Overview

Classic and new work by poet and jazz writer A. B. Spellman /> />A. B. Spellman is an acclaimed American poet, music critic, and arts administrator. He is widely recognized as a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, a cultural and literary movement that emphasized Black identity, pride, and artistic expression. Between the Night and Its Music brings together A. B. Spellman's early work with a collection of powerful new poems. Spellman's literary career took flight in 1965 with his debut poetry collection, The Beautiful Days, which introduced his distinctive voice blending elements of jazz, blues, and African oral traditions. In 1966, Four Lives in the Bebop Business established Spellman as a respected music critic and scholar. It was a groundbreaking work that chronicled the lives and struggles of four influential jazz musicians. Spellman held senior positions at the National Endowment for the Arts for thirty years with lasting impact on arts funding for inner cities and rural and tribal communities. In addition to poems from The Beautiful Days (1965) and Things I Must Have Known (2008), this book contains a trove of new and uncollected poems, confirming Spellman's continued centrality to contemporary American literature. This is an essential volume for readers already familiar with Spellman, and an excellent introduction for new readers. Lauri Scheyer's introduction situates Spellman's work within jazz writing, Black Arts, and American poetry broadly. /> />[sample text] /> />THE TWIST /> />a dancer's world />is walls, movement />confined: music /> />god's last breath. />rhythm: the last beating />of his heart. a dancer /> />follows that sound, blind />to its source, toward walls />with others. she cannot dance alone /> />she thinks of thought />as windows, as ice around the dance />can you break it? move

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9780819501196

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Reviews

"""Between the Night and Its Music is a revelation from an architect of the Black Arts Movement. This is a book to read and re-read for the music it helps us hear, and its own music.""--Anthony Reed, author of Freedom Time: The Poetics and Politics of Black Experimental Writing ""This collection of A. B. Spellman's poetry captures the 'sensuality of a collective consciousness.' Spellman uses these words to describe the Black Arts Movement (the movement that set his poetics in motion). This necessary book shows that his entire poetic flow has been a profound movement of words that create the sensuality, music, and quiet of a Black collective consciousness.""--Margo Natalie Crawford, University of Pennsylvania"

""Between the Night and Its Music is a revelation from an architect of the Black Arts Movement. This is a book to read and re-read for the music it helps us hear, and its own music.""--Anthony Reed, author of Freedom Time: The Poetics and Politics of Black Experimental Writing ""This collection of A. B. Spellman's poetry captures the 'sensuality of a collective consciousness.' Spellman uses these words to describe the Black Arts Movement (the movement that set his poetics in motion). This necessary book shows that his entire poetic flow has been a profound movement of words that create the sensuality, music, and quiet of a Black collective consciousness.""--Margo Natalie Crawford, University of Pennsylvania

""Poet and jazz critic Spellman published collections in 1965 and 2008, working for the National Endowment for the Arts in between; new poems comprise half this eye- opening volume. Assaying Black heritage, the arts, and being in the world, he shifts perceptions in language both distinctive and piercingly precise (""she thinks of thought / as windows, as ice around the dance""). A major (re)discovery.""--Library Journal, Best Poetry of 2024 ""these poems are never overloaded; word choice is so precise that readers live in the poet's mind as he writes. It's not scene but thought painting. Highly recommended; readers unfamiliar with Spellman will wonder how they missed his work.""--Library Journal, Starred Review ""'Between the Night & Its Music' by A.B. Spellman invokes a deep consideration of the connections between people and music. Whenever I read this poem, I am reminded of all the stages and complexities that are withheld by every piece of music ever created. We are all connected to music. As Tower Records put in an abridged quoting of Nietzsche, 'no music, no life.' The poem embodies this statement throughout its reflection of this interwoven cycle, but specifically through my favorite line 'between the voice & the music is the self.'""--Carlee Migliorisi, Poetry Daily ""Between the Night and Its Music is a revelation from an architect of the Black Arts Movement. This is a book to read and re-read for the music it helps us hear, and its own music.""--Anthony Reed, author of Freedom Time: The Poetics and Politics of Black Experimental Writing ""This collection of A. B. Spellman's poetry captures the 'sensuality of a collective consciousness.' Spellman uses these words to describe the Black Arts Movement (the movement that set his poetics in motion). This necessary book shows that his entire poetic flow has been a profound movement of words that create the sensuality, music, and quiet of a Black collective consciousness.""--Margo Natalie Crawford, University of Pennsylvania

Author Information

ALFRED BENNETT (A. B.) SPELLMAN is a poet and jazz critic whose books include The Beautiful Days (1964), Four Jazz Lives (1966), and Things I Must Have Known (2008). His work at the NEA was honored with the establishment of the A. B. Spellman Award for Jazz Advocacy. He has served on panels such as the Rockefeller Panel and as a member of the Advisory Group for the African-American Museum of the Smithsonian Institute. LAURI SCHEYER is Xiaoxiang Scholars Program Distinguished Professor and founding Director of the British and American Poetry Research Center at Hunan Normal University (China). Her many prior books include A History of African American Poetry and Slave Songs and the Birth of African American Poetry.

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