LITR 4332: American Minority Literature

Student Poetry Presentation 2007

Monday, 5 February: Amiri Baraka, “Ka ‘Ba” UA 155-56.

Reader: Kyle Rahe

God has been replaced, as he has all over the West, with  

respectability and air conditioning. -Amiri Baraka

Baraka was born LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey in 1934.  He changed his name after Malcolm X’s assassination and his exposure to Black Islam.  In addition to being a major poet, Baraka is a playwright, novelist, professor, and activist.  He was strongly influenced by Pound and William Carlos Williams.  He says he wants his work to be revolutionary and to unite art and politics.

The title of the poem Ka ‘Ba refers to the holiest Islamic site in Mecca.

Objective 5a- Baraka uses the poem as a rallying call for the minority community and he declares that words will be the conductors for this revolution.

Questions:

1. What does Baraka imply by the title?

2. What does Baraka mean by the magic and spells in the last stanza?

3. How do black people defy physics with their actions in the first stanza and in general?