African American Haiku: Cultural Visions

African American Haiku: Cultural Visions offers insights into African American poets' innovations in the haiku form, shedding light on a neglected aspect of black poetry. 
 Notable scholars present new interpretations of well-known works. Essays trace the verse of five major African American haiku poets: Richard Wright, James Emanuel, Etheridge Knight, Sonia Sanchez, and Lenard D. Moore. Sachi Nakachi investigates the influence of Japanese aesthetics and Eastern philosophy on Richard Wright's haiku showing Wright's interest in the blues as poetry. Yoshinobu Hakutani analyzes the vision and affinity of jazz and haiku throughout James Emanuel's Jazz from the Haiku King. And Claude Wilkinson digs into Etheridge Knight's improvisation and adherence to tradition of haiku and African American vernacular form. The collection also explores how Sanchez creates a new American hybrid form of the modern haiku in English by blending haiku with her own principles of a black aesthetic. Toru Kiuchi shows how Lenard D. Moore expresses his experiences through haiku with his African American aesthetics and connections to black southern culture. 
 By discussing multiple writers from a variety of disciplines in a single volume, the essayists compare and contrast the work created by writers, poets, and musicians, and illuminate the variety of methods African American authors used when adapting this traditional Japanese form. The result is a volume that offers rich insight into African American aesthetics, the black arts movement, gender issues, blues and jazz, and trends in contemporary poetry.

Author: John Zheng
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 02/10/2016
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.09lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.63d
ISBN: 9781496803030
About the Author
John Zheng is professor of English at Mississippi Valley State University and editor of Conversations with Dana Gioia; Conversations with Sterling Plumpp; and The Other World of Richard Wright: Perspectives on His Haiku, as well as coeditor (with Biling Chen) of Conversations with Gish Jen,  all published by University Press of Mississippi. His work has also been published in such journals as African American Review, East-West Connections, Journal of Ethnic American Literature, Paideuma, and Southern Quarterly