Index to Black Poetry

About this book

This work attempts to provide the first index devoted solely to black poetry. The volume overwhelmingly concerns itself with black poetry in the United States. Ninety-four books and pamphlets by individual poets are indexed as well as thirty-three anthologies. Building on the earlier work of Dorothy Porter, this index undertakes to bring into one volume for the first time a complete reference of black poems and poets. Black poetry here is defined in the broadest manner, rather than in the more exact sense scholars have more recently employed. References are included for the work not only of black poets but also of those poets who have in some way dealt with the black experience or written within the black tradition, regardless of social origins. It includes Blake's "Little Black Boy" as well as Dunbar's "Little Brown Baby," and as such is a broadly defined poetic reference of black subject matter, styles and authors. One asterisk next to an entry indicates a non-black author. There are three major sections: The Title and First Line index, the Author Index and the Subject Index. Arrangement is alphabetical throughout. Narrowing the search for needed poems is an enormous help for the scholar or other interested reader. This index may also aid the individual inquired to assess the comparative usefulness of the increasing number of anthologies of black writers. The Index, particularly the Subject Index affords a broad perspective of the themes which have absorbed black poets over the centuries, from the eighteenth century to the sixties ad early seventies.