Why people recommend it
The Black Poets edited by Dudley Randall is an influential poetry anthology celebrating African American verse from its spiritual roots to contemporary revolutionary voices. On People I (Mostly) Admire, Reginald Dwayne Betts recounted how receiving a copy of this exact book slid under his cell door while he was in solitary confinement fundamentally changed his life and sparked his journey as a writer. Dwayne Betts reiterated this formative experience during an appearance on The Book Review, marveling at how a simple request for reading material led to an encounter with Etheridge Knight's stirring poetry. Dr. Maya Shankar similarly discussed Betts's remarkable story on Huberman Lab, detailing how reading Knight's verse about the criminal justice system inside the anthology inspired Dwayne to compose hundreds of poems during his imprisonment. Across multiple podcast appearances, Betts's powerful testimony underscored the profound, life-altering capacity of literature to reach individuals in the darkest confines of the carceral system and ignite a lasting creative and personal transformation.
Who recommended it
- Reginald Dwayne Betts Discussed
- Dwayne Betts Discussed
- Maya Shankar Discussed
Reginald Dwayne Betts — 5 mentions
“yo somebody sent me a book and I end up getting this book called the black poet and it changed my life”
“and I end up getting this book called the black poet and it changed my life”
“I don't know the person that gave me the black poets though I mean that changed my entire life”
“and I ended up getting this book called the black poets and it changed my life”
“But yo, somebody sent me a book, and I ended up getting this book called The Black Poets, and it changed my life. The first poem I read by Etheridge Knight was called 'For Freckle Face Gerald'—it had a line in it that says 16 years hadn't done a good job on his voice—and it talked about how the 160”
Dwayne Betts — 1 mention
“I mean I didn't expect to be a poet but it was r that somebody I was in the ho and I asked for a book and somebody slid this book called the black poets under my cell door”
Maya Shankar — 1 mention
“So one day he gets a book called The Black Poets. And in the book, he read a poem by Etheridge Knight, who had also spent time in prison and had written this incredibly stirring poem about the criminal justice system.”