S O S : Poems, 1961–2013

In 1934, Everett Leroy Jones (later known as Amiri Baraka) was born in Newark, NJ. About that same time, a group of scholars known as the New Critics were busy espousing notions that would dominate the next 30 years of poetic practice. Among these was the idea that poetry and politics should not mix—that art should occupy a mythical world, free of social considerations. Over a 50-year career, Baraka would obliterate that idea by masterfully mingling the personal and the political. His work does not shill for an ideology but is one of those rarest of things: poetry that combines a rigorous intellect, high-voltage aesthetics, and a revolutionary's need to confront his subject. This collection is not the poetry of greeting cards or elementary classrooms, and those who read for escape will find no relaxing excursions in its pages. But those who believe, as Baraka did, that art could surpass simple beauty and act as a force for social change will cherish this remarkable volume.