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Askia M. Toure        www.askiatoure.com

 Askia M. Toure' is one of the pioneers of the Black Arts/Black Aesthetics movement which revolutionized African-American literature with the creation of an ethnic-based Aesthetic. An internationally published poet, he is featured in a host of
anthologies, and is the author of five books, including "From the Pyramids to the Projects," winner of the 1989 American Book Award for Literature.  .

 In 1996, Askia Toure' was awarded the prestigious Gwendolyn Brooks Lifetime Achievement award from the Gwendolyn Brooks Institute in Chicago. His most recent volume, "Dawnsong!" was awarded the distinguished Stephen Henderson Poetry award from the African-American Literature and Culture Society, an affiliate of the American Literature Assoc.

 A modern renaissance man, Mr. Toure is also a political activist, having served with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's Atlanta Project; and is a co-author of SNCC's "Black Power Position Paper" (featured in the New York Times), which influenced the movement of the Civil Rights Movement towards the Black Power revolution.

 "Poets like Larry Neal and Askia Toure' were, in my mind, masters of the new black poetry...Askia had the song-like cast to his words, as if the poetry actually was meant to be sung. I heard him once up at the Baby Grand when we first got into Harlem and that singing sound influenced what I was to do with poetry from then on" 

Amiri Baraka, "The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka"