Poems from Prison

by Etheridge Knight

Poems from Prison is Mr. Knight's first book of verse. His work has appeared in Negro Digest, Journal of Black Poetry, The Lakeshore Outlook, Prison Magazine, and other periodicals, and in the anthologies "For Malcolm X" and Potere Negro (Black Power), and L'Idea degli Antenati (The Idea of Ancestry), published in Italy

Genres: Poetry, African American

71 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Etheridge Knight (April 19, 1931 – March 10, 1991) was an African-American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison. The book recalls in verse his eight-year-long sentence after his arrest for robbery in 1960. By the time he left prison, Knight had prepared a second volume featuring his own writings and works of his fellow inmates. This second book, first published in Italy under the title Voce negre dal carcere, appeared in English in 1970 as Black Voices from Prison. These works established Knight as one of the major poets of the Black Arts Movement, which flourished from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s. With roots in the Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, and the Black Power Movement, Etheridge Knight and other American artists within the movement sought to create politically engaged work that explored the African-American cultural and historical experience.

Reviews

[lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

i had read some of these poems on their own but reading the full book was so much better. absolutely beautiful poetry that still feels so poignant today. my faves - “hard rock returns to prison from the hospital for the criminal insane”, “the idea of ancestry”, “2 poems for black relocation centers”, “as you leave me”, and “beware”. etheridge knight is proof that being from mississippi automatically makes you a better writer!

[Scott Satterwhite · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most incredible books of poetry I've ever read. Fell in love with Knight when I found an anthology with a few of his poems and have been a fan ever since. This collection here is incredible.

[Richard Propes · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are few books of poetry that I love as much as I love "Poems from Prison," a breakthrough book from the late Etheridge Knight. I had the privilege of meeting Knight not long before his death, though cancer was dramatically impacting his life. He inspired me so greatly that one of my first writing awards would become a poetry prize from the Etheridge Knight Festival of the Arts at Indy's Martin University.

"Poems from Prison" is simply brilliant writing. It's raw, honest and insightful. Knight was incarcerated at the Indiana State Prison when he wrote the collection and he writes it from the perspective of imprisonment being modern day slavery. It's a point that's hard to argue with even today.

Knight never quite got the recognition and acclaim of some of the country's great urban poets, but those who know poetry consider him one of the finest.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exciting, heartfelt, varied and a perfect length. One that I will return to as I delve deeper into Knight's poetry.

[jam · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful and rhythmic and incredible range

[Ronald Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was Knight's first published book of poetry, which he wrote while serving a prison term in Indiana from 1960 through 1968. Gwendolyn Brooks was a visitor to the prison who encouraged him in his writing, and her preface to this book is a precise and powerful description of its tenor. This collection contains "The Idea of Ancestry", which was one of his more acclaimed poems, and which I found most impacting in this collection. From this book, and his release from prison in the same year, Knight became known nationally, teaching at universities and receiving grants for his writing, before dying at the age of 59 in 1991 from lung cancer. I learned of this book of poetry through a tribute to Knight's birthday (19 April 1931) by Garrison Keillor in his Writer's Almanac.