Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka was born in 1934, in Newark, New Jersey, and is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, music history, and criticism. His work includes the study of African American music, Blues People (1963); the play Dutchman (1964); Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1979); The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues (1987), a collaboration with his wife, poet Amina Baraka; a collection of essays, The Essence of Reparations (2003); and a collection of short stories, Tales of the Out & the Gone (2006). His many awards and honors include an Obie Award, the American Academy of Arts & Letters award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Rockefeller Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts grants. He has taught at the New School for Social Research in New York, the University of Buffalo, Columbia University, San Francisco State University, Yale University, and George Washington University. He is Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and a former Poet Laureate of New Jersey. Baraka lives in Newark with his wife, where they lead the word-music ensemble, Blue Ark: The Word Ship, and co-direct Kimako’s Blues People, the “artspace” housed in their theater basement.