding the New Black Poetry
Thursday 9/13: Introduction: Intersections and Regenerations
Tuesday 9/18: Library Visit: Class meets at usual time at Frost Library
Thursday 9/20: Revisiting Machismo: “Wild Negro Bill”; “I Sing of Shine”
“The Seventh Son” “Rap’s Poem”
Short Paper due end of week 3
Tuesday 9/25: Spirituals: “Go Down Moses”; Joshua Fit De Battle of Jericho”
Thursday 9/27: Spirituals: “Steal Away to Jesus; “Git on Board Little Chillen”
Tuesday 10/2: Spirituals: “I Thank God I’m Free at Last”
Thursday 10/4: Spirituals: Listening Session
Tuesday 10/9: The Blues and R&B: Introductory lecture/discussion
Thursday 10/11: Sterling Brown: “Ma Rainey”; “Children’s Children”
“Strong Man”
Tuesday 10/16: Langston Hughes “When Sue Wears Red”; “Mother to Son”
“Jazzonia” ; “The Black Lash Blues”
Thursday 10/ 18: More Blues: Gwendolyn Brooks. “We Real Cool”
Tuesday 10/23: Transitional: The Great Migration
Thursday 10/25 Visiting Speaker: Poet Kate Rushin (Wesleyan University)
Tuesday 10/30: R & B: Listening/Discussion Session
Thursday 11/1: Sonia Sanchez (life, work contribution). “A Coltrane Poem”; “To
Blk/ Record/Buyers:”; “
Tuesday 11/6: Nikki Giovanni “Revolutionary Music” “Poem for Aretha”*
Thursday 11/8: TBA Perhaps Video*
Tuesday 11/13 Jazz: Introduction
Tuesday 11/20 and Thursday 11/22: No Class, Thanksgiving Recess
Tuesday 11/27: Jazz: Robert Hayden. “Ballad of Nat Turner”; “Runagate
Runagate”;
Thursday 11/15: Michael Harper.” Dear John, Dear Coltrane”; “To James
Brown”*
Thursday 11/29: Looping/Video*
Tuesday 12/4: Rita Dove’s AMERICAN SMOOTH
Thursday 12/6: Rita Dove’s AMERICAN SMOOTH
Tuesday 12/11: Wrap up: More Looping*
Course packet is available in Black Studies Department in Cooper House
Rita Dove’s AMERICAN SMOOTH is available in Food for Thoughts Books
in (downtown Amherst)
Copies of all texts are available at the Reserve Desk in Frost Library
/abr
3 Sept. ‘07