1960s Poetic Movements

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1960s Poetic Movements

 

• Akhmatova's Orphans, another short lived Russian poetic movement. Named after the Ukrainian poet Anna Akhmatova, a major contributor to Acmeism, the 1960's movement included young St Petersburg poets such as Joseph Brodsky and Yevgeny Rein whom she mentored.

  On the 100th Anniversary of Anna Akhmatova by Joseph Brodsky

  The fire and the page, the hewed hairs and the swords,
  The grains and the millstone, the whispers and the clatter --
  God saves all that -- especially the words
  Of love and pity, as His only way to utter.
  The harsh pulse pounds and the blood torrent whips,
  The spade knocks evenly in them, by gentle muse begotten,
  For life is so unique, they from the mortal lips
  Sound more clear than from the divine wad-cotton.
  Oh, the great soul, I'm bowing overseas
  To you, who found them, and that, your smoldering portion,
  Sleeping in the homeland, which, thanks to you, at least,
  Obtained the gift of speech in the deaf-mute space ocean.

• Black Arts Movement was the artistic side of the American, Black Power movement of the 1960s. The movement included all of the arts, playwrights, painters, musicians, actors, and of writers in general. There had been a smattering of African-American poets before this time, but the poets of the Black Arts movement helped propel ethnic minority voices into the forefront of American literature. It allowed dialect and diverse cultural experiences of the African American to be heralded and recognized. Probably the most famous poet associated with the movement is Maya Angelou, even though she spent most of the 60s working in So Africa. A few others are Amiri Baraka, Tom Dent, Nikki Giovanni and Lorenzo Thomas.

  I know why the caged bird sings by by Maya Angelou

  A free bird leaps on the back
  Of the wind and floats downstream
  Till the current ends and dips his wing
  In the orange sun's rays
  And dares to claim the sky.

  But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
  Can seldom see through his bars of rage
  His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
  So he opens his throat to sing.

  The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
  Of things unknown but longed for still
  And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
  The caged bird sings of freedom.

  The free bird thinks of another breeze
  And the trade winds soft through
  The sighing trees
  And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
  Lawn and he names the sky his own.

  But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
  His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
  His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
  So he opens his throat to sing.

  The caged bird sings with
  A fearful trill of things unknown
  But longed for still and his
  Tune is heard on the distant hill
  For the caged bird sings of freedom.

• Deep Image is a term to describe poetry written by US poets Jerome Rothenberg, Robert Bly, Diane Wakoski and Clayton Eshleman. The term came from the Spanish "cante jondo" (deep song) of Federico Garcia Lorca and his symbolist works. Later James Wright and Galway Kinnell joined the list of Deep Image poets, relying on concrete images to "make the experience". "In general, deep image poems are resonant, stylized and heroic in tone. Longer poems tend to be catalogues of free-standing images." wikipedia

  Taking the Hands by Robert Bly

  Taking the hands of someone you love.
  You see they are delicate cages . . .
  Tiny birds are singing
  In the secluded prairies,
  And in the deep valleys of the hand.

• Liverpool Poets were poets Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri who worked together in Liverpool in the 1960s. They were known for their humorous, anti-intellectual poetry which they published and performed there.

  Survivor by Roger McGough

  Everyday,
  I think about dying.
  About disease, starvation,
  violence, terrorism, war,
  the end of the world.

  It helps
  keep my mind off things.

• OULIPO is an acronym for "OuvioÍr de littérature potentÍelle" ~ ourvroÍr means "workroom in a convent". OULIPO was a 1960s French poetic movement of poets and mathematicians that experimented with and explored rhetorical game like forms. The movement was founded by Raymond Queneau 1903-1976 who may be better known as a Surrealist poet from the French Restistance of WWII. Some of the forms explored by the Oulipo poets were the Sestina, the Cento, Rhopalics couplet , Tautogram and others.
   
• Underground Poets were UK performance poets including Adrian Mitchell, Tom Pickard, Basil Bunting, Heathcote Williams, Michael Horovitz and the Liverpool Poets.

  Front by Tom Pickard

  there is something so familiar
  in what is said I stop and listen,
  a traveller's monologue of dark moaning trees,
  chopped waters,
  deserted street corners,
  randomly disturbed light,
  raised curtains,
  doors flung open,
  sudden precipitous avenues,
  far away dogs brought near
  it is insistent
  secures my inner ear
  we pick up the old conversation
  neither of us understands.