{"id":1302,"date":"2003-12-15T12:39:02","date_gmt":"2003-12-15T12:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/?p=1302"},"modified":"2015-05-17T12:40:38","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T12:40:38","slug":"nyc-book-party-for-amiri-barakas-reparations-and-somebody-blew-up-america-other-poems-on-dec-27-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/2003\/12\/15\/nyc-book-party-for-amiri-barakas-reparations-and-somebody-blew-up-america-other-poems-on-dec-27-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC book party for Amiri Baraka\u2019s Reparations and Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems on Dec. 27, 2003"},"content":{"rendered":"

First major US author published in the Caribbean<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

ST. MARTIN\u00a0<\/strong>(December 15, 2003) \u2014\u00a0The Essence of Reparations<\/em> and\u00a0Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems<\/em> by controversial author Amiri Baraka will launch at Manhattan\u2019s Bowery Poetry Club on Saturday, December 27, at 7:30 PM, said Lasana M. Sekou, projects director at House of Nehesi Publishers.<\/p>\n

Baraka will read from the new titles, followed by a book signing (and a jazz performance with his Blue Ark ensemble). \u201cThis is the first major USA launch for both books. And for us it is particularly significant that this book party takes place in New York City, where Baraka has such a complex history, and at a virtual mecca of the poetic word, the Bowery Poetry Club,\u201d\u00a0308 Bowery Street\u00a0at Bleeker Ave.,\u00a0said Sekou.<\/p>\n

Both books, released in St. Martin in October 2003\u2014making Baraka the first major American author to publish in the Caribbean\u2014are available at amazon.com and from houseofnehesipublish.com.<\/p>\n

The Essence of Reparations<\/em> is Baraka\u2019s first collection of four daring essays looking at reparations for African-Americans, for the crimes of slavery, linking reparations to greater political, economic and social development, and the writer\u2019s ideas about democratic transformation in the USA.<\/p>\n

The fact that reparations could be the watershed movement for Black peoples in the 21st<\/sup> century and that scholars from Harvard to the University of the West Indies (UWI) and from Haiti to Nigeria are exploring, among other features, the moral and legal issues like never before, will not endear Baraka any more to his detractors who are still up in arms about his explosive poem \u201c<\/em>Somebody Blew Up America.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the jointly-published\u00a0Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems<\/em> headlines the 9-11 poem in which Baraka questions \u201cwho,\u201d other than those identified as terrorists, knew beforehand about the New York City World Trade bombings on September 11, 2001.<\/p>\n

The poetic inquiry detonated a fiery storm of its own, leading to a battle royal with the very governor of New Jersey, Baraka\u2019s native state, which had not long before appointed him as its poet laureate. The government asked Baraka to resign over the poem that mattered.<\/p>\n

The poet refused. And a few months ago the New Jersey state legislature practically outlawed the laureate post. Baraka has since taken the state government to court and\u00a0Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems <\/em>may very well end up as \u201cwitness\u201d for the plaintiff and the defense.<\/p>\n

Baraka, 69, has written over 40 books of poetry, plays and music history and criticism. His works have been translated all over Europe and he remains renown as the father of the Black Arts movement in the USA in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Author and Bob Marley scholar Kwame Dawes states in his rather comprehensive introduction to\u00a0Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems<\/em> that one thing is for sure: Baraka needs no introduction.<\/p>\n

Yet House of Nehesi sees these two books also as an introduction of Amiri Baraka to the Caribbean, said Sekou.<\/p>\n

Equally world renown author\/poet\/historian Kamau Brathwaite at New York University credits Baraka as one of the few American authors to feature the Caribbean critically in their works and is certain about the place and appearance ofSomebody Blew Up America & Other Poems<\/em> as, \u201cone more mark in the development in modern Black radical & revolutionary cultural reconstruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already available at\u00a0www.amazon.com<\/a> ,\u00a0www.spdbooks.org<\/a> and other online bookstores, it can be argued that there is no way either of these new titles will only be read in the Caribbean given the US and international reach of Baraka\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Take the complexity of his position in The Essence of Reparations<\/em>, \u201cOne does not have to agree with his ideological framework to appreciate the timeliness and urgency of his case for reparations,\u201d states Dr. Rupert Lewis, professor of Political Thought at UWI. And in the book\u2019s introduction, a practical international reparations reportage, former Nigerian diplomatic officer Fabian Badejo pointed out that Baraka is basing the struggle for reparations \u201con facts, in a scientific manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has been said that Baraka is committed to social justice like no other American author. He is certainly a revolutionary thinker whose political activities and creative growth has taken him from Black nationalism in the 1960s to Marxism-Leninism\u2014without ever turning his literature into dogma or being an apologist for any movement or ideology.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0The Essence of Reparations <\/em>and Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems <\/em>www.houseofnehesipublish.com<\/a> the indomitable American who dares to challenge the times is once again fresh and fearless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First major US author published in the Caribbean ST. MARTIN\u00a0(December 15, 2003) \u2014\u00a0The Essence of Reparations and\u00a0Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems by controversial author Amiri Baraka will launch at Manhattan\u2019s Bowery Poetry Club on Saturday, December 27, at 7:30 PM, said Lasana M. Sekou, projects director at House of Nehesi Publishers. Baraka will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-2003"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1303,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions\/1303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}