"Who? Who? Who?"

Poet Amiri Baraka's words filled James Madison University's Wilson Hall during a Laureate's Circle on Friday afternoon.

Hundreds stood and applauded Baraka after he finished his controversial poem "Somebody Blew Up America." The work led to his loss of the New Jersey poet laureate last year after critics denounced it as anti-Semitic.

Controversial Poem

For just those reasons, Daniel Teweles, president of the JMU Hillel, did not stand and applaud the reading.

"I have a different viewpoint on it because of the research into his poetry, his motivation and his sources," Teweles said.

"He read his poem. He's proud of his work. People obviously enjoy it. I still wonder if it is responsible to read it in public when his sources are Hamas-controlled. He's the shock jock of poetry."

Baraka said his critics misinterpret the meaning of the poem that claims Israelis did not show up for work at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The implication, according to critics, is that they had prior knowledge of the attack on the World Trade Center.

"They are illiterate," said Baraka, 69, of his critics. "If they would read it, they would know better," he said before the program that featured a number of poet laureates during JMU's four-day conference Furious Flower, which celebrated black poetry.

Baraka says recent headlines reflect his questions. "Look at the newspapers. It's out there," he said of the questions that have been raised about what people knew before the attack.

Baraka Supporters

While Teweles kept his seat during the ovation for Baraka, Nikki Curtis, 21, of Williamsburg, was on her feet.

"I want to be part of that and let him know that all the stuff he has gone through in his life is for a purpose," said Curtis, a JMU senior studying communications and English.

She called the poem amazing. She was not surprised by the audience's reaction. "We need to hear more of that," she said.

Kisha Hughes, 20, was happy with the reaction. A stage manager for the play that opened the conference, Hughes of Woodbridge, has had public readings of her own poetry.

"I am very proud of everybody who stood up and supported him and praised him. Especially in the black community, he is an amazing man."

Black Arts Movement

Furious Flower conference organizer Joanne Gabbin introduced Baraka as the father of the black arts movement. "He is our interrogator. He is our secular priest," Gabbin said from the stage at Wilson Hall.

As Baraka is the father of the movement, Gabbin said, Sonia Sanchez is the mother.

Both took shots at President Bush. Baraka passed out copies of a pamphlet that said the key to fighting for a people's democracy was to beat Bush.

Sanchez urged stsudents to get out and vote. "We would not be in Iraq if you had voted last time," she said.

The audience responded when she told them how she was stopped at the airport because she is considered a security risk. "Anyone who speaks the truth in this country is a security risk," she said to applause.

Evolution

The truth is the essence of poetry to Nana Kweku, who came from Washington, D.C., for the conference that Monifa Love, his wife, helped make happen.

Kweku, 58, has followed the careers of some of the poets who were a part of the Laureate Circle at JMU.

"The evolution of the poetry always represents the cause of the people and where the people are going," he said.

"The poet is the spokesman of the people. He speaks of their pain, their joy, their sorrow."

Racism was a major theme of black poetry 40 years ago and remains so, said Kweku, who works for the Maryland school system. The issue is the same but is more sophisticated and institutionalized, he said.

Baraka is a poet that Kweku has followed over the years. The poem was controversial, he said, only the way people interpreted it.

"He continues to speak the truth," Kweku said.

Copyright (c) 2004, Byrd Newspapers, All Rights Reserved.