Poetry of the Civil Rights Movements in Australia and the United States, 1960s–1980s

Shows how poets like Noonuccal, Fogarty, Baraka and Sanchez collaborated with other civil rights activists in voicing the demands of their people, and how they used their poetry to reflect the realities they experienced and to imagine new possibilities.

This book  examines the poetries of two Aboriginal Australian poets, namely Oodgeroo Noonuccal (formerly Kath Walker; 1920–1993) and Lionel Fogarty (1958– ) and two African American Black Arts poets , namely Amiri Baraka (formerly Everett LeRoi Jones; 1934–2014) and Sonia Sanchez (1943– ) to demonstrate their role in the struggle for civil and human rights of their peoples from the 1960s. The book demonstrates commonalities and differences in the strategies of these poets’ literary and political resistance. These poet-activists, though ethnically diverse and geographically dispersed, share comparable socio-political concerns and aspirations. Their activism is not a reflection of a single ideological current, but a bricolage of many ideologies and perspectives. They have engaged in trans-Pacific political movements and transgressed the borders of any one ideological territory. It is important to establish Aboriginal and African American trans-Pacific communication because these poets have collaborated and engaged in global politics (whether in the form of Garveyism or the “transnation”).  Their poetries are characterized by an irresistible drive towards international rhizomatic collaboration and engagement. This is a transcontinental literary influence exerted by African American poets on Aboriginal poets during the 1960s and beyond.