The World Is My Fuse

Since summer is (almost) here, and I'll have even more spare time, I'm just going to blog about books that I've read, as I read them.

We are unfair, and unfair
We are black magicians, black art
s we make in black labs of the heart

The fair are
fair and death
ly white

The day will not save them
and we own
the night

Best known as a poet, this is a collection of essays Amiri Baraka had written between 1960 and 1965 (Originally published in 1966) primarily regarding the issues of black identity and commentary on the nature of the civil rights struggle.

With a heavy focus on more radical approaches (For example, Baraka's views that there is indeed a place for physical violence in any sort of large movement) and emphasis on the necessity of participatory action in creating effective change (In his urging of black people to make the changes they want on their own watch, not on that of the white men). Baraka hits the nail on the head over and over again, for me at least.

"Something else I can Aspire to is the craziness of all honest men. That is, the craziness that will make a man keep talking long after everyone else says he shouldn't."
-Amiri Baraka

Intertwined with these ideas are evaluations on black art and literature, subjects which are met with mixed reactions, and no matter which way they are examined, it makes an incredibly interesting read.

I have always felt that first hand accounts of struggles from a single point of view allow for an understanding of the environment at the time that no mass produced documentary or third hand retelling in a lecture hall could ever reproduce. And in the case of Home, there is nothing that could compare to reading the frustration of a black artist of the time as he reacts to the murders of Martin Luther King as well as Malcolm X. As his frustration reaches a breaking point in the essay The Legacy of Malcolm X and the Coming of the Black Nation.

As a short aside, I really do wish that they went with the same cover as the original printing (seen below).I feel that the photo was a good representation of the messages of frustration and helplessness at the time of first print, especially when compared to this new piece of graphic design. However, I do understand that this is part of a series of reprints being published by Akashi Classics, so I guess they wanted to go with some sort of visual consistency. Such is life.