Rhetoric Review

ISSN: 0735-0198 (Print) 1532-7981 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hrhr20

Poetry as a Form of Dissent: John F. Kennedy,

Amiri Baraka, and the Politics of Art in Rhetorical
Democracy

Jeffrey St. Onge & Jennifer Moore

To cite this article: Jeffrey St. Onge & Jennifer Moore (2016) Poetry as a Form of Dissent: John
F. Kennedy, Amiri Baraka, and the Politics of Art in Rhetorical Democracy, Rhetoric Review, 35:4,
335-347, DOI: 10.1080/07350198.2016.1107930

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Rhetoric Review, Vol. 35, No. 4, 335–347, 2016
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0735-0198 print / 1532-7981 online
DOI: 10.1080/07350198.2016.1107930

J EFFREY S T. O NGE
J ENNIFER M OORE
Defiance College
Ohio Northern University

Poetry as a Form of Dissent:

John F. Kennedy, Amiri Baraka,
and the Politics of Art in Rhetorical Democracy∗

Rhetoric and poetics have a long historical relationship; however, there is a dearth of literature in
contemporary rhetorical studies that analyzes poems as forms of democratic dissent. This article
begins with an assessment of John F. Kennedy’s eulogy of Robert Frost, followed with an analysis of
Amiri Baraka’s “Black Art,” a poem that both supports and challenges Kennedy’s defense of poetry.
Ultimately, this paper makes an argument for why critics might pay closer attention to poetry as
both a medium for expressing dissenting messages and as an example of how language play itself
can function as valuable democratic dissent.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it

to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to
be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then.
—Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Abigail Adams

Freedom is fundamentally the possibility of standing on a street corner and shouting,

“There is no freedom here!”
—Yoani Sánchez

There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you.
—Amiri Baraka, Home: Social Essays

The meaning of democracy has always been malleable, shifting from a structured system of
government to an ethos of daily life.1 In most definitions of democracy, though, one constant element
exists: the recognized importance of freedom of speech and debate. Supreme Court Justice Hugo
Black provides an eloquent assessment of the relationship between free speech and democracy:

∗ This
article contains excerpt from S O S: POEMS 1961–2013, copyright @ 2014 by The Estate of Amiri Baraka. Used
by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited.

335
336 Rhetoric Review

“The Framers [of the Constitution] knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution.
But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny” (para. 881). By referring to the
nation’s founders, Black reminds us that the whole project of American democracy is premised on
the necessity of an engaged citizenry and the protection of citizens’ rights to challenge authority.
As Richard B. Miller writes, “[D]issent is a core feature of democratic citizenship” and a “key
ingredient to responsible politics” (2). A healthy culture of dissent is thus a prime marker of a
healthy democracy.
Democracy, conceived here as an ongoing project of self-governance aimed at achieving
something like “the good life,” requires continual reevaluation of commonly held assumptions,
entrenched perspectives, and policy decisions. The larger democratic system is built on principles
of dissent: Dissenting opinions factor heavily into legal reasoning, checks and balances legitimate
constitutional government, and the Bill of Rights protects the rights of citizens to question and
challenge the status quo. The First Amendment, which exists to authorize and promote a healthy
exchange of ideas, is best understood as a committed protection of dissent, as ideas that support
the status quo ostensibly need little legal protection. Robert L. Ivie has characterized democracy’s
reliance on dissent as its key attribute: “Within a consciously rhetorical republic, democracy is dis-
sent” (“Prologue” 33, emphasis added). Ivie’s “rhetorical republic” is a goal; he seeks a democratic
culture where contestation disrupts tendencies to dehumanize others, simplify complex issues, and
avoid efforts at bridging political divides. One way of working toward that goal is to search for
rhetorical resources that invite new perspectives on seemingly settled notions of democratic culture,
a practice that fits comfortably within democratic traditions. As Valerio Izzo argues, “Far from being
just a disruptive force, disagreement and conflict are matters of fact that no reflection on democracy
can underevaluate. . . . [D]issent is a powerful tool for moral recognition of different understandings
of justice” (563). That is, a culture of dissent and contestation ensures a multiplicity of viewpoints
clashing in a marketplace of ideas. By enriching the social imaginary, dissenting voices can chal-
lenge norms that constrict political culture in negative ways, and they can offer new ways to think
about stagnant and well-worn conventional wisdoms that limit democracy’s potential.
Dissent is typically thought of in terms of argument or protest. The commonplace of the “dis-
senting opinion,” for example, is imagined to be a concerned citizen or elected official speaking out
against something she feels to be wrong or in need of change. This is of course a perfectly accept-
able representation of dissent, and it is easily yoked to the relationship between democracy and free
speech outlined above. It is limiting, though, and rhetorical scholars have taken a broader view and
engaged dissent and protest in myriad ways, including through traditional forms of protest, social
movements, trickster figures, and artistic forms such as music or performance art. Surprisingly, one
area of artistic expression that has had little focus in contemporary rhetorical scholarship is the study
of poetry and its relationship to democracy, specifically through the analysis of individual poems.
Poetry’s relationship with rhetorical and democratic theory dates back to Ancient Greece, when
Aristotle made important early contributions to the study of poetry as a unique art form valuable to
democratic deliberation. Much like his Rhetoric, the Poetics offers a challenge to Platonic notions of
rhetoric and poetry as ornamental language that hinders or distorts the search for truth. As Stephen
Halliwell observes, the Poetics “bears systematically and prescriptively on the intrinsic nature of
poetry, and on the values and conceptions involved both in its composition and in the experience
of it” (3). Aristotle provides further analysis into how poetic language functions as its own unique
form of discourse and argument. His analysis was reflective of his ideal of democracy and was
premised on the belief that the common good was best understood as an aggregate of the interests
and perspectives of the community (Wilson 260). Josiah Ober understands Aristotle’s embracing of
poetic logic as a way to “enable citizens in a democracy to make relatively better decisions, and
Poetry as a Form of Dissent 337

