The Political Use of the Figure of John Coltrane in American Poetry
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.4.1-2.81-98Keywords:
American poetry, jazz poetry, poetry and politics, Black Arts Movement, African- American poetry, influence of music on poetry, John Coltrane, Amiri Baraka, Sonia SanchezAbstract
John Coltrane; one of the most influential and important musicians and composers of the 20th century; began to inspire jazz musicians and American poets in the 1960s with the Black Arts Movement poets. His music was interpreted and used for the promotion of political ideas in the poetics of Amiri Baraka; Sonia Sanchez; Askia Muhammad Toure; Larry Neal and others. This is the political Coltrane poetry. On the other hand; Coltrane’s music inspired another kind of poets; the musical poets; which began to emerge in the 1970s. In this case; the poetry reflects the true nature of Coltrane’s spiritual music quest. The poets belonging to this group; like Michael S. Harper; William Matthews; Jean Valentine; Cornelius Eady; Philip Levine; Nathaniel Mackey and others; go beyond politics; beyond race or gender. The paper will examine the first type of the Coltrane poetry; where Coltrane’s music was used to promote the political ideas of the Black Art Movement in connection with the political movement of Malcolm X. These poets changed; rearticulated and shifted Coltrane’s spiritually musical message towards the principles of the black nationalism.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors are confirming that they are the authors of the submitting article, which will be published (print and online) in journal ELOPE by Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Aškerčeva 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia). Author’s name will be evident in the article in journal. All decisions regarding layout and distribution of the work are in hands of the publisher.
- Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
