Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka has been an inspiration to poets for nearly 50 years.

Beat poet Amiri Baraka is under attack for publishing a poem that dares to suggest that Amerika's historic and continued arrogance may have precipitated the jet bombing of The World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001.

Baraka is the founder of Totem Publishing, the company that first published Jack Kerouac and Allan Ginsberg.

Baraka's poem has also ruffled feathers in the Jewish community for inferring that Jews had pre-knowledge of the impending attack and avoided the Center on that day.

"It's a simple as this," commented Armond Blackwater, "it's fucking poetry, man. It's supposed to make you think, jar your cranium, massage the medulla, you dig. Fuck 'em if they can't take a poem. We all (poets) owe Amiri a huge hug."