thereby advance common interests” (106). In this formulation poetry provides a unique mode of
advancing viewpoints and critiques. It should thus be seen as a complement to scientific or rational
argument in the sphere of democratic deliberation.
Contemporary theorists have also explored the relationship among poetry, rhetoric, and democ-
racy. Kenneth Burke, perhaps the most influential rhetorician of the twentieth century, released four
collections of poems and wrote extensively about poetry. Burke was highly interested in form, which
he described as “the creation of an appetite in the mind of the auditor, and the adequate satisfying of
that appetite” (31). Poetry as a genre has great potential for readers to understand form-as-argument
and thus presents unique opportunities to coalesce complex thoughts and attitudes on a given idea.
As Burke writes, “Every once in a while, something gets summed up in a developmental way, along
with a pronounced attitude (some emotion or sentiment) and that’s a poem” (qtd. in Whitaker para.
2). Poetry thus offers a distinctive way of advancing an argument, attitude, or perspective that could
function as a corrective to troubling patterns of discourse and thought that operate without immediate
critical reflection.
Despite the historical affinity between rhetoric and poetry, however, contemporary rhetorical
critics who theorize about democracy have largely ignored individual poets and poems as examples
and sources of rhetorical invention. Thus a large and potentially productive body of democratic
dissent is undertheorized. Poetry is especially useful to rhetorical conceptions of democracy, as it
offers ways to think about forceful and potent perspectives that operate in contrast to standard forms
of argumentation. As Dale Smith argues in Poets Beyond the Barricade: Rhetoric, Citizenship, and
Dissent After 1960, “Despite the tendency of much public-rhetorical theory to focus on rational-
critical debate, poetry can make unforeseen connections, and these effects surface in peripheral
exchanges that compose and describe cultural values” (14). This paper endeavors to explore how
poetry can function as democratic dissent through analysis of two seemingly disparate texts: John F.
Kennedy’s 1963 eulogy of poet Robert Frost at Amherst College, and Amiri Baraka’s 1966 poem
“Black Art.” In using these texts, we make an argument as to why rhetorical critics might pay closer
attention to poetry as both a medium for expressing dissenting messages, and as an example of how
language play itself can function as valuable democratic dissent through its ability to perform a
metacritique on norms of discourse. In short, we argue that poetry should be considered a crucial
part of the larger sphere of democratic rhetoric. This is not intended to reduce poetry to a form of
argument, but rather to consider how poetry can be imagined as a unique and crucial component of
democratic culture by its nature as a unique form of democratic argument.
Poetry, of course, has a long history of wrestling with dissent. As Sean Arthur Joyce notes,
“Whatever the method chosen—whether the raw-throated polemic or the sly satire—poets have tra-
ditionally been the voices of conscience” (3). Joyce charts the thinking of poets like Pablo Neruda,
George Orwell, and Irving Layton, noting how they viewed poetry as uniquely able to shift collective
thinking and disrupt complacency on complex political and humanitarian issues. Anthologies orga-
nized around the theme of antiwar or other types of dissenting poetry reflect a tradition of poetry as a
means of sharp critique and/or consciousness-raising (for example, Krieger; Greenberg and Zucker;
Adler, Busman, and Garcia). This essay places this particular tradition of poetry—the poetics of
dissent—in the context of a rhetorical democracy committed to vigorous discussion and dissent by
thinking through the ways in which poetry as a unique art form can expand the social imaginary and
function in the continual process of democratic life.
One purpose of art in general is to challenge perceptions of reality; it works to disrupt
conventional thought by bringing to bear new interpretations of lived experience. Poetry does this
especially well, for it presents language itself as flexible. That is, poetry not only offers a medium
to express thought, but through its often unconventional use of language and form, it also forces a
338 Rhetoric Review

