Documentary Poetry: A Study of Amiri Baraka's "Somebody Blew up America"

Abstract

The modern age is prolific of literary movements and literarygenres. Documentary poetry, which can be considered a new genre,combines both primary source material, such as war, political events,terrorism, people in detention and many other events with poetry.Amiri Baraka is a contemporary American poet whose poem"Somebody Blew up America" belongs to this genre. It records theSeptember 11 blowing up of the Trade Centre from a perspectivedifferent from what the American propaganda and mass media tell theworld. The recent paper attempts to shed light on Amiri Baraka'sattitude towards this event, the reasons behind it, the real terroristsand the intentions behind this terrorist event according to this poem.The poet argues that the American government knew beforehand thatthe Trade Centre was going to be blown up and they took no action toprevent the catastrophe and, in this sense, they were partners in thecrime. Furthermore, he accuses the Americans of blowing up the tradecentre. The paper is divided into three sections and a conclusion.Section One is Introductory; it sheds light on documentary poetry, itscharacteristic features and practitioners. Section Two is a biographicalnote of Amiri Baraka paying special attention to his attitude toAmerican politics based on domination, persecution and genocide.Section Three gives a detailed analysis of "Somebody Blew upAmerica" as a documentary poem recording the September 11 blowingup of the Trade Centre with the aim of finding a pretext to invadeother countries. The paper concludes that this event happenedaccording to a well-made plan in cooperation with the Americangovernment and the CIA as partners.