EthnoAnthroPoetry

By Yahya Jongintaba

Most of the poems in EthnoAnthroPoetry first appeared forty years ago in a self-illustrated self-published poetry book similarly titled Ethno-Anthropoetry (1983). Both of these titles allude to something historical about the author's life and professional work at the time of the first publication. He had been freshly minted a "scholar" the year before, 1982, upon graduating with a PhD in music composition from Washington University in St. Louis and becoming a professor at the youthful age of twenty-five, and he wanted to synthesize poetry, scholarly research, musical composition, musical performance, and art. The result in the 1983 poetry book, and in this improved edition four decades later, in 2024, is a concise history of African American music in poetry and paintings-spirituals, shouts, blues, military marches, minstrel music, ragtime, bebop, jazz, hymns, anthems, gospel, and rap. The art is improved as well, for the author's original pencil and ink drawings have been painted and given colorful context by his thirteen-year-old son, Izengo Mwalimu Jongintaba. The paintings evoke black musical rhythms, tones, and timbres as much as the poems, and the poems and paintings interact at times homophonically and other times contrapuntally. This is black music, and it is history.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0CZRZH66G
• ISBN13: 9798321547250
• Release Date: April 2024
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 86 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"