reconsideration of the ways in which its audience approaches a subject in the first place; it provides a
medium of dissent through an inherently dissenting medium. Simon Armitage has described poetry’s
uniqueness in this regard:

There’s something about poetry which is oppositional and it’s a form of dissent. I mean,
even in its physical form, it doesn’t reach the right-hand margin, it doesn’t reach the
bottom of the page. There’s something a little bit obstinate about it. . . . Poetry’s always
had a complex relationship with language. It’s alternative. It’s independent. It simply
cannot be a mainstream art form. (Interview)

Armitage draws attention to the way poetry can be viewed as dissent by nature of its form. It is often
stubborn; reading a poem is a different experience from reading a book or an essay. In other words,
poetry challenges the reader not only to think about the subject matter but also to think about the
way he or she thinks about the subject matter by altering the standard presentation of the medium
(language) of engagement.
We begin this essay with an examination of John F. Kennedy’s 1963 address to Amherst College,
paying particular attention to how the speech characterizes the role of poetry in the maintenance of
democratic culture. We treat Kennedy’s address as a theoretical statement on the capacity of poetry
in democracy; in his encomium to Robert Frost, Kennedy sketches out the potential for poetry as
a corrective to some of the harsher tendencies of the human spirit. He advocates for the public
funding of poetry and other arts, positioning them as inherently necessary aspects of democratic
life. Following a brief analysis of Kennedy’s address, we analyze Amiri Baraka’s poem “Black Art”
both for its unique form and for its blistering assault on the very nature of US democracy. The poem
is thus both an example of Kennedy’s hope for poetry as a democratic force and a challenge to it,
as Baraka essentially calls for the destruction of democracy altogether. We conclude the essay with
an attempt to reconcile Kennedy’s discussion of the artist in society with Baraka’s antidemocratic
attitude; we argue that even the most radically antidemocratic poetry can function to strengthen
a democratic culture through its unique ability to foster perspectives that could not be imagined
otherwise. Ultimately, our analysis seeks to carve out a space for poetry in scholarly dialogues about
dissent by highlighting its unique characteristics as a form of communication.

Kennedy Eulogizes Frost

I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full
recognition of the place of the artist.
—John F. Kennedy, 1963

On October 26, 1963, John F. Kennedy received an honorary degree from Amherst College
in Massachusetts and gave a speech focused on cultural policy, the role of the arts in the United
States, and the life of Robert Frost, who had died earlier that year. Frost had read his poem “The
Gift Outright” at Kennedy’s inauguration three years earlier, becoming the first poet to perform
at the ceremony. Kennedy was both a well-known proponent of literature and an accomplished
author himself, having won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Profiles in Courage in 1957. Kennedy’s
eulogy focused not only on Frost but also on the importance of poetry, and the arts in general, to US
democracy.
Poetry as a Form of Dissent 339

Kennedy began his remarks on Frost with a dualism regarding military might and moral
restraint. As he stated, “Our national strength matters, but the spirit which controls our strength
matters just as much” (para. 1). For Kennedy “[t]his was the special significance of Robert Frost. He
brought an unsparing instinct for reality to bear on the platitudes and pieties of society” (para. 2).
These opening lines set the tone for the rest of Kennedy’s eulogy (which lasted about seven para-
graphs); he essentially set up an oppositional, yet symbiotic, relationship between the artist and the
status quo of American democracy. For Kennedy military might was a default setting; the United
States had begun the twentieth century wary of meddling in world affairs, but by the 1960s it held
a new place as guardian of the free world. In the wake of two World Wars, the US had become
embroiled in a Cold War with the Soviet Union that defined the culture through a steady fear of
atomic apocalypse. When the speech was given in 1963, war was not only a constant threat, but it
was also a normalized feature of daily life. Though Kennedy was certainly a part of war culture,
he also recognized that the antidote to a persistent culture of war was discourse that disrupted its
normalization. Poetry offered this hope:

