Book of the Week: Muse and Druge

I am interested in Black authors of the diaspora who push the realms of tradition. The good aspects must be preserved and transformed to meet the needs of modernity and to scratch the back of futurism.

As such I am going to make sure that I highlight a work of poetry that gets the thumbs up from me.

A lot of poets building off the the Harlem Renaissance and later Black Arts movement sought to generate a black poetical tradition that was firmly rooted in the history of Black American music expression. Thus you can see many experimenting with ways to transpose the modalities of jazz and blues to the written word.

One poet whom I think has done an excellent job is Harryette Mullen through her work Muse and Druge. Not only does she have an epic poem that lyrically resonates blues she has also successful transposed the subject matter of blues in her writing. The whole long poem is about that 'invisible woman' who is so because of the social circles she stepped into. Make some time and check it out.