The poets in this book seemed to be yearning for, and working toward, this sense of community. Connection is crucial to being a poet. As for the showmanship, Quincy Troupe reminds us that poetry begins as song. It was performance. Troupe and other African-American poets still invoke the tradition of the griot, the roving troubadour who sang his poetry to villagers.
Poetry creates an experience that the audience lives.
Because Americans come from so many places, the poets of our time are infusing powerful new energy and idioms into our language. Their poetry flows from different geographies and cultures, as immigration continues to transform this country and native-born Americans retrace the steps and recapture the voices of their ancestors. Moreover, the source of much new poetry is also spiritual, originating in some unmapped interior country waiting to be explored. As she read on, into poems about healing those wounds from her past, she ceased to be the victim and became instead sojourner and celebrant, whose praise of life wrapped her audience into the exaltation with her. Listening that evening, I was struck by how much we owe our poets for reminding us that experience is the most credible authority of all.