Robert Frost coupled poetry and power, for he saw poetry as the means of saving power
from itself. When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limi-
tations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the
richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art
establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
(para. 1)

Kennedy recognized that dissent could be a dangerous act. “The great artist is thus a solitary figure.
He has, as Frost said, a lover’s quarrel with the world. In pursuing the perceptions of reality, he
must often sail against the current of his time” (para. 2, emphasis added). For Kennedy the “fiber
of our national life” is strengthened by the artist’s commitment to questioning what is otherwise
assumed to be true (para. 2). Like the protestor seeking to alert the larger public that a policy or line
of thought is problematic, the poet—whether intentionally or not—forces a reappraisal of long-held
assumptions that may otherwise not get questioned. For Kennedy, Frost was exemplary of the artist
whose “sensitivity and concern for justice . . . makes him aware that our Nation falls short of its
highest potential” (para. 3). The poet must be protected precisely because he or she can offer a way
to think against the currents of a particular time.
Kennedy highlights poetry’s uniqueness as an art form. For Kennedy it was not a matter of
the artist using his or her medium to best launch a rhetorical attack on the problematic norms of
the status quo; rather, the artist creates for creation’s sake. It may be the message of the piece that
advances the critique, but it may also be the possibility of offering new perspectives that force a
reappraisal of well-worn practices: “The nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of
Robert Frost’s hired man, the fate of having ‘nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing
to look forward to with hope’” (para. 4). Kennedy is focusing on poetry’s ability to awaken the
complacent spirit, a goal fully in line with the promise of democracy as a system conducive to the
continual reevaluation of entrenched assumptions and practices, no matter how normal they seem.
Kennedy’s thinking aligns nicely with rhetorical theories of democracy, which position demo-
cratic action as provisional, timely, and necessarily open to challenge. Vigorous discussion by
citizens—broadly imagined—are hallmarks of deliberative democracy aimed at the continual enrich-
ment of public and private life. As Gerard Hauser argues, though, “The fact that reasonable citizens
holding irreconcilable views may make good-faith efforts to live with one another on mutually
340 Rhetoric Review

acceptable terms does not mean that there will be convergence on a single philosophy of life” (10).
That is, the goal of rhetorical theories of democracy is not to achieve homogeneity or singularity of
thought but rather to attain a level of comfort with a constant heterogeneity by seeing consensus as
temporary and provisional (Ivie 278). A rhetorical conception of democracy seeks to accommodate
the pluralistic views that comprise a culture in part by stressing that political decision-making is less
about finding the “right” or “true” answers to problems, but instead about finding the best solutions
to political problems as they arise, with the understanding that the efficacy of those solutions are
bound by time and context. This cultural orientation toward democracy requires the encouragement
of dissent from as many voices and in as many forms as possible. Thus we can see Kennedy articu-
lating a thoroughly rhetorical conception of democracy grounded in theories of deliberation and
vigorous discussion from a multiplicity of voices.
Kennedy did not reduce poetry to its function as democratic speech, but rather offered a short but
powerful assessment of its function as a component of democratic society. To this point, Kennedy
is clear: Art functions as a form of dissent. It does so in one sense by offering a certain avenue
to make an argument, but even more important, its nature as art—as the realization of the vision
of the artist—works to force a questioning of held assumptions. In other words, the beauty, truth,
and/or uniqueness of art creates opportunities to rethink that which is taken for granted as common
sense. Kennedy’s short but compelling speech at Amherst College would help inspire the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which would be created under the Johnson Administration in 1965
(“History” 1). The NEA was created to ensure funding for the arts, and the language in the original
bill reflects Kennedy’s forceful advocacy. As stated in the bill’s first three sections:

The arts and the humanities belong to all the people of the United States. The encour-
agement and support of national progress and scholarship in the humanities and the arts,
while primarily a matter for private and local initiative, are also appropriate matters of
concern to the Federal Government. An advanced civilization must not limit its efforts
to science and technology alone, but must give full value and support to the other great
branches of scholarly and cultural activity in order to achieve a better understanding
of the past, a better analysis of the present, and a better view of the future. (“National
Foundation on the Arts” 1)

