Def Jam Poetry

Def Poetry, also known as Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry or Def Poetry Jam, which was co-founded by Bruce George, Danny Simmons and Deborah Pointer, is an HBO television series produced by hip-hop music entrepreneur Russell Simmons. The series presents performances by established spoken word poets, as well as up-and-coming ones. Well-known actors and musicians will often surprise the audience by showing up to recite their own original poems. The show is hosted by Mos Def. Def Poetry is a spin-off of Def Comedy Jam. As he did on Def Comedy, Simmons appears at the end of every episode to thank the audience.

Motives And Thoughts ~ Lyrically Spoken by Lauryn Hill (Def Poetry)


KRS One and Doug E Fresh - 2nd Quarter on Def Jam Poetry


Michael Franti - Rock the Nation on Def Jam Poetry


Phylicia Rashad — On Status by Vivian Ayers on Def Jam Poetry

Jazz Poetry by Langston Hughes

- The Weary Blues



Jazz poetry
It was with the advent of the Harlem Renaissance that jazz poetry developed into what it is today.

Poets like Langston Hughes incorporated the syncopated rhythms and repetitive phrases of blues and jazz music into their writing. Many Harlem Renaissance writers were deeply concerned with racial pride and with the creation of purely African-American poetry. Since jazz music was an important part of African-American culture at the time, Hughes and others like him adapted the musical genre to create their own, singularly African-American voices that could easily be distinguished from the work of white poets. Many of Hughes' poems, such as "The Weary Blues," sound almost exactly like popular jazz and blues songs of the period, and vice versa. His work is also highly evocative of spirituals.

A selection of Poetry by "Angela Jackson"

Maya Angelou :

born Marguerite Ann Johnson; April 4, 1928)

Maya and Malcolm

"She became a poet and writer after a series of occupations as a young adult, including fry cook, prostitute, night-club dancer and performer, castmember of the opera Porgy and Bess, coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the days of decolonization. She has also been an actor, writer, director, and producer of plays, movies, and public television programs. Since 1982, she has taught at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she holds the first lifetime Reynolds Professorship of American Studies. She was active in the Civil Rights movement, and worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Since the 1990s she has made around eighty appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's inauguration, the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's inauguration in 1961." -wikipedia

The Haiku Poetry of Richard Wright

Following are some of the Haiku poems of
Richard Wright (1908 - 1960)
African American author of "Black Boy" and "Native Son

An apple blossom
Trembling on a sunlit branch
From the weight of bees.

I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away.

In the setting sun,
Each tree bud is clinging fast
To drying raindrops.

Make up you mind, Snail!
You are half inside your house,
And halfway out!

The crow flew so fast
That he left his lonely caw
Behind in the fields.

The webs of spiders
Sticking to my sweaty face
In the dusty woods.

One magnolia
Landed upon another
In the dew-wet grass.

Spring begins shyly
With one hairpin of green grass
In a flower pot.

Wright was a prolific writer of Haiku
visit  Terebess Asia Online
For more info and many more of Wright's Haiku poems