Giovanni's poem presents a joyous recollection of childhood and summertime memories.

Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville and grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. Giovanni and her sister went to Knoxville every summer to visit their grandparents, which likely serves as inspiration for this poem.

Giovanni likely turned Knoxville Tennessee into a children's book to offer positive representation for children of color. As Alice Fannin discussed in her article "Black Poetry: Three for the Children," Giovanni has often stated that there were "precious few" poetry books for children when she was growing up and even fewer "especially for us," emphasizing the need for more diversity in children's literature. Giovanni has written countless other volumes of children's poetry, such as Spin a Soft Black Song (1971), The Genie in The Jar (1996), Rosa (2005), and The Grasshopper's Song (2008).

Originally published in the 1968 poetry collection Black Judgement and intended for an adult audience, Knoxville, Tennessee was reborn in 1994 as a children's book with full-color illustrations done by Larry Johnson.

References the longevity of slavery, both during and long after its time.

References the rape of enslaved peoples by slavemasters.

African sky father, creator of life (similar to the western notion of God).

African deity of thunder and justice (similar to Zeus).

References the feeling of being forsaken by God(s).

Many enslaved peoples were transported to Delta towns from slave markets in New Orleans, or downriver from markets in Louisville or Memphis. By way of the Delta, enslaved peoples descended down into the pit.

This line regarding time may reference the influence of slavery on modern day African American's lives.

This verse highlights how seemingly sweet elderly women brutally forced submission from the enslaved, blinding them so they could never leave. This juxtaposition between sweetness and brutality parallels the overall juxtaposition of the apple trees and the cotton field.

The triangular trade consisted of taking enslaved people from Guinea in West Africa to the Americas and then taking goods such as whale oil, sugar, and tobacco back to Europe, with Liverpool being a main port. Allen refers to America as the land of the glorious free, contrasting the title of freedom with the legacy of enslavement.

Liverpool came to be a major port during the transatlantic slave trade, with its ships and merchants dominating trade in the second half of the 18th century. Liverpool and its inhabitants gained great civic and personal wealth from the trade and Allen may be mentioning Liverpool as an instrument of the slave trade to bring attention to Europe's role in slavery.

This verse presents a juxtaposition between a field of apple trees and a field of cotton worked by slaves, in other words, rather than spending leisure time in a field of sustenance, the speaker toils in a field of heat, exploitation, and brutality.

Why not Alabama, where Allen is from? Allen states that Mississippi as a word lends itself to the imagery of slavery and Mississippi, according to Allen, was the worst state in the nation in terms of brutality.

English romantic poets also often wrote about nature, with Allen's use echoing typical English poetry but disrupting it with the imagery of slavery.

Sussex is a relatively wealthy county on England's southern coast. Sussex was also known for St. Wilfred, who evangelized people and eventually built a monastery, freeing 250 slaves who were formerly a part of the estate. By referencing this, Allen may be suggesting that slaves in the U.S. did not get this treatment, they did not get to climb the trees in Sussex.

The opening and closing stanzas of this poem are written in rhyming iambic pentameter, typically associated with Shakespeare and other English writers, while the middle two stanzas--which disrupt the peaceful image of England and apple trees and leisure--are written in free verse, often favored by many Black Arts Movement writers.

Redmond's emphasis on the distance between Vietnam and the United States explores how long it took for the My Lai Massacre to enter the American conscience. The massacre was initially covered up, and did not reach the press until 1969.

Redmond's phallic imagery here refers to both the rape and gang-rape of women and children at My Lai as well as the "spark[ing]" machine guns and artillery.

Inserting himself into the poem as the "i", Redmond seems to be expressing a certain empathy for the people murdered at My Lai by connecting their massacre with the continued interior racial struggles within American society.

Here, Redmond may be referencing a character from American folklore named Shine, who was a Black worker aboard the Titanic and the only survivor to swim his way to shore. In the folk tradition, Shine warns of the ship's impending disaster but is ignored. Redmond's continuation of this line– "on deck of the mind"– may also be alluding to the radio of a Naval ship.

Redmond may be speaking of not only the fragmentation of North and South Vietnam, but also of the ideological fragmentation in the United States; many were against the Vietnam War while others were in support of it and its overall Western goals.