The bill states that “democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens” and therefore should
support the arts as “to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of their tech-
nology and not its unthinking servants” (1). Art must be funded because it is “vital to a democracy to
honor and preserve its multicultural artistic heritage as well as support new ideas” (2). Thus we see
in the language of the NEA bill the vision articulated by Kennedy in 1963. His speech was a short
but compelling statement on the importance of poetry, and art in general, as a dissenting medium in
democratic society.
The language of Kennedy and the NEA bill reflects an institutional desire to support artists who
challenge thought and convention, sometimes in uncomfortable ways. But what about artists who
challenge the very legitimacy of democracy? When democratic freedoms are enacted to advocate
against democracy, does democratic society still benefit? If so, how? In what follows, we analyze a
poem by Amiri Baraka that calls into question the nature and practice of democracy, paying particu-
lar attention to how it both fulfills and challenges Kennedy’s assessment of the art form’s democratic
value. Additionally, we focus on the formal aspects of Baraka’s poem, which also function as part
of the poem’s message. Baraka’s poem works as an avenue for political critique; the poem can be
Poetry as a Form of Dissent 341

read as an argument against the rampant racism of the period and as a call to arms for black culture
at large. Additionally, though, its form questions the very language used to discuss democracy and
race in America.

Amiri Baraka’s Black Art

The Black Arts Movement . . . wanted to create a poetry, a literature, which directly
reflected the civil rights and black liberation movements. We wanted an art that was
recognizably African-American . . . that was mass-oriented, a poetry for instance that
could come out of the libraries into the streets where the people were. . . . A poetry that
was direct, understandable, moving, and political. And lastly an art that was revolution-
ary, poetry that would help transform society, not merely lament or mystify the status
quo . . . a black art that was a continuation of the social uprising that fought to change
society itself.
—Amiri Baraka, “Cultural Revolution and the Literary Canon”

If dissent is to be understood as a challenge to majority opinion, than perhaps no poem of

the 1960s more powerfully embodies aesthetic dissent than Amiri Baraka’s “Black Art” (1966), a
nationalist poem that speaks for the newly emerging, racially conscious Black Arts Movement. The
piece is notable for its desire not only to express freely the concerns of its people but also for its
critique of the democratic system through which free speech is guaranteed. While we argue that
art is crucial for the maintenance of democracy, we also argue that art which serves to denounce
such democracy be similarly recognized. Indeed, Baraka asks his readers to reconsider the ways we
might think about liberal forms of speech and protest. The poem not only is a representation of new
modes of perception but also functions as an active demonstration against existing interpretations of
reality—more specifically, the realities of political life at the time.
Baraka’s work must be understood in the broader context of the Black Arts Movement, which
had historical precedent in the Harlem Renaissance, similarly functioning as an artists’ collective
designed to highlight and promote the work of African-American writers. Much of the Black Arts
Movement found its closest affinity, though, with Langston Hughes’s essay “The Negro Artist and
the Racial Mountain” (1926), which served in part as a critique of certain black writers during that
period. Hughes called for black writers to resist assimilation to white culture and white literary forms
and instead advocated for the use of “racial” material rooted in the artistic modes of blues, jazz, and
spirituals. Echoing this call, in 1962 Baraka condemned the “agonizing mediocrity” of “Negro mid-
dle class” literature (Jones 124). He similarly looked to the “low-down” (Hughes para. 4) styles of
black music as sources for authentic art, and he supported poetry that embodies these traditions. The
Black Arts Movement differed from the Harlem Renaissance in distinct ways, however, particularly
in its revolutionary political aims and radical tone. As Baraka states in a letter to Edward Dorn, “I
was trying to 1) create a poetry that was black in form and content 2) bring the arts out of the elitist
dens of ambiguity and into the streets 3) create an art that fought for the liberation of black peo-
ple” (“Preface” xix–xx). Baraka, in part because of the assassination of Malcolm X, fully embraced
radical black politics in the form of Black Nationalism, which resulted in uncompromising, militant
poetry.
“Black Art” in both form and content is at once a manifesto for black artists in particular, as
well as an ars poetica for poetry in general. As a writer, Baraka has been notorious for his “biting
342 Rhetoric Review

critiques of liberalism . . . his strident black nationalism, and over the past decade, for his equally
uncompromising Marxist-Leninist views” (David L. Smith 235). Indeed, his career itself has been
termed a “chronicle of controversies” (235) and is marked in part by his deliberate break with the
“bourgeoisie” artists of lower Manhattan (and the name LeRoi Jones) and his subsequent move to
Harlem in 1965, where he adopted the name “Amiri Baraka.” The poem begins with a bold claim
about the possible efficacy of poetry itself:

