first book of poems, was published one year before
he was released. In her preface to the collection,
GWENDOLYN BROOKS celebrated Knight’s poetry as
“a major announcement... certainly male—with
formidable austerities, dry grins, and a dignity that
is scrupulous even when lenient.” Knight’s reputa-
tion grew rapidly as his poems, essays, and short
stories began to appear in Negro World (BLACK
WORLD), Journal of Black Poetry, Prison Magazine,
Cardinal Poetry Quarterly, Music Journal, and
other periodicals.
Poems from Prison was a critical success. “Vital.
Vital,” wrote Brooks. Eugene Redmond wrote:
“Knight roams the deep crevices of black spiri-
tual and psychic world as he combines the lan-
guage of the prison subculture with the rhythms
of black American street speech” (Drumvoices,
385). Between 1969 and 1973 Knight’s work
was included in many of the new anthologies
of African-American literature, including DUD-
LEY RANDALL’s Black Poetry (1969), Adam David
Miller’s Dices and Black Bones (1971), Randall’s
The Black Poet (1971), Brooks’s A Broadside
Treasury (1971), Bernard Bell’s Afro-American
Poetry (1972), RICHARD BARKSDALE and Keneth
Kinnamon’s BLACK WRITERS OF AMERICA (1972),
and STEPHEN HENDERSON’s Understanding the
New Black Poetry (1973).
Knight began his literary career as the BLACK
ARTS MOVEMENT was emerging in America, and
like poets AMIRI BARAKA, SONIA SANCHEZ (to whom
Knight was briefly married), and HAKI R. MAD-
HUBUTI, he embraced its spiritual goals. Thus, like
LARRY NEAL, Knight called for the development of
a black aesthetic:
Unless the black artist established a “Black aes-
thetic,” he will have no future at all. To accept
the white aesthetic is to accept and validate
a society that will not allow him to live. The
Black artist must create new forms and new
values, sing new songs (or purify old ones);
and along with other Black authorities, he
must create a new history, new symbols, myths,
legends (and purify old ones by fire). And the
Black artist, in creating his own aesthetic, mustbe accountable for it only to the Black people.
(Neal, 258–259)Knight, an active advocate of poetry as an oral
art, sang new songs and mastered the art of “say-
ing poems,” as he described his delivery. He was a
poet-performer.
In 1970 Knight edited Black Voices from Prison,
an anthology of prison writing. His vision and
style inspired other black prisoners to express
themselves creatively and to strive toward a col-
lective celebration of a new black nationalism.
He also published three volumes of his own po-
etry: Belly Song (1973), Born of a Woman (1980),
and The Essential Etheridge Knight (1986), which
won the American Book Award. Knight, who held
teaching positions at University of Pittsburgh, the
University of Hartford, and Lincoln University, was
recognized with grants and honors from the Gug-
genheim Foundation, the National Endowment
for the Arts, and the Poetry Society of America.
Married to May Ann McAnally, with whom he fa-
thered two sons, Knight, before his death in 1991,
successfully completed a B.A. degree in American
poetry and criminal justice from Martin Center
University in Indianapolis.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Henderson, Stephen. Understanding the New Black
Poe t r y. New York: William Morrow & Company,
1973.
Neal, Larry. Visions of a Liberated Future. St. Paul:
Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1989.
Redmond, Eugene B. Drumvoices, The Mission of
Afro-American Poetry, A Critical History. Garden
City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1976.
Rowell, Charles H. “An Interview with Etheridge
Knight.” Callaloo, 19, no. 4 (1966): 967–980.
George BarlowKomunyakaa, Yusef (1947– )
The oldest of five children, Komunyakaa was
born in Bogalusa, Louisiana. His family life was
tumultuous, mostly because of his father’s abuse306 Komunyakaa, Yusef