The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas

by Lorenzo Thomas, Aldon Lynn Nielsen (Editor), Laura Vrana (Editor)

Song

You asked me to sing
Then you seemed not
To hear; to have gone out
From the edge of my voice

And I was singing
There I was singing
In a heathen voice
You could not hear
Though you requested

The song--it was for them.
Although they refuse you
And the song I made for you
Tangled in their tongue

They wd mire themselves in the spring
Rains, as I sit here folding and
Unfolding my nose in your gardens

I wouldn't mind it so bad

Each word is cheapened
In the air, sounding like
Language that riots and
Screams in the dark city

Thoughts they requested
Concepts that rule them

Since I can't have you
I will steal what you have

Lorenzo Thomas (1944-2005) was the youngest member of the Society of Umbra, predecessor of the Black Arts Movement. The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas is the first volume to encompass his entire writing life. His poetry synthesizes New York School and Black Arts aesthetics, heavily influenced by blues and jazz. In a career that spanned decades, Thomas constantly experimented with form and subject, while still writing poetry deeply rooted in the traditions of African American aesthetics. Whether drawing from his experiences during the war in Vietnam, exploring his life in the urban north and the southwest, or parodying his beloved Negritude ancestors, Thomas was a lyric innovator.

Genres: Poetry

498 pages, Hardcover

Published December 3, 2019

Reviews

[David Grundy]

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Thomas is one of the best poets of the twentieth century. But you might not even know his name. Which makes this, all the more so, utterly essential reading for anyone interested in the Black Arts Movement or in modern poetry as a whole, this volume collects Thomas' in- and out-of-print collections: The Bathers, Chances are Few, Sound Science, and Dancing on Main Street, his appearance in the anthology Jambalaya, and a substantial section encompassing decades' worth of previously uncollected poems from little magazines. Thomas is wry, passionate, ironic, deceptively simple and complicatedly straightforward, aware of language's mediating role in the perceptions that guide and grid us through the morass of global politics - that is, the basic facts of our daily, interconnected lives. From Birmingham to Vietnam, New York to Houston, Panama to Cuba, West Africa to Ancient Egypt, Confucius to Brian Wilson, he tells it like "it" is. We'd do well to listen.

[Laura]

I just could not get into the style or the flow of his poetry. Some interesting observations and thoughts, experiences but for me it did not sing