Name: ______________Course&Yr: ________ Student No.

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BSEE 38
New York School and the Black Arts Movement

6. New York School Movement

New York School of Poets

 1950’s -1960’s
 Inspiration derived from surrealism and modernism
 Surrealism -cultural movement which began in the 1920’s “Element of surprise”.
 Modernism- A style or movement in the arts that aims to break with classical and
traditional forms.
 rejection of the dominant school of confessional poetry
 deeply influenced by the action painters of the 1950s and 1960s, particularly Jackson
Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Larry Rivers.

 Had commonalities with the beats.

 Confessional frankness
 Serious and ironic
 Interest in surreal combination of high art and art illusions
 Aesthetic mode
 Urban aspects and modernism
 Helped people see the world in different ways

Barbara Guest

 Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, 1920

 Attended UCLA and UC Berkeley, graduated in 1943
 First generation writer for the New York School of Poets in her early career
 Art News magazine in 1950s, continued to write articles and reviews for many art
magazines.
 Tension between the lyrical (or musical) and the graphic (or material) is a defining feature of
her work, and her poetry often utilizes space as a way to draw attention to language.
 She received multiple honors in the poetry community
 Died on February 15, 2006
Notable Works

 The Red Gaze (Wesleyan University Press, 2005)

 Miniatures and Other Poems (2002)
 Symbiosis (1999)
 Defensive Rapture (1994)
 Fair Realism (1989)
 Musicality (1988)
 The Nude (1986)
 Quilts (1980)
 Biography (1980).

Echoes
Once more riding down to Venice on borrowed horses,

the air free of misdemeanor, at rest in the inns of our fathers.

Once again whiteness like the white chandelier.

Echoes of other poems...

Kenneth Koch

 Kenneth Koch was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 27, 1925.

 He studied at Harvard University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree, and
attended Columbia University for his Ph.D.
 Originating at Harvard, where Koch met fellow students Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery,
the New York School derived much of its inspiration from the works of action painters
Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Larry Rivers, whom the poets met in the 1950s
after settling in New York City.
 Kenneth Koch had an obscure way of poetry
 His numerous honors include
 The Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry awarded by the Library of
Congress in 1996
 As well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fulbright,
Guggenheim, and Ingram-Merrill foundations.
Notable Works

 A Momentary Longing To Hear Sad Advice From One Long Dead

 The Magic of Numbers
 To My Father's Business
 To Various Persons Talked To All At Once

John Ashbery

 1927- Present
 Father – Farmer, mother – Biology teacher
 Attended Harvard graduated in 1949.
 Receives Fulbright Fellowship.
 During this time he becomes an editor of the 12 issues of Art and Literature
 served as the art editor for the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune
 1963, Andy Warhol, known for pop art.

 A Wave (1984)
 Mirror (1975)
 Three Poems (1972)
 April Galleons (1987)
 Shadow Train (1981)
 The Double Dream of Spring (1970)
 Turandot and Other Poems (1953)
Frank O’ Hara

 Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara

 March 27, 1926
 Born in Baltimore, Maryland
 Grew up in Massachusetts
 studied piano at the New England Conservatory in Boston
 Served in the South Pacific & Japan War
 Harvard College: Music
 Met John Ashbery
 published poems in the Harvard Advocate
 changed major
 left Harvard in 1950 with a degree in English
 One of the most distinguished members of the New York School of Poets
 source of inspiration for his highly original poetry

Notable Works

 A City Winter (1952)

 Meditations in an Emergency (1956)
 Lunch Poems (1964)

Lines to A Depressed Friend

Joyous you should be,
of all things sweet the most constant and most pure,
eager for what might be obtained--
Luck and life and hideous certainty preventing,
ease and certainty inclining to neglect,
so that real world, blue in the eye! this
umber sky about us drowns. And where
emptiness appears bounding along, of
unrest the most diligent athlete and keenest mate,
remember the pleasure, even there, your beauty affords.
7. Black Arts Movement

 The Black Arts Movement was a Black nationalism movement that focused on music,
literature, drama, and the visual arts made up of Black artists and intellectuals.
 The Black Arts Movement sought to change how blacks were represented and portrayed in
literature and the arts.
 The Black Arts Movement began—symbolically, at least—the day after Malcolm X was
assassinated in 1965. The poet LeRoi Jones gave the movement its name, (soon to
rename himself Amiri Baraka) announced he would leave his integrated life in New York
City’s Lower East Side for Harlem. There he founded the Black Arts Repertory
Theatre/School (BARTS), home to workshops in poetry, playwriting, music, and painting.

Key Ideas of the Movement

 The Black Arts, wrote poet Larry Neal, was “the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the
Black Power concept.” As with that burgeoning political movement, the Black Arts
Movement emphasized self-determination for Black people, a separate cultural existence
for Black people on their own terms, and the beauty and goodness of being Black.

Main Goal of the Movement

 The group called for the creation of poetry, novels, visual arts, and theater to reflect pride in
black history and culture. This new emphasis was an affirmation of the autonomy of black
artists to create black art for black people as a means to awaken black consciousness and
achieve liberation.

Writers/Poets

 The Black Arts Movement started with Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones].

Notable Works

"The Music: Reflection on Jazz and Blues",

"The Book of Monk",

"New Music, New Poetry"

Audre Lorde’s Works

 James Baldwin's novels included Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Giovanni's Room
(1956), Another Country (1962), and If Beale Street Could Talk (1974; film 2018). He wrote
the plays The Amen Corner (1955) and Blues for Mister Charlie (1964)

Thelonious Monk

 Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique
improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire,
including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear",
"In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't