Poems are bullshit unless they are

teeth or trees or lemons piled
on a step. Or black ladies dying
of men leaving nickel hearts
beating them down. Fuck poems
and they are useful, wd they shoot
come at you, love what you are,
breathe like wrestlers, or shudder
strangely after pissing. (l. 1–9)

For Baraka, poems are “bullshit” unless they are also the objects which they seek to envision. Poems
should “breathe like wrestlers” or “shudder strangely after pissing”; that is, they should have an
animus and embody the very movements the author does. In other words, the poet, the poem, and its
affect should be indistinguishable.
Baraka moves on to project his argument through a collective voice, a “we” speaker that
highlights the desire for a poetry that speaks for the people:

We want live
words of the hip world live flesh &
coursing blood. Hearts Brains
Souls splintering fire. We want poems
like fists beating niggers out of Jocks
or dagger poems in the slimy bellies
of the owner-jews. Black poems to
smear on girdlemamma mulatto bitches
whose brains are red jelly stuck
between ‘lizabeth taylor’s toes. Stinking
Whores! we want “poems that kill.”
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. (l. 9–21)

The move made here from poems that breathe and piss to ones that have “fists” and “shoot guns”
is unsettling, in part because the victims of this desired violence are named (“the owner jews,”
“Stinking Whores”). The reader also learns that the “we” speaker is circumscribed. All people
breathe and piss; the imagined speakers here are specified in terms of their militancy. While Kennedy
begins his eulogy of Frost with a discussion of military might and moral restraint (denouncing the
former, heralding the latter), Baraka begins “Black Art” with these goals reversed. The militant tone
defines the poem, and moral restraint is imagined as a tool of oppression.
Poetry as a Form of Dissent 343

Werner Sollers notes the poem’s “venomous language” and “rhetorical violence,” arguing that
“[t]he poem itself is to commit the violence that Baraka considers the prerequisite for the estab-
lishment of a Black world. By becoming an ‘assassin’ the poem becomes political; and art merges
with life by leaving its artfulness behind . . . the poem must abandon poetry in order to perform
this function. ‘Black Art’ implies that poetry must die so that the poem can kill” (para. 1). In other
words, the status quo of poetic tradition is held up to scrutiny along with a political system deemed
inadequate for the black population.
As the poem continues, the inflammatory rhetoric takes a formal turn toward sound symbolism
and onomatopoeia:

Poems that wrestle cops into alleys

and take their weapons leaving them dead
with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland. Knockoff
poems for dope selling wops or slick halfwhite
politicians Airplane poems, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuh
. . . rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . Setting fire and death to
whities ass. Look at the Liberal
Spokesman for the jews clutch his throat
& puke himself into eternity . . . rrrrrrrr . . . (l. 21–30)

While the content here is clearly inflammatory, indicting “halfwhite politicians,” “cops,” and
“wops,” that is, those who propagate an America deaf to black interests, the choices behind the
structure of the piece are not so obvious. While Baraka relies on a standard left-justified, single-
stanza structure—in other words, a highly traditional form—he packs that form with vitriol, as well
as with nonstandard sounds that “airplane poems” would make: “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” and “tuhtuhtuhtuh-
tuh.” Where in earlier moments of the poem Baraka gives poetry a living, breathing agency, here he
gives it a voice which, as noted earlier, is one that offers a new interpretation of reality itself. This
interpretation, however, is deliberately not one that emerges from “the great artist” as “a solitary
figure,” as mentioned in the Kennedy address; it is, instead, the voice of a collective people and in
this way embodies a new vision of democratic art.
Despite the poem’s clear argument with American liberalism, it is compatible with a truly demo-
cratic state in which the freedom of artistic expression is made available to all. When Baraka writes,
“Another bad poem cracking / steel knuckles in a jewlady’s mouth / Poem scream poison gas on
beasts in green berets,” it is the democratic guarantee that preserves his speech, no matter how criti-
cal it is of the shortcomings of 1960s democracy. The poem functions as a shared rebellion against
democracy itself, preferring instead the ideals of Black Nationalism.
Like any manifesto2 (or any text functioning as a “call to action”), the poem moves toward its
set of demands, a plea that augments the violent rhetoric of earlier lines:

Clean out the world for virtue and love,

Let there be no love poems written
until love can exist freely and
cleanly. Let Black people understand
that they are the lovers and the sons
of warriors and sons
344 Rhetoric Review

of warriors Are poems & poets &

all the loveliness here in the world (l. 42–49)

