Title
On the Fugitive Radicalism of Jimmy’s Blues
Author
Marta Werbanowska
Abstract
Like much of his prose and nonfiction, Baldwin’s poetry follows his actual and figurative movement between Europe and America against the backdrop of his homeland’s constant refusal to work through its racist, imperialist, and heterosexist legacies. The 2014 reissue of his two poetry collections, Jimmy’s Blues (1983) and Gypsy (1989), as Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems urges us to revisit Baldwin’s poetry as an expression of his ideas and sentiments through a different lens: that of a blues poetics. In Baldwin’s poetry, the blues provide an aesthetic and epistemic framework for his expression of a radical internationalist politics of liberation.
Keywords
fugitivityradicalismbluescosmopolitanisminternationalismpoetryJimmy’s Blues
Object type
Language
English [eng]
Persistent identifier
https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:2068534
Appeared in
Title
James Baldwin Review
Volume
9
Issue
1
ISSN
2056-9211
Issued
2023
From page
47
To page
69
Publisher
Manchester University Press
Date issued
2023
Access rights
Rights statement
© The Authors
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