Week Nine: PAPERBACK | Transbluesency, Selected Poems 1961-1995, by Amiri Baraka

Selected this week by artist/writer Chris Vitiello

READING IS A PART OF ACTIVISM.

Baraka never pulled a punch in his life and wrote terrific plays and collaborated with jazz musicians. He was controversial too – his poem “Somebody Blew Up America?” was criticized as anti-Semitic… and defended as anti-Zionist… and prompted the governor of New Jersey to end the poet laureate program for the state since he couldn’t legally fire Baraka from the post. Baraa was a giant and wrote fucking HARD. Get his books and seek out video online of him reading with musicians behind him. – CV