Poems from Prison
1968
First Published
4.57
Average Rating
50
Number of Pages
Poems from Prison is Mr. Knight's first book of verse. His work has appeared in Negro Digest, Journal of Black Poetry, The Lakeshore Outlook, Prison Magazine, and other periodicals, and in the anthologies "For Malcolm X" and Potere Negro (Black Power), and L'Idea degli Antenati (The Idea of Ancestry), published in Italy
Avg Rating
4.57
Number of Ratings
63
5 STARS
63%
4 STARS
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3 STARS
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2 STARS
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Author
Etheridge Knight
Author · 6 books
Etheridge Knight (April 19, 1931 – March 10, 1991) was an African-American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison. The book recalls in verse his eight-year-long sentence after his arrest for robbery in 1960. By the time he left prison, Knight had prepared a second volume featuring his own writings and works of his fellow inmates. This second book, first published in Italy under the title Voce negre dal carcere, appeared in English in 1970 as Black Voices from Prison. These works established Knight as one of the major poets of the Black Arts Movement, which flourished from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s. With roots in the Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, and the Black Power Movement, Etheridge Knight and other American artists within the movement sought to create politically engaged work that explored the African-American cultural and historical experience.
