Spanningnbsp;anbsp;long career, these poems helped define and sustain a movement that added music and brash street language to traditional poetics. Like Amiri Barka (aka LeRoi Jones), this poet and social activistnbsp;has long combinednbsp;the personalnbsp;and the politicalnbsp;bynbsp;adding anger, activism, and outsider art to well-crafted poems. Spoken-word poetrynbsp;(which recently garnered the author a Grammy nomination) and "message" poetry aimed at community healing are innovations in the later works, and as a wholenbsp;the poems provide an overviewnbsp;of emergingnbsp;black culture asnbsp;they borrow language fromnbsp;black consciousness, hip-hop, political speeches, and motivational talks.