Redmond's "undeclared causes" may be referring to the idea of the Vietnam War being a proxy for the Cold War, an ideological struggle between the influences of Western Capitalism and its ideals vs. the Eastern values of Communism and Marxism.

Redmond's image may allude to the small underground cave systems used by guerrilla Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War; American soldiers nicknamed "tunnel rats" were charged with searching and destroying the contents of these tunnels, both humans and munitions alike.

Many bodies were also mutilated by American soldiers during the My Lai Massacre.

Redmond may be turning the very American image of "barbeque", often associated with the Fourth of July, on its head here. The word emphasizes how the massacre was a product of American ideals and intervention. Additionally, many lynchings of African Americans were cruelly and flippantly referred to as "barbeques" by their perpetrators; in this word choice, Redmond begins to establish a shared experience between the victims at My Lai and the Black victims of racial violence throughout American history.

The My Lai Massacre took place on March 16th, 1968, when American soldiers in Charlie Company murdered well over 300 men, women, and children. Many of the woman and children were also raped by members of Charlie Company.

My Lai is a small hamlet in South Vietnam, in the Quang Ngaio province, which was invaded during the Vietnam War under suspicion of being a center for Viet Cong forces. The village and its surrounding area was referred to as "Pinkville" by American forces.

Here "Cong" refers to the Viet Cong, or the National Liberation Front, which was the Vietnamese Nationalist Communist opposition in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

Here, Baraka refers to the largely European narrative which credits Greece as the birthplace of concepts such as democracy. In reality, many advancements in philosophy, mathematics, and the like had existed in many forms across the world far before the Greeks.

From the 700s into the 1500s, Islamic "Moors" originating primarily from northern Africa were a significant population on the Iberian Peninsula.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines (1758-1806) was a lieutenant of Toussaint Louverture during the Haitian Revolution and was named the first ruler of independent Haiti after the revolt.

David Walker (1796-1830) was an African American abolitionist and early proponent of Black Nationalism. Some believe Walker was poisoned for his outspoken beliefs; other historians agree Walker died naturally of tuberculosis.

Dachau, Germany, was the location of one of the first Jewish concentration camps established by the Nazi Regime in 1933. The camp operated until the end of World War II in 1945.

Here, Baraka's joke takes aim at the traditionally taught, white European canon; throughout the poem, he highlights this canon's inherent suppression of other voices by acknowledging the violence often glossed over in white European records of history.

According to many folk tales, Napoleon and his army are said to have fired cannonballs during their conquest of Egypt at the Sphinx of Giza's nose because it looked 'too African.' The loss of the nose, however, has been attributed by historians to Sufi Islamic forces who defaced the statue in an act against icon worship; local peasants would make offerings at the sphinx's feet.

The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the world's most important centers of learning and scholarship until it was burned and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 48 BC.

David Sibeko (1938-1973) was a political activist who was at the forefront of the struggle for freedom in South Africa.

Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973) was a revolutionary who helped lead the war for independence in Guinea-Bissau, which was originally a Portuguese colony in West Africa. Cabral was assassinated in 1973.

Nat Turner (1800-1831) led one of the few successful slave revolts in American history in Southhampton County, Virginia. Nat Turner's Rebellion only lasted two days, but Turner evaded capture for over a month after the event. When captured, Turner was hung, drawn and quartered.

John Brown (1800-1859) was an American abolitionist who was famous for leading an attempted raid on a U.S. armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) in order to incite a slave revolution. He was hung for treason.

Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961) was a Congolese statesman who played a significant role in the decolonization and independence of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which had previously been a Belgian colony. Lumumba was the nation's first prime minister until a secessionist revolt, supported by the Belgium government, assassinated Lumumba by firing squad.

Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803) was the leader of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), in which ex-slaves overthrew French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue and created a sovereign state independent from Europe.

Augusto César Sandino (1895-1934) was a Nicaraguan revolutionary who revolted against U.S. forces occupying the country. He was assassinated by Anastasio Somosa García (1896-1956) who seized power in 1936.

Meaning "the New World" in Spanish, Baraka may be including this line and the following to make a point about the complexities of history and its resulting diasporas.

The Taino and Arawak peoples were indigenous to the Caribbean and South America. Many were enslaved and virtually erased as a civilization in the years after Christopher Columbus' first exploration of the New World.

Medgar Evers (1925-1963) was a civil rights activist who worked against segregation in Mississippi. He was assassinated by the white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith in 1963.

Fred Hampton (1948-1969) was a member of the Black Panther Party in Chicago, Illinois, and was killed after a raid by law enforcement in 1969.

Bobby Hutton (1950-1968) was one of the first members of the Black Panther Party. Hutton was shot by the Oakland Police after a shootout between the Panthers and Oakland PD.

Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919) was a Mexican revolutionary who led peasant revolts against the Mexican government in the early 1900s. Zapata was primarily concerned with the rights of the lower class and agrarian communities.

The "Boers" were Dutch colonizers who originally settled in what is now South Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. The word "boer" comes from the Dutch for "farmer."

Carthage was the capital of an ancient civilization in what is now Tunisia. The Roman Empire captured and destroyed the city in the Third Punic War in 146 BC, then reestablished it as a Roman center for trade and influence over Africa.

In the early 1500s, Spanish explorers such as Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) led conquests into native territories in modern-day Central and South America. Cortés himself led a campaign against the Aztec Empire and its emperor, Montezuma (1466-1520).

Amiri Baraka was born LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey in 1934 and lived there until his death in 2014. Newark was one of many city's that endured race riots during the Long Hot Summer of 1967. Due to Baraka, it is also considered the birthplace of the Black Arts Movement.

Amiri Baraka's subtitle to his poem may be a reference to Benny Golson's (1929- ) composition of the same name, which is largely considered a standard of jazz music. Baraka makes his poem its own standard of Black Arts literature by uplifting the histories so often ignored in European-centric narratives.

Here Madhubuti aligns the politics of the White House– located on Pennsylvania Avenue– with the politics of the white apartheid government of South Africa. Apartheid, or racial segregation sanctioned by the South African government, was practiced by the country from the late 1940's until the early 1990's, making the commingling of whites and Blacks effectively illegal.

Here, Madhubuti points to the economic disparities between the predominantly African American communities told to "wait" and the generally white, affluent communities or "non-waiters."

The use of the phrase "universal art" may be a dig at a common critique of the Black Arts Movement that its resulting art was not 'universal enough.'

Throughout the poem, Madhubuti emphasizes the monotony and inaction of "waiting" by repeating the word or a form of it some 80 times. He also plays with vernacular by moving in and out of it throughout the poem. For example, he drops and adds the "g" to create "waitin" and "waiting."

Madhubuti expands the "waiting" of African American communities into world issues of the time period in order to demonstrate the inefficacy of "waiting." For instance, in the early 1990s, Sudan experienced a harsh famine, and across the late 20th century industrial air-pollutants released across the globe were causing environmentally detrimental acidic Ph levels in rainfall.

The Johnny Carson Show ran from 1955 to 1956. Later, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson ran from 1962 to 1992. Beloved by many, the late night talk show and its host were central to American television sets across the country. Carson's work is one of the most culturally influential shows of the century.

The Black Arts Movement in particular was a stage for the influx and experimentation with various Eastern philosophies; many of the movement's central figures, such as Amiri Baraka, were outspoken Marxists, Communists, and Socialists.

Madhubuti comments on the general plight of low-income communities, particularly Black communities, and how that "waiting" has always been the case and never the solution.

Here, Madhubuti may be referencing the crack cocaine epidemic that ravaged American communities, particularly African American communities, between the 1980s and 1990s.

As in many of his poems, Madhubuti spells "afrikans" with a K in order to decolonize the English word used to describe the continent of his heritage.

Madhubuti refers to one of the first instances of "waiting" as the enslavement of African Americans for over 200 years.

Booker T. Washington's (1856-1915) "The Atlanta Compromise" may be one of the early forms of "waiting" Madhubuti has in mind in this poem. In the compromise, Washington proposed an eventual assimilation of African Americans into society post-emancipation; African Americans would take on the basic, blue collar jobs of society under a white government, with the condition that education and equal rights were guaranteed for future generations of African Americans.

