Haki Madhubuti

Books by Haki Madhubuti

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Haki Madhubuti

Poet, Essayist, Publisher

Haki R. Madhubuti, a major poet, essayist, editor and publisher throughout the Black Arts Movement, was born Don Luther Lee, February. 23, 1942, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Madhubuti was raised in Detroit with his mother until the age of sixteen when she died from a drug overdose. Madhubuti claims that his mother, Maxine, is the prime force behind his creativity and interest in the Black Arts. His own family has had more stability; he has been married since 1974 to Safisha, a professor at Northwestern University. Together they have three children: Lani, Bomani, and Akili. He is also the father of two children, Don and Mari, from two previous unions.

After his mother's death, Madhubuti finished high school and joined the Army (1960-63) and his experiences there cemented his interest and commitment in the Black Arts.

Madhubuti's formal education includes a high school diploma received in 1960 from Dunbar Vocational High School in Chicago. He earned his A.A. degree from Chicago City College and later an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. During his lifetime, he has received various awards, including the National Endowment Grant for Poetry (1983), Distinguished Writers Award from Middle Atlantic Writers Association (1984), and the American Book Award (1991). He was named author of the year by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English, and he was the only poet chosen to represent the United States at the International Valmiki World Poetry Festival in New Delhi, India, in 1985.

Madhubuti participated in the political aspects of the Black Arts Movement (BAM) by working as a "foot soldier" for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Community (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In addition to working for political organizations, Madhubuti invested time in writing political essays, hoping to wake the eyes of the public to the events and attitudes of the world around them. His most notorious political collection of essays is entitled Enemies: The Clash of Races.

Early Influences

Madhubuti's development as a man of letters can be traced back to the influence of his mother who, despite the precariousness of their existence, exposed him early to the wonders of the library in which he found works by black authors. He notes in Black Men: Obsolete, Single, and Dangerous? that once his mother introduced him to the marvels of the Detroit Public Library, he was seldom without a book. From this introductory period, made particularly significant by his reading of Richard Wright's Black Boy, until his graduation from high school, he read other black writers including Chester Himes, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington.

Although his initiation into the armed services was marred by a vicious reaction by his commanding officer to Madhubuti's reading of Paul Robeson's Here I Stand, his stint in the army also became a period of intense self-education in African American literature. He left the army in 1963, acquainted with the work of Gwendolyn Brooks, Claude McKay, and W. E. B. Du Bois. According to Madhubuti in "A Personal Journey," the library became a place where he found "new friends, uncritical friends. ... Reading became as important as water and food."

Following his discharge from the army, he became an apprentice and curator at DuSable Museum of African History (1963--67), another significant step in his development; there he was under apprenticeship to Margaret Burroughs, an authority on black history and culture. During this period, he also enrolled in Wilson Junior College (now Kennedy-King College). Meanwhile, he was preparing himself for the disciplined life of the writer; from 1961 to 1966, he followed a strict regimen of reading a book a day and writing a book review of approximately 200 words. These activities were conducted while he held various jobs to sustain himself, including a few for the retail giants of Chicago--Speigel and Montgomery Wards, as well as a job in the post office.

First Poetical Expressions

Madhubuti's first volume of poetry appeared in 1966 with the publication of Think Black. Although he had not yet changed his name from Don L. Lee, the poems in this slim volume signaled the direction that this future prolific poet and essayist would take. Announcing himself to the world, the speaker of this volume reveals to the reader the year in which he was "born into slavery," thus indicating the political turn that much of the poetry would take. In this volume, which was originally self-published and self distributed, he defines himself unquestioningly as a black poet. He castigates America not only for its enslavement of black people, but also for its forced internment of the Japanese during World War II.

One of the most frequently anthologized pieces from the book, "Back Again, Home" speaks to a sense of awareness and rebirth, a call to revolutionize one's thinking as Lee's persona realizes the fallacy of his own enslavement to the materialistic dream of upward mobility, an enslavement that resulted in his loss of self. This message remains a constant in Madhubuti's work. From the beginning, he has challenged values that are destructive of the individual and the culture and has called for the rejection of those values. The volume also reveals another dimension to Madhubuti's voice that expresses itself in a softer and more intimate poem such as "A Poem for Black Hearts."

