SIUE Black Studies Blog

Going to the Movies with Black College Students

2012-01-28T19:06:00.001-06:00

I thought the movie Red Tails was cool when I first saw it. I liked more, however, when I went to see it with 50 or of the students in our program for first-year college students this past Thursday, January 26. The movie didn't change between the first and second time that I viewed it, but going to the movies with a group of 18-year-old college students gave me reason to think about the movie in different ways.

I've read and heard several of the critiques concerning how Red Tails comes up short for some. The movie doesn't address enough of the racism that the soldiers encountered. There's not enough focus on the historical background concerning how the airmen got from Tuskegee to the war. The dialogue is underwhelming and the story is not compelling enough. Those are some of the critiques.

Still, the movie has many pluses. For one, Red Tails brings attention to a group of soldiers too often ignored in the pages of history. The aerial scenes and battle in the movie are quite impressive. The film highlights African American men as highly skilled and heroic figures involved in consequential historically significant activities.

I co-organized the trip to attend Red Tails with one of my colleagues. We realized after talking to the students that few of them attend the movies regularly, in part because of the price and also because attending the theater is not usually a top interest. We went during the matinee when the price was down to $5.

When the students attend the movies, they rarely go see serious or historical movies. For movies with all-black casts, comedies are far more pervasive. The black movies they tend to see are also typically based in the U.S. Red Tails presents action and a level of drama that was less common for my group, not to mention a setting that was far from home

Trying to imagine what seeing a film like this on the big screen would have been for me at age 18 and what it meant for my students was an exciting mental process for me. I'm looking forward to reading some of the responses to the movie from my crew.

Related:
• January 22: Working with Collegiate Black Men

A Notebook on Eugene B. Redmond & the EBR Collection

2012-01-28T15:12:00.004-06:00

I first began studying Eugene B. Redmond's work when I was an undergraduate at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, during the late 1990s. His book Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry (1976) was a crucial gateway for my entry into the worlds of black poetry and African American literary history. I have worked with Redmond on a regular basis since the fall of 2003, when I started working at SIUE.

Since 2009, I have published entries on our blog about Redmond and the EBR Collection. The photographs from the Collection have been integral to our mixed media projects and the many displays that we organize in the Underground Reading Room (formerly known as the EBR Reading Room) in Lovejoy Library. The following links include entries about Redmond and the EBR Collection.

2011
• December 9: Eugene B. Redmond: A Human Vertex By Cindy Lyles
• December 9: Divas of the 20th Century Awards Ceremony By Danielle Hall
• December 8: Poster for A 1974 Poetry Festival
• December 7: Dunham, Redmond & the EBR Digital Collection By Danielle Hall
• December 7: Communal Inspirations & the EBR Digital Collection By Clarissa Richee
• December 6: Background on Eugene B. Redmond's Extensive Photographic Work
• December 5: Redmond, Dunham & the EBR Digital Collection By Cindy Lyles
• December 5: Metro East & the EBR Digital Collection By Clarissa Richee
• December 5: Ntozake Shange & the EBR Digital Collection By Danielle Hall
• December 5: Utilizing the EBR Digital Collection
• December 5: The EBR Digital Collection
• November 19: Redmond Reading at Lovejoy Library
• October 30: Redmond, Baraka & Multi-directional Approaches to Poetry
• October 27: Black Verse: An Exhibit
• September 24: Poetry as a Mixed Media Enterprise
• September 19: Drumvoices: A Remarkable History of Poetry
• July 15: Eugene B. Redmond and the EBR Collection
• July 10: Eugene B. Redmond's Epic East St. Louis Poem
• July 3: EBR and the Ghosts of Dunham, Hurston, & Schomburg
• May 21: A Poet Laureate (Always) at Work
• March 22: Why the Birth Years of Black Poets Matter
• February 21: Exhibit on Haki Madhubuti
• February 16: Mixed Media Poetry Project @ William Woods University
• February 15: Presenting Poetry & Photos at St. Louis Community College

2010
• December 15: Redmond Discusses Photographing Amiri Baraka
• December 10: Redmond Reading Room Review
• November 18: Sharing Af-Am Poetry at SIUE/East St. Louis Charter School
• November 8: Sharing Af-Am Poetry at Woodland Elementary
• October 30: Redmond visits the Redmond Room
• October 15: "Runagate Runagate" at the EBR Reading Room [includes audio]
• October 11: The EBR Reading Room
• September 28: Black Studies Exhibit in East St. Louis
• September 28: The Black Poetry Mixed Media Project
• September 13: First Events in EBR Reading Room
• September 5: The EBR Reading Room
• August 6: Developing the Redmond Reading Room
• June 13: Redmond, Angelou, & Artistic Encouragement
• April 1: Focus on Toni Morrison [includes video]
• March 25: EBR Focus on Sonia Sanchez [includes video]
• March 18: EBR Focus on Amiri Baraka [includes video]
• March 11: EBR Focus on Margaret Walker [includes video]
• March 11: Kwansaba
• March 4: EBR Discusses Maya Angelou [includes video]
• Feb. 25: EBR Discusses Lucille Clifton [includes video]
• Feb. 22: The African American Literary Showcase

2009
• December 10: Redmond Discusses Harlem Procession [includes video]
• October 6: Photographs from the EBR Collection
• October 2: Redmond and Black Studies
• June 9: Understanding the EBR Collection

Related:
An Extended Notebook on the works of writers & artists

Black Boys, Imagination & Dungeons and Dragons

2012-01-28T08:27:00.001-06:00

Aside from rap music, which no doubt had an important influence on large numbers of young brothers, what other cultural productions influenced the imaginations and wordplay of black boys? What productions and activities stimulated their minds and their understanding about the power of words and ideas?

Ta-Nehisi Coates provides one possibility in a comment he made about the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. The game had several small books, and in an interview with Big Think, Coates cites the game's reading materials as capturing his imagination:

One of the books is the Monsters Manual and it's a list of all these mythological monsters that inhabit the world of Greyhawk of Dungeons and Dragons. And I