SOURCE: "New Black Poetry: A Double-Edged Sword," in CLA Journal, Vol. XV, No. 1, September, 1971, pp. 37-43.

In the following essay, Bell analyzes African-American poetry, discussing its influences and its agenda.

Perhaps the most phenomenal cultural development in the nation during the 1960's was the renaissance in Afro-American art, especially poetry. Naturally this development, like the Vietnam War, did not come about overnight nor in a social vacuum. Rather, it was an outgrowth of the cultural frustrations and political exigencies of black Americans in their struggle for self-determination if not their very survival. More specifically, it was directly related to LeRoi Jones' baptism in blackness and his remarkable achievements in drama and poetry.

As early as 1962 in "The Myth of Negro Literature" Jones had lashed out at black writers for imitating "the useless ugly inelegance of the stunted middle-class mind," an updated version of Richard Wright's 1937 animadversions in "Blueprint...