Where the sharp denunciation of Black Nationalism’s supposed enemies serves to alienate and dis-
tance some readers, here the point is clear: to speak directly to those who believe poetry’s power is
limited to non-utilitarian realms. The “love poems” and those who would write them are asked to
reconsider the cost at which their freedoms were bought, and the move here is toward a unification
of black identity, as well as a reclamation of power (“Let Black people understand / that they are
. . . warriors . . . Are poems & poets”).
The sole stanza break occurs at line 49, and is followed with a final six-line stanza:

We want a black poem. And a

Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently
or LOUD (l. 50–55)

The aims of this final utterance are clear: The “we” of the poem desires a space for black artists,
and that space is the world itself (“Let the world be a Black Poem”). As Baraka states, “The attempt
to divide art and politics is Bourgeois philosophy which says good poetry, art, cannot be political,
but since everything is, by the nature of society, political, even an artist or work that claims not
to have any politics is making a political statement by that act” (Baraka and Winslow para. 14).
In other words, aesthetic and political interests, for Baraka, are one in the same, and in order to
make both vital, they must be spoken. It is language that has the power here, and the mode or method
is secondary (“Silently / or LOUD”). While the object of denunciation can be seen as democracy
itself, we argue that the critique is actually one whose eye is fixed on the failures of the democratic
promise for black Americans in the postcivil rights era––in other words, a people championing an
idealized version of reality but confronted with one which falls short of its goals.
It is worth considering the formal choices Baraka makes in order to return to Armitage’s claim
that poetry is, by nature, a form of dissent (“it doesn’t reach the right-hand margin, it doesn’t reach
the bottom of the page”). William Cook notes that “‘Black Art’ . . . avoid[s] ‘artiness,’ and the poet
demonstrates this in its avoidance of the lyrical voice and of stock poetic diction, and in its use
of ideophones” (para. 1). For Werner Sollers, Baraka’s choice to leave “artfulness behind” actually
creates a new vision for the possibilities of poetry itself. William J. Harris further notes that unlike
so many poems emerging from the Romantic tradition, for Baraka “the black poem had to be an
active agent, not a vehicle of escape to ‘another world’ . . . he wanted to create a black world that
would reflect the lives of black people” (para. 1). The poem, then, also dissents from the norms of
the Western poetic tradition, refusing to frame in lyrical terms the social voice it intends to project.
Baraka eventually shifted from the Black Nationalism embodied in this poem to a more explicit
socialism, as seen in “Cultural Revolution and the Literary Canon” (1991). In this essay he offers
an historical account of the moves and motives of both political and artistic revolution, arguing that
“[t]he idea of Black Art was to challenge the ‘whiteness’ of art as posited by a white supremacist
society. . . . The 1960s had raised the questions of the multicultural and multinational character of
society and had challenged the white supremacist origins of the so-called literary and artistic canon”
(152–53). In short, black art served to widen the scope of depictions of reality by bringing into focus
Poetry as a Form of Dissent 345

“othered” perceptions of the world, which in turn helped to legitimate poetry as an art form capable
of dissent aimed at nothing short of revolution.

