Groundwork: New and Selected Poems, Don L. Lee/Haki R. Madhubuti from 1966 - 1996 (English and English Edition) [Hardcover]

Haki R. Madhubuti (Author), Bakari Kitwana (Preface), Gwendolyn Brooks (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1996

Thirty years of poems and a few essays of Don L. Lee beginning in the militant Black Arts Movement and metamorphosing into the more mature yet critical voice of Lee as Haki R. Madhubuti. The subject is consistently political and poetic as it challenges the people of the world to rights the wrongs committed against Black people and all oppressed people of the world.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Aberrations
Abortion
Afrikan Men
An Afterword: For Gwen Brooks
Always Remember Where You Are
America: The Future
Awareness
The B Network
Back Again, Home
Big Momma
Biko
Black Sketches
Blackgirl Learning
Blackman/an Unfinished History
Blackwoman
A Bonding
But He Was Cool
A Calling
Change
Change Is Not Always Progress
Change-up
The Changing Seasons Of Lfe
Comin Strong
Communication In Whi-te
Contradiction In Essence
The Damage We Do
The Death Dance
Destiny
The Destruction Of Fathers
Don't Cry, Scream
Earthquakes
End Notes
The End Of White World Supremacy
Everything's Cool: Black America In The Early Eighties
Expectations
First
First Impressions On A Poet's Death
First World
For Black People: 1. In The Beginning
For Black People: 2. Transition And Middle Passage
For Black People: 3. The End Is The Real World
For Blackmen With Integrity And Convictions
Future
Get Fired Up
The Great Wait
Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks: Distinctive And Proud At 77
Haiti
Hanging Hard In America
Hero
Honest Search
Hooked
Is Truth Liberating
Judy-one
Killing Memory
Knocking Donkey Fleas Off A Poet From Southside Of Chi
Lady Day
Life Poems
Lovepoems
Magnificent Tomorrows
Mainstream Of Society
Man And Woman
Man Thinking About Woman
Marlayna
Maturity
Message
Message To Our Sons
The Mission Of A Good Man
Mixed Sketches
A Mother's Poem
Mothers
Move Un-noticed To Be Noticed: A Nationhood Poem
Moves
Mwilu/or Poem For The Living
My Brothers
Negro Leaderships
Negro: An Updated Definition Part 368
The New Integrationist
On Seeing Diana Go Madddddd
One Sided Shoot-out
Only A Few Left
The Only One
The Petty Shell Game
A Poem For A Poet
Poem For Quincy Jones, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Etc
A Poem Looking For A Reader
Poem Resulting From A Television Ad For The Color Purple
A Poem To Complement Other Poems
Poet: Gwendolyn Brooks At 70
Poetry
Pollution: Part 1
Positive Movement Will Be Difficult But Necessary
Positives: For Sterling Plumpp
Possibilities: Remembering Malcolm X
The Primitive
Rainforest
Rape: The Male Crime
Re-act For Action
Reflections On A Lost Love
Remarkable Music And Measure: Remembering Fathers And Sons
The Revolutionary Screw
Rise Vision Comin May 27, 1972
Rwanda: Where Tears Have No Power
Safisha
Satistics
Search Void Of Fear
Searching
The Secrets Of The Victors
See Sammy Run In The Wrong Direction
Seeking Ancestors
The Shape Of Things To Come
So Many Books, So Little Time
Soft, Hard, Warm, Sure
Some Of The Women Are Brave
Spirit Flight Into The Coming
The State's Answer To Economic Development
Stereo
Struggle
Sun And Storm
Sun House (a Living Legend)
Sun Rise Missions
Taxes
They Are Not Ready
The Third World Bond
This Familyhood Confirms And Confirms
To Be Quicker For Black Political Prisoners Inside & Outside
Too Many Of Our Young Are Dying
The Traitor
Two Poems
The Union Of Two
Wake-up Niggers
We Are Some Funny Black Artists And Everybody Laughs At Us
We Walk The Way Of The New World
We're An Africanpeople
What Makes Him Happy
White On Black Crime
White People Are People Too
Winterman
With All Deliberate Speed
Woman Black
Woman Means More Than Woman
Woman With Meaning
Womenblack: We Begin With You
Worldview
The Writer
Yes
You Will Recognize Your Brothers
You Will Recognize Your Brothers
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Haki Madhubuti is one of the foremost Black poets and has been in the vanguard of Black letters for more than 25 years. He has perfected the ability to combine politics and poetry in a powerful and unique style that is both accessible and profound. GroundWork: Selected Poems from 1966-1996 is a landmark collection of Madhubuti's poetic vision for and critique of African-Americans and American society as a whole. From "But He Was Cool" and "One Sided Shoot-out" to "White People are People Too" and "Too Many of Our Young are Dying", GroundWork is a compendium of verse that is both thoughtful, memorable, and represents some of the best work in a generation of American poets of any color. -- Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Haki Madubhubuti is poet, publisher and educator. He is one of the early prominent voices in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s; he is a Distinguished Professor at Chicago State University, the President of Third World Press and the founder and Board Member of two private elementary schools, one charter elementary school and a charter high school in Chicago.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 329 pages
• Publisher: Third World Press (January 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0883781727
• ISBN-13: 978-0883781722
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,005,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliance Requires But Roots to Plant and Time To Blossom, August 8, 2011

