he BreakBeat Poets offers a thrilling vortex of diverse voices. From slavery
Jim Crow, from gang violence to black identity, The BreakBeat Poets
isents an enthralling and necessary overview of an often overlooked vein of
itemporary poetry.”
—Foreword Reviews
J must-read for anyone interested in the deep and every-growing motifs
vordplay, cadence, rhyme structure, and symbolism.”
—Okayplayer
urs the lines between Wordsworth and the Wu-Tang Clan.”
—Gothamist
ery generation needs its poets; we never doubted that the rappers were
ts, but as The BreakBeat Poets shows, the rappers didn’t put the poets
of work.”
—Mark Anthony Neal, coeditor of
That’s the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader
is is for the hip-hop fan of any age and any generation, regardless if
Ve ever read a poem or not. It’s deeper than rap, for real.”
—Fake Shore Drive
ially! Here’s the anthology that puts in print what we’ve known all along:
is Poetry, and Hip-Hop is a genre of poetry bigger than poetry itself.
d these poems and get rid of the notion once and for all that Hip-Hop
us are meant for the stage and don’t work on the page. And the author’s
:ments and essays place these poems straight in the American grain, the
ent iteration of the African-American poetic lineage. The BreakBeat Poets
e essential text for anyone who wants to know what’s up with American
:ry in the Digital Age.”
-Bob Holman, Bowery Poetry Club
amazing to see how expansive the dialogue has become. This book is heavy!”
Bobbito Garcia, cohost of The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show
The
BreakBeat
Poets
New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop
Kevin Coval,
Quraysh Ali Lansana,
& Nate Marshall, editors
Haymarket Books
Questions to consider for your Reading Response:
1. What is the effect of having an unnamed narrator in "Sonny’s Blues"?
2. How does point of view effect your experience of the materials presented this week?
3. How does repetition create or enhance meaning in the piece?
4. Are there any objects/places/things/etc. that feel like characters other than the human characters? If so, how does the writer(s) achieve this characterization?
5. Why do you think the writers (specifically James Baldwin and Zadie Smith) chose to write from the perspectives they did? What would have been the effect of writing from a different perspective and/or what was the effect of writing from the perspective they chose?