Conclusion: Baraka as Democratic Critic

The claims regarding race outlined above gain potency when considered in light of the con-
troversy surrounding Baraka’s “Somebody Blew up America,” a poem written in response to the
September 11 terrorist attacks that was critical of America’s militaristic positioning in the world.
Baraka composed the piece while acting as Poet Laureate of New Jersey, but public outcry against
the poem was so overwhelming that the position was abolished in 2003. Though both poem and poet
were accused of Anti-Semitism, William J. Harris and Aldon Nielsen note that “the assaults upon
Baraka . . . take no notice of . . . lines [in the poem] that clearly argue against the charge” (185).
Baraka’s writing taken as a whole stands as a definitive indictment of imperialism in all of its guises,
and his forms of dissension are found in his unwavering commitment to “art that was revolution-
ary, poetry that would help transform society, not merely lament or mystify the status quo. . . . Art
is the social life of humanity, its philosophical expression the ideological reflection of human life.
To devalue it is to devalue creativity” (Baraka, “Cultural Revolution” 155–56).
Baraka’s removal from his post as poet laureate is perhaps an ironic violation of Kennedy’s
dream. If the poet-as-cultural-critic is to exist as a construct, then its purpose is to do exactly what
Baraka did, which was to challenge perceptions of the September 11 attacks, events that immedi-
ately were interpreted as requiring a broad culture of war. Harris and Nielsen note that the form of
Baraka’s poem—a collection of questions that build to a crescendo of indictment of the 1% for ter-
rorism and global war—is easily misinterpreted by a public not ready to hear such a critique. This is
not to make a judgment call on whether or not Baraka was accurate in his critiques, but rather to say
that reaction to his poem (including the dissolution of the position of Poet Laureate of New Jersey)
serves as evidence of a culture that does not recognize the importance of artistic dissent, whether or
not that dissent is ultimately “right.”
It is worth thinking through Kennedy’s notion of art and poetry, then, as democratic values in
a post–9/11 world, where war is normal, inherent, and expected (Cummings and Stanescu). Would
Kennedy even support Amiri Baraka, who spoke of “the relentlessly stated lie of American democ-
racy” (“Preface” xxii)? Would he support the radical critique of democratic power and American
liberalism, two themes of which Kennedy is iconic? Would Kennedy have supported Baraka’s cri-
tique of September 11? We think he would—but more importantly, we interpret his eulogy of Robert
Frost as a philosophical statement on the significance of poetry that would certainly include Baraka
as a representative example.
Baraka’s poetry was not lyrically elegant in the ways Robert Frost’s was. It was purposefully
ugly, stubborn, and recalcitrant, seeking to challenge cultural values while pushing the limits of
poetic form. His art was deliberate in its illustration of violence and its aims were revolutionary,
perhaps even designed to end democracy once and for all. As Baraka himself stated in a series
of interviews, “Art is a weapon in the struggle of ideas” (Baraka and Erskine, “Art is a Weapon”
para. 14) and “great art attacks and protests oppression, exploitation and mediocrity directly or
indirectly” (“Baraka and Winslow” para. 14). His poetry, though—and “Black Art” in particular—
represents exactly what Kennedy called for: the individual mind that sails against the currents of
popular thought. As Kennedy stated, “Democratic society—in it, the highest duty of the writer, the
composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may. In serving
his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation” (para. 4). There is no doubt much literary
346 Rhetoric Review

value in Baraka’s poetry, but it also has tremendous democratic value, for it pushes the boundaries of
acceptable discourse, in particular the relationship among power, race, and oppression. Baraka was
working both in poetic traditions (postmodern avant-garde) and African-American cultural traditions
(radical activism), but it was the combination of the two that made his voice distinct. Poetry is thus
a site where dissent can take on new meaning, a meaning that would not exist without such a form.
“Black Art” helps us think through the nature of democracy and the importance of freedom of
speech in all varieties. It is precisely the speech that is most difficult to hear that must be protected at
all costs, because it is that which has the potential to steer political culture toward more humanizing
ends. If democracy is to have meaning as a system of open thought, then it must be able to hear
and withstand even deep critiques of itself as a system. If the principle of dissent is to have value, it
must allow for dissent against the entirety of the democratic project, as it is only through this type
of caustic evaluation that a culture can be alerted to its weakest points and failures to deliver on its
own promises. Baraka represents poetry’s potency in this regard; the language, the structure, and the
rhetoric all work together to produce a powerfully emotional critique of the democratic system—
a critique perhaps only allowable in a democratic system. “Black Art” is an example of how a
powerful idea can be presented in a unique poetic form; it invites reappraisal of settled common
sense, as well as a reconsideration of the position of poetry in the context of scholarly conversations
about democratic dissent.

Notes
1
The authors thank RR reviewers David Holmes and M. Jimmie Killingsworth for their insightful feedback on early
versions of this essay. The authors would also like to thank editor Theresa Enos for her guidance throughout the publication
process.
2
The rhetoric of the manifesto, as illustrated in this poem, shares much with the rhetoric of two essays in particular:
“The Revolutionary Theatre” (1964) and “STATE/MEANT” (1965), both of which are found in Home: Social Essays (1966;
2009). The essays use repetition (“The Revolutionary Theatre should force change. . . . The Revolutionary Theater must
EXPOSE!”) and hyperbolic language; they also make radical choices in terms of typography, punctuation, and grammar, all
of which are used to incite readers to act on Baraka’s exhortations rather than simply read about them. “Black Art” makes
use of similar techniques, but does so through poetic means.

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Jeffrey St. Onge is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Defiance College. His scholarship focuses on
rhetoric, democracy, and public culture more broadly. He has recently had work published in the Western Journal of
Communication and Studies in American Humor. He is currently working on a book about the history of health care debates
in the United States.

Jennifer Moore is Assistant Professor of Poetry at Ohio Northern University. She is the author of the forthcoming book
of poetry The Veronica Maneuver (University of Akron Press). Her poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary,
Best New Poets, Memorious, Barrow Street, and elsewhere. Her criticism has appeared in Jacket2 and The Offending Adam.