Madhubuti begins his poem by listing different ways one can be told to "wait." This inclusion may be intended to serve as a sort of warning for readers, so that they can recognize when they are being pushed into complacency.

Madhubuti's title, "The Great Wait," refers to the recurring suggestion given by white and Black conservatives over the course of centuries of African American oppression and disenfranchisement, that African Americans must wait for their freedom.

Considered the "second renaissance" after the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement was an explosion of Black culture, literature, and Black-owned creative institutions and businesses in the 1960's and 70's. Madhubuti was central to this movement.

Richard Wright (1908-1960) was an African American author, short story writer and Black communist from Natchez, Mississippi. One of his most famous works, Native Son (1940), focusses on the struggles of a African-American youth from Chicago's South Side.

In these lines, Madhubuti may be gesturing to a larger point about how his breaking the familial norm by becoming a writer and engaging with Afrikan roots has created a paradox in his early life; while bringing Madhubuti closer to an idea of self and sense of Blackness, it also drives a wedge between him and his family.

Madhubuti founded Third World Press in 1967, dedicated to the publication of African American literature of cultural significance. It is one of the longest-running and largest Black-owned presses in the country. In 1967, Madhubuti also wrote Think Black, and later, his acclaimed full-length collection of poetry, Don't Scream, Cry, in 1969.

The Nation of Islam, an African American religious and political movement that came about in tandem with the Black Arts Movement and Black Nationalism, supported vegetarianism as one of the most virtuous ways to sustain the body.

Similar to the "k" in Afrika, Haki Madhubuti's name change is a type of reclamation. Often, the English names of African Americans are hold-overs from the era of slavery in early American history; to rename oneself is a way of reestablishing a connection Afrikan heritage, showing pride in this connection, and reaffirming the self.

Haki Madhubuti served in the U.S. Army from 1960 to 1963.

Despite its innovations, the Black Arts Movement also experienced what was described as a 'liberal backlash' from predominantly white institutions and former allies because of the movement's association with Black separatism and radical Marxism.

By spelling "Afrika" with a K, Madhubuti specifically acknowledges that "Africa" is the continent's anglicized and colonized given name. The reclaimed K in "Afrika" is for Afrikans, and makes the poem's space an Afrikan one.

George Jackson (1941-1971) was an incarcerated political activist, author, and cofounder of the Black Guerrilla Family, which was based in Maoist and Marxist thought. In 1970, Jackson wrote Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. He was shot and killed from a guard tower after attempting an armed prison escape in 1971.

A psychiatrist and political activist from the island of Martinique, Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a revolutionary author whose work focussed on post-colonialism, decolonization, and Marxism. Fanon's book, The Wretched of the Earth (1961) was often referred to as the bible of the Black Power Movement.

A central figure in the Black Power movement, Malcolm X (1925-1965) was both controversial and influential for his outspoken Black Nationalism and work in the civil rights era. He was assassinated in 1965.

Madhubuti's decision to become a writer and the ensuing mental separation from his family and peers seems to be mirrored by the physical separation of his incarcerated brother.

Miles Davis (1926-1991), an American jazz trumpeter, was one of the most influential sounds and figures in American music at large. Jazz music and its relatives were also a primary influencer in the literature of the Black Arts Movement.

Originally Donald Luther Lee, Haki Madhubuti changed his name after visiting Africa in 1974. Swahili-derived names, Haki means "justice" and Madhubuti means "precise, accurate, and dependable."

Madhubuti's use of the colloquialism "strange weather" may point to his family and peer's misunderstanding of him as well as the incoming cultural impact of the Black Arts Movement on the horizon.

Haki Madhubuti's lack of capitalization, extensive use of enjambment, and rap-like run-on delivery in this poem are evidence of his rule-breaking of the traditional poetic mechanics and technique.

The title of Madhubuti's poem may be a wink to the 1962 film, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, in which an unhinged former child star neglects and tries to hide her paralyzed sister in a series of efforts to regain fame.

This poem connects to our theme "Language, Music, and Vernacular."

The choppy syntax mirrors the improvisational nature of jazz music.

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