The Poetry of Afro-surreal Jazz: A Cultural Revolution

Abstract

Preceded, and most probably influenced, by the French surrealists’ concept of Négritude, the Black Arts Movement was able to generate a new aesthetics derived from the African heritage, which made it a pivotal contribution to the American arts. Thus, this paper is designed logically to examine the poetry of Afro-surreal jazz as a manifestation of this cultural revolution. To achieve this, it approaches the poetry of Afro-surreal jazz on many levels, starting with theory and heading to application. Initially, the paper historically traces the parodic relationship between Surrealism and jazz. It detects the Harlem artists’ “dilemma” of not being able to identify a Black art of their own by adhering to the mainstream Whites’ cultural standards. Then, it studies the surreal turn that accompanied the Black Arts Movement, which bestowed on the Black arts, especially jazz music and poetry, surreal forms that abide by no regulations. Finally, and upon careful consideration, the discussion ends with a novel metaphoric decoding of the musical Afro-surrealism in Henry Dumas’ “play ebony play ivory.”

Keywords: Surrealism, Black Arts Movement, Jazz, Musical Afro-surrealism, Amiri Baraka, Henry Dumas.