Amiri Baraka died, rip, great activist and human

[gwheezie]

http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2014/01/hold_hold_hold_amiri_baraka_former_nj_poet_laureate_and_prolific_author_dead_at_79.html

I met the man several times and was lucky enough to spend a few hours talking to him about poetry and civil rights decades ago. I lived in Newark during the riots and the rise of the black power movement.

[KamaAina]

1. Shit. He was the advisor to my first college literary magazine

the Noiseless Spider at the majority white University of New Haven in CT.

[gwheezie]

2. A very generous human being

I was of course much younger and attended some writing classes at Rutgers in Newark, 40 or so years later I still remember him as being very interested and kind to me when we discussed poetry and activism, I was a teenager and was also living where Kawaida towers was being built and the demonstrations. He tolerated my youthful naive energy and encouraged me, it was a brief episode in my life but he was a very influential person that helped shape who I have become.

[TheBlackAdder]

3. I was hoping to catch him the next time DUTCHMAN played in NYC

R.I.P. Amiri Baraka (Everet LeRoi Jones)

I had just studied him in a college play analysis course.

[nolabear]

4. Farewell, Poet.

Another good man done gone.

[NJCher]

5. my student posed for a pic with him

He was writing a paper on him and happened to have a chance encounter with him at a bar in Newark. Can't recall the name now, but it should come back to me.

I will see if I can post the pic later.

Sorry he's gone. I enjoyed his work very much and my students and I had great times working with "Somebody Blew Up America."

Here's a story done by our public radio station.


Cher

[LiberalEsto]

6. Rest in peace, wonderful poet

I heard him read poetry many years ago. He was an amazing, gifted writer.