Abstract

An Interview with Julius Lester

This article presents an interview of Gay Head, Massachusetts-based Julius Lester, a young black writer who has been called the literary spokesman for the black revolution. Once a folk singer and guitar teacher, he has retained his interest in music. On being asked about the most popular form that black writing has taken in the last ten years, he said, "Poetry. The 1960s saw a virtual explosion in black poetry. It's mostly a highly political poetry, and dealing without exception with blackness. It's very close to the oral tradition. It's meant to be listened to in a communal situation where you can just get up in front of an audience in a coffeehouse or a bookstore and read a poem. It communicates in the sense the songs of soul singers like James Brown and Aretha Franklin do."