In 1967, along with Johari Amini (Jewel Latimore), and Carolyn Rodgers, Madhubuti launched the Third World Press in the basement of his South Ada Street apartment in Chicago with seed money of $400. The Third World Press has the distinction of being the longest continuously operating African American press in America. Its inauguration signalled what is a distinctive element in Madhubuti's life as a man of letters--his role as an institution builder, particularly institutions which perpetuate the word and the world of ideas. This institution and others that were to follow became concrete representations of his political and philosophical positions, which stress self-reliance individually and culturally; e.g., building institutions within the community that supports the values of that community. He has noted the hypocrisy of criticizing the institutions of America while remaining dependent upon some of those institutions to convey his beliefs to the public.

As the 1960s ended, Madhubuti published two additional volumes of poetry: Black Pride (1968) and Don't Cry, Scream (1969). In addition, he started the Institute of Positive Education, a school offering two- to- eight-year-olds an Afrocentric education (1969). He also participated in the first Pan-African Festival in Algiers and became writer-in-residence at Cornell University.

The Influence of the 1970s & Beyond

The beginning of the 1970s saw the publication of We Walk the Way of the New World (1970), a collection of poems that continues and expands the themes from his earlier works. While a poem like, "Back Again, Home" speaks directly to rebirth on an individual level primarily, the title poem from this new volume speaks to a rebirth on the collective level. Referring to the black man's sojourn in America as the "dangercourse," the speaker notes the transformations that have occurred as the community marches toward nationhood. According to this poem, it has been a journey marked by elements of self-hatred, and enslavement to empty capitalistic values.

As the layers are stripped away, the speaker's vision is one of black people having run the "dangercourse" emerging as "owners of the New World / the New World" (a world cleansed/transformed by a new people who no longer are corrupted by or corrupt the land/world). The vision articulated in this poem indicates the driving force behind Madhubuti's roles as poet, essayist, and institution builder--to keep before his audience those values that lead to renewal and survival. Continuing the trend in his previous volumes, We Walk the Way of the New World also contains poems that reveal a more intimate side. Such poems are included in the section entitled "Blackwoman Poems."

The decade of the 1970s also saw the publication in 1971 of Directionscore: Selected and New Poems as well as To Gwen with Love, a book he edited with Frances Ward and Patricia Brown. Of major importance was the publication of Dynamite Voices I: Black Poets of the 1960s , also in 1971. It was a volume that provided a critical context for the writers of the Black Arts movement by one of the participants of the movement. Published by Broadside Press, the work allowed Madhubuti to articulate his definition of the black literary critic's role. While maintaining that the black critic must not be narrow in focus, Madhubuti clearly indicates that it is the black critic's role to reflect his or her grounding in the black experience that will enable the critic to develop standards of evaluation related to that experience. It was in 1972 that Madhubuti also started the Black Books Bulletin.

In 1973 Madhubuti decided to change his name from Don L. Lee to Haki Madhubuti, a name that means "justice," "awakening," and "strong" in Swahili. It was the year in which he became poet-in-residence at Howard University and during which Book of Life was published by Broadside Press. The introduction of Book of Life reveals a certain disillusionment on the part of the poet. He also uses the opportunity in this volume to admonish his audience to become independent and to understand the connection between the development of the black woman to her full potential and the development of the black nation to its full potential.

In 1973 From Plan to Planet also appeared. Published jointly by Broadside Press and the Institute of Positive Education, the book had as its motivation the spiritual building of African minds. Therefore, seeking to transform and enhance the spiritual state of his audience, Madhubuti includes ruminations on such topics as self-hatred, money, power, sex, and drug addiction. The decade ended with the publication of Enemies: The Clash of Races (1978) and the launching of the African American Book Center.

The decade of the 1980s saw a continuation of Madhubuti's role as poet and the expansion of his role as critic. He wrote Say That the River Turns: The Impact of Gwendolyn Brooks (1984) and Killing Memory, Seeking Ancestors (1987). Third World Press spearheaded the African American Publishers Booksellers and Writers Association in 1989. In speaking of Africa, Madhubuti noted in the prologue to Killing Memory that the "land of sun has a special meaning" for him, although he was "not prepared for the land that gave birth to civilization."

The prologue further indicates that Madhubuti's goal has been to move culturally from "negro to Black to African," a trip on which he as poet-seer-teacher seeks to guide others. Hence, the poem reflecting the second half of the title becomes another expression of the poet's role.

