These old writing paper blues: The blues stanza and literary poetry.

A critique is presented of African American poems such as "For Malcolm, A Year After" by Etheridge Knight, "Ballad of the Landlord" by Langston Hughes, and "A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon" by Gwendolyn Brooks. The influence of blues music on poetry, the poems' stanzas, and the social conditions of African American poets are discussed.