‘For their fights affect our fights’: The Impact of African American Poetics and Politics on the Poetry of Lionel Fogarty

Authors

  • Ameer Chasib Furaih Griffith University University of Baghdad

Keywords:

Fogarty, Baraka, Sanchez, Malcolm X, Garvey, Black Power movement

Abstract

 

Aboriginal Australian and African American poets of the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s and beyond were prominent in the connected struggles of their peoples. The poetry of some of these poets displays common elements that enable a comparative reading of their work. This essay traces the influence of poets from the African American Black Arts movement on the work of Aboriginal Australian poet Lionel Fogarty (born 1958). It proposes that the radical poetic structures of Fogarty’s poems share common features with those of African American poets such as Everett LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka) (1934-2014) and Sonia Sanchez (born 1934). The explicitly militant tone in many of these poems can also be linked to the ideas of Malcolm Little (later Malcolm X). The essay examines the role of poetry in the political struggle of Aboriginal and African American communities and addresses issues of literary sovereignty by placing Aboriginal poetry within a transitional discourse concerning the struggle for civil rights.

Author Biography

  • Ameer Chasib Furaih, Griffith University University of Baghdad
    Ameer is a PhD candidate at Griffith University, School of Humanities, working under the supervision of Prof. Chris Lee and Dr. Stuart Cooke since 2015. Prior to Griffith, he received his master degree in Modern American poetry from University of Baghdad, College of Education (Ibn-Rushd) in 2008, and joined the English Department in 2010. His current research primarily investigates Australian Aboriginal and African American poetry of the Civil Rights movement and beyond.

References

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Published

2017-12-21