"Seeking Ancestors," a poem written for the First Annual Egyptian Studies Conference in Los Angeles in February 1984, is divided into five parts focusing first on the "death traps" in American culture, juxtaposed with a rumination on the first people to use the triangle and cultivate the earth.

There is a call for the storytellers to recall the memory of those people in order to call us to our better selves. Throughout Madhubuti's poetical career, he has sought to recall genius to the community, for there are poems devoted not only to Gwendolyn Brooks, but also to Hoyt Fuller, Malcolm X, and the nameless others in the community whose lives exemplify survival under difficult circumstances. His role as the "renamer," the "recaller of tradition," can also be seen in the style of much of his poetry which captures the rhythms of talk, accompanied by performance. Expanding his role as educator, Madhubuti began teaching at Chicago State during this decade (1984). He is currently professor of English there. That same year, he, an environmental engineer, and a lawyer founded the National Black Holistic Retreat of which he is director.

While Madhubuti has continued to write poetry in the 1990s, he has also enhanced his role as essayist. In 1990 he published Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous?: African American Families in Transition: Essays in Discovery, Solution and Hope, a book that addresses the issues that continue to threaten the survival of black men in America, along with advice on the solution to these issues. In 1991 Madhubuti's Third World Press was successful in adding Gwendolyn Brooks to its list of major authors. Responding to the upheaval caused by the Rodney King case in Los Angeles and to the ensuing unrest, Madhubuti edited Why L.A. Happened: Implications of the `92 Los Angeles Rebellion in 1993.

This was followed by Claiming Earth: Race, Rage, Rape, Redemption: Blacks Seeking a Culture of Enlightened Empowerment (1994), a book that the author has described as a work about the development of one's own resources. Madhubuti's significance can be shown by a statement from this volume in which he declares that there is no separation between "my cultural self and my political, professional, business, familial, and writer selves." In his life and career, he has exemplified the individual's attempt to create a unified self and to live a holistic life, one not broken down into segments or fragments of person, poet, teacher, and entrepreneur, a life in which the self is imbued with the cultural values informed by the black experience.

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He attended the University of Illinois and received an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. He is the author of more than twenty books including Heart Love: Wedding & Love Poems (Third World Press,1998), Groundwork Selected Poems of Haki R. Madhubuti Don L. Lee (1996), Killing Memory, Seeking Ancestors (1987), Earthquakes and Sunrise Missions: Poetry and Essays of Black Renewal, 1973- 1983 (1984), Book of Life (1973), and Directionscore: Selected and New Poems (1971).

His prose works include Claiming Earth: Race, Rage, Rape, Redemption (1995), Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? (1990), Enemies: The Clash of Races (1978), and Dynamite Voices I: Black Poets of the 1960s (1971). He is the editor most recently of Million Man March/Day of Absence: A Commemorative Anthology (1996). Mudhubuti is the founder and editor of Third World Press and Black Books Bulletin, and he directs the Institute of Positive Education. Among his honors and awards are an American Book Award (1991) and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is currently a professor of English and Director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University.

SOURCES:

Andrews, William, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris, eds. The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Contemporary Authors. Vol. 73--76. Detroit: Gale Research, 1978.
Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 73. Detroit: Gale Research, 1993.
Madhubuti, Haki. Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? Chicago: Third World Press, 1990.
--. "Gwendolyn Brooks." In Every Shut Eye Ain't Sleep: An Anthology of Poetry by African Americans Since 1945. Edited by Michael S. Harper and Anthony Walton. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.
--. Killing Memory, Seeking Ancestors. Detroit: Lotus Press, 1987.
--. "A Personal Journey: Race, Rage, and Intellectual Development." In Praise of Our Fathers and Our Mothers: A Black Family Treasury by Outstanding Authors and Artists. Edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson. East Orange, NJ: Just Us Books, 1997.
-- (Don L. Lee). Think Black. Detroit: Broadside Press, 1969.
-- (Don L. Lee). We Walk the Way of the New World. Detroit: Broadside Press, 1970.
Oliver, Stephanie Stokes. "Liberated Love." Essence 22 (July 1991): 93--107.
"Preaching the Power of the Printing Press." Chicago Tribune, January 31, 1992.

posted 4 October 2007

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update 5 March 2009