Airs and Tributes
Airs and Tributes is a 1989 poetry collection by Dennis Brutus, a writer from South Africa. It was published by Whirlwind Press in Camden, edited by Gil Ott, with an introduction by Samuel Allen.[1]
Poems and themes
The contents include “For Ruth First”, “Bitek at Madison” and “Pomegranate”. In a tribute to Brutus accompanying Andrew Martin’s bibliography, scholar Bernth Lindfors places the collection among the poet’s tributes to people who resisted injustice in South Africa and his criticism of those who supported apartheid.[1]
A contemporary response
Amiri Baraka reviewed the collection in Black American Literature Forum in 1989. He described its voice as quiet and reflective, but criticised what he regarded as political restraint and excessive inwardness. He argued that Brutus had written more powerful poetry elsewhere and wanted a more forceful connection between poetic expression and political struggle. This was Baraka’s judgement, rather than an uncontested assessment of the collection.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Andrew Martin, Poems of Dennis Brutus: A Checklist, 1945–2004 (Madison: Parallel Press, 2005), Bernth Lindfors’s tribute, pp. 8–9, and bibliographical entry, p. 25.
- ↑ Amiri Baraka, review of Airs & Tributes, Black American Literature Forum 23, no. 3 (Autumn 1989), pp. 621–626; reprinted by eNotes. Accessed 10 October 2026.