Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

work by Baraka

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July 16, 2026

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Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note is a 1961 poetry collection by Amiri Baraka, then known as LeRoi Jones. Initially, Baraka was associated with the Beat movement, and this collection largely featured apolitical critiques of 1950s conventionality and materialism. However, the work also contained strong imagery and lyrical treatment of violence, with poems revealing the anger and despair of a Black man in a white-dominated society. This collection marked a transition for Baraka, foreshadowing his later embrace of Black nationalism and his development into a prominent voice of the Black Arts movement.123

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African American literature
Amiri Baraka
…a Beat poet whose collection Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note (1961) consisted largely of apolitical critiques of 1950s conventionality and materialism. By 1968, however, Jones had renamed himself Amiri Baraka and resettled in Harlem, where he became the fiery literary voice of a new Black self-consciousness and social…
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…a Beat poet whose collection Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note (1961) consisted largely of apolitical critiques of 1950s conventionality and materialism. By 1968, however, Jones had renamed himself Amiri Baraka and resettled in Harlem, where he became the fiery literary voice of a new Black self-consciousness and social…
Read More