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Black Chant traces the embrace and transformation of black modernisms and postmodernisms by African-American poets in the decades after the Second World War. Focusing on groups of avant-garde poets, including the Howard/Dasein poets, the Freelance Group, the Umbra Group, and others, the study pays particular attention to those poets whose radical forms of new writing formed the basis for much of what followed in the Black Arts period. The author also undertakes a critical rediscovery of recordings by black avant-garde poets such as Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, and Elouise Loftin, who worked with jazz composers and performers on compositions which combined post-Bop jazz with postmodern verse forms. Exploring the farthest reaches of black creative experimentation in words and music, Black Chant yields an invaluable reassessment of African-American cultural history as it has been shaped throughout the era we now call postmodern.