dumbfoundry

New Books In the Hood: Street Lit Makes Inroads With Readers and Publishers

Poet Sterling Plumpp, who taught at the University of Illinois for 30 years, says that contemporary hip-hop writing "is the most inventive thing happening to the language in a long time."

He believes it is more successful in fiction and poetry than in rap lyrics. "I'm not sure the music is there," he says.

Eventually, Plumpp says, great writers may emerge. "What you have is a very difficult situation for a lot of young African Americans," Plumpp says. "They did not inherit the legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois or Frederick Douglass in terms of literacy."

But, Plumpp continues, these young folks have life experiences that they want to express. "They have almost developed an African American language that is as estranged from the educated African American world as it is from the white world."

Street lit, he says, "should be promoted."

Whatever. (All lit should be promoted.) I just like the name Sterling Plumpp.

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Saturday, July 31, 2004 at 11:24 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.