ABSTRACT
The cryptic impulse behind the poetic text contains a sense of knowledge that is largely hidden to many of the readers who had supported Hughes's career in the past. The combination of experimental music and politics was influential, not only with musicians, but with those in the other arts as well. This chapter examines two very different examples of post-war black poetry, both of which are musically influenced, both of which use a collage form that borrows from the example set by experimental jazz, and both of which are deeply invested in politics in the broadest sense. It considers the poetry of Nathaniel Mackey, specifically sections of his serial poem entitled "Song of the Andoumboulou." Like Hughes, Mackey is a black poet writing in a collage form, inspired by and responding to improvisatory jazz. Mackey's "Song of the Andoumboulou" is inspired by aspects of the Dogon cosmology.
