James Edward Smethurst

I had hoped this book, encyclopedic as it is, would offer more than the usual Amiri Baraka-centric BAM narrative. Yes, he was key, but his polemics helped obscure the contributions of many other writers -- particularly women and gay men. I hoped this 470-page book would find room for more than brief mentions of poets even Smethurst admits were key to BAM, such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikki Giovanni.

But no. When Smethurst does discuss gender, he devotes most of the space to saying Baraka, Don Lee, and other movement leaders weren't so bad on these issues after all, mostly by referencing their apologetic and ashamed postBAM writings. Smethurst doesn't mention Baraka's homophobic bullying of James Baldwin. In fact, Smethurst gives actual BAM literary gay bashing one paragraph in which he speaks in generalities and gives one example. As for misogyny, the sole example he gives is from Amina Baraka, thus making it seem as if the movement's misogyny was supplied by women themselves.

The review before me notes how much research is here -- I completely agree: This is indeed a useful book. It tells the same old BAM story, though.… (meer)