from Gale Databases: Contemporary Authors
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Lorenzo Thomas 1944-
Genre(s): Poetry
Table of Contents: Personal Information Personal Information: Family: Born August 31, 1944, in the Republic of Panama; immigrated to the United States in 1948; son of Herbert Hamilton (a pharmacist and chemist) and Luzmilda (a community organizer; maiden name, Gilling) Thomas. Education: Queens College (now of the City University of New York), B.A., 1967; graduate study at Pratt Institute. Memberships: Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines (member of board of directors). Addresses: Office: University of Houston--Downtown, One Main St., #1035-S, Houston, TX 77002. E-mail: thomasl@uhd.edu. Career: Poet. Pratt Institute, New York, NY, assistant reference librarian, 1967-68; Texas Southern University, Houston, writer-in-residence, 1973; Black Arts Center, Houston, TX, Ethnic Arts Program, creative writing teacher, 1973-75; Living Blues, Chicago, IL, correspondent, 1976--; University of Houston--Downtown, Houston, professor of English. Has worked with the Poetry-in-the-Schools program in New York, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Arkansas, and Georgia. Organizer of Juneteenth Blues Festivals in Houston and other Texas cities. Member of advisory board, KPFT-FM, Houston, 1973--; member of literature advisory panel, Texas Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 1975--. Military service: U.S. Naval Reserve, 1968-72; served in Vietnam. WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:POETRY
NONFICTION
OTHERAlso translator of Tho Tu
Viet-Nam (poetry). Contributor to anthologies, including Black
Fire: An Anthology of Black American Writing, Morrow (New York, NY),
1968; The Poetry of Black America, edited by Arnold Adoff, Harper
(New York, NY), 1972; New Black Voices, edited by Abraham Chapman,
New American Library (New York, NY), 1972; and None of the Above,
edited by Michael Lally, Crossing Press (Santa Cruz, CA), 1976. Contributor
to periodicals, including Angel Hair, Art & Literature,
C, Massachusetts Review, Umbra, Yardbird,
and Yardbird Reader. Editor, Roots; advisory editor, Nimrod;
contributing editor, Black Focus. "Sidelights"Lorenzo Thomas is a Panamanian-born American poet, critic, editor, and educator. From his early work among the avant-garde poetry movements in New York City during the 1960s to his most recent critical publication, Extraordinary Measures: Afrocentric Modernism and Twentieth- Century American Poetry, Thomas has offered a unique literary perspective, drawing on his Central American and African heritage, as well as his experiences in New York and in the American Southwest. Writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Tom Dent called Thomas "one of the most broadly based and multifaceted writers of African descent in America today" and praised Thomas's poetry as "noteworthy for its extraordinary, imaginative depiction of popular American culture and for his unique intermixture of apparently unrelated frames of reference."Thomas's family moved from Panama to New York City in 1948. The Spanish-speaking youth was teased by other children, and he resolved to improve his language skills to prevent further humiliation. His early career coincided with the growing civil rights movement and the rediscovery by Black writers of their African heritage. Reflecting Thomas's interest in African history and folk culture as well as expressing social criticism, these works employ strong visual imagery, song, and allusion, while centering on such subjects as civil rights and American pop culture. The cinematic imagery of Thomas's work is exemplified by the title poem of his collection, The Bathers: Selected Poems, which Dent described as "a series of refractions off the indelible photographic image of black demonstrators being attacked with police fire hoses during the Birmingham demonstrations." Reviewing Thomas's collection Chances Are Few in the American Book Review, Fielding Dawson called the volume a "profound key to poetry and prose of the future," adding: "To think this writing is being done for black audiences and being written by black writers, is to live in an inverted hypocrisy. These poems are guidelines for us all." In Library Journal Maurice Kenny called the poems "sharp, urbane, caustic social criticism." Extraordinary Measures,
published in 2000, offers a critical overview of African American poetry
from the Harlem Renaissance to modern poetry slams, including considerations
of the works of such writers as Amiri Baraka, William Stanley Braithwaite,
Fenton Johnson, Harryette Mullen, Kalamu ya Salaam, Melvin B. Tolson,
Askia M. Toure, and Margaret Walker. Recommending the book in Library
Journal, Louis J. Parascandola called Thomas's writing "perceptive"
and "jargon-free," and concluded that "Thomas makes a convincing case
for a continuum within the African American poetic tradition." FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE AUTHOR:BOOKS
PERIODICALS
OTHER
Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003. Gale Database: Contemporary Authors
Copyright © 2003
by Gale Group. All rights reserved.
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