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    The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas
    The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas
    The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas
    Ebook629 pages4 hours

    The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas

    By Lorenzo Thomas and Aldon Lynn Nielsen

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    About this ebook

    Lorenzo Thomas (1944-2005) was the youngest member of the Society of Umbra, predecessor of the Black Arts Movement. The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas is the first volume to encompass his entire writing life. His poetry synthesizes New York School and Black Arts aesthetics, heavily influenced by blues and jazz. In a career that spanned decades, Thomas constantly experimented with form and subject, while still writing poetry deeply rooted in the traditions of African American aesthetics. Whether drawing from his experiences during the war in Vietnam, exploring his life in the urban north and the southwest, or parodying his beloved Negritude ancestors, Thomas was a lyric innovator.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWesleyan University Press
    Release dateDec 3, 2019
    ISBN9780819579003
    The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas
    Author

    Lorenzo Thomas

    Lorenzo Thomas (1944-2005), was a critic and poet, and published volumes of scholarship as well as numerous essays, including several histories of the Umbra group.

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      Book preview

      The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas - Lorenzo Thomas

      Early Crimes

      I

      The way Egyptians used to sit

      she sits

      listening to the radio

      Glass room trembles,

      the people panting to be

      average people

      nothing to do with her

      Sit erect in an ordinary

      chair

      The way she sat, her hands

      pressed together

      Monarch

      Sunlight come into the dark

      garden of the radio’s

      insatiability Chew up

      our peaceful moments

      Flowers,

      before the news

      The 2nd stage etc etc etc

      The age we live in doesn’t matter

      She is not at home

      She is somewhere pressed into

      stone

      Thinking foreign thoughts

      to our music

      Some mixup, huh

      II

      She is a new cut out

      Her white outline exposes the news

      broadcasts

      Her dissent is like that

      of the music

      She is an

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