“Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note”

In the poem “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note” themes of suicide, depression, and satisfaction/dissatisfaction are present making it quite fitting that Amiri Baraka wrote this poem right before he turns into a black nationalist. Amiri Baraka was initially part of the Beat generation which were “a group of American post-World War II writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Central elements of "Beat" culture included rejection of received standards, innovations in style, experimentation with drugs, alternative sexualities, an interest in Eastern religion, a rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human condition.” Many of the Beat writers of the time were considered iconoclasts. After the assassination of Malcolm X, however, Baraka changes route and turns his back on the white world entering into racism and violence.

The poem is about the narrator who is definitely a parent. The parent is depressed and sullen by stating “Lately, I've become accustomed to the way /The ground opens up and envelopes me” By using the word accustomed the narrator is saying that he/she used to and bored with his or her life. “And now, each night I count the stars./And each night I get the same number./And when they will not come to be counted,/I count the holes they leave.” The holes mentioned are a metaphor for the holes or emptiness within the person’s life. After the depressed state expressed in the first two stanzas, a shift in tone takes place in the third stanza. Now there is hope. The child is praying and probably praying that his or her parent is going to be okay.

This has to do with Baraka’s life because he was probably not happy initially his hope was found in black nationalism. Even though many may argue that that would not be an ideal form of hope, Baraka also finds a second hope when he changes his ways and becomes a Marxist and supporter third-world liberation movements.