By 

Michael J. Strode "The AOMuse" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: GroundWork: New and Selected Poems, Don L. Lee/Haki R. Madhubuti from 1966-1996 (English and English Edition) (Paperback)

in america the major reward for
originality
in words, songs and visual melody
is to have dull people
call you weird
while asking what
you do for a living.

~ The Writer

Baba Haki is positively prolific in "GroundWork", the collected revisiting of his poetry, prose, and essays through 1996. Not simply in terms of the wealth of writing, but in the evolving method and manner of his insight. Weddings, coronations, funerals, births, politics, travel and culture all bow before the curvature of his pen and the weight of his analysis. One becomes acutely aware that he has long since been consumed with the written word as the most succinct means of capturing the essential emotive force in each circumstance life might bring to bear. He is in a sense always writing even when not. Refer to "First Impressions on a Poet's Death (for Conrad Kent Rivers)".

And then there is the communal work. The work which binds each of us nearer to one another and leads to expressions of our broader humanity. It is here that Haki channels our furor, passion, pain, and personified poetry. Words which fail us appear to fall from his thoughts with ease and alacrity. This is not a text for light reading, brief summation or one that you should wish to breeze through. You must allow it to sit and reason with you. Refer to "Change Is Not Always Progress (for Africa & Africans".

I had the wonderful fortune to find this text in the course of my current studies of varying stages of black radicalism between the period of the Great Migration and the cultural shift/revival of the 70's. It is perhaps no mere coincidence that I found myself holding conversation with this book at the same time as I was reviewing Nommo: A Literary Legacy of Black Chicago (1967-1987) ~ An Anthology of the OBAC Writers' Workshop which I presently consider one the most brilliantly assembled organizational histories which I have seen in my short life.

Baba Haki stood in good company amongst the writers of the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC). I therefore would think it might be inadequate to speak to the brilliance of this text without referencing the literary lineage to which he found himself bound for some 20 years. In reading both his older works and more recent material, one gathers the sense that he has not at all forgotten either.

The organization existed as a regional hub of the written resurgence known as the Black Arts Movement which sought to act as a catalyst for defining the course towards a black aesthetic. How best do we create art which exemplifies the best elements which black culture has to offer? Art by our people and for our people which takes no consideration in playing for mainstream accolade or attention.

The importance here was that it made the way for very biting social commentary far and away different from the manner in which such anger was expressed by previous generations of black artists in either the Harlem Renaissance or Abolitionist era. There was a yearning to show that assimilation into the mainstream need not be our primary objective. Refer to "Worldview".

Still in all my talk of the seriousness of this work, I don't want anyone to lose sight of the humor, wit, sarcasm, or irony that Haki draws upon so often. It lives in the classic tradition of signifyin' while still being entirely self reflective in its goal. In other words, his best joke on you is a loving barb. A pin prick that you might notice how much more he has to draw to your awareness. There is a chapter in the previously mentioned Nommo text by Carolyn M. Rodgers which I at first found humorous, but which now seems all too relevant to Haki's approach to the writing. I plan to assemble it into a blog post of its own in the future. Refer to "The Revolutionary Screw (for my blacksisters)".

Let "GroundWork" serve as a marker and reminder of the legacy we have built in black literature. Another foothold serving as a firm foundation for the work we still have left to do in this world. As you traverse his journey, consider your own evolution. Are you willing to go through the changes? Be meditative, reflective and mindful along the way. Find where you are wrong and develop a constructive and meaningful way to express it to the world that you may veer another wayward soul back on course. Are you willing to think critically about each of your decisions as they affect all members of the community to which you commit yourself? If you are, then you too may be ready to begin assembling your GroundWork.

if i make mistakes
tell me about them while i live
don't wait until i have left this earth
and then accuse me of contradictions
i may not have been aware of.

~ Life Poems #75