Jazz Poetry The American Idiom

Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Zamsky, Robert

Keywords

Jazz, Poetry, Baraka, Hughes, Music, Beat, Counterculture

Area of Concentration

Humanities

Abstract

In the early 1920s, poets in America began using a vocabulary based on folk forms and speech. African-American folk culture started playing a central role in the arts and became a way to construct cultural identity. Jazz music and classic blues were on the rise as the popular music of the time. The music and poetry were evolving parallel to one another and share many similar characteristics. This thesis analyzes the poetic works of six authors involved in the genre of jazz poetry. My research is chronological beginning at the start of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and continuing to the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and through to the 1980s. I analyze how works by these six poets reflect the evolutions in jazz music from swing, to bebop, and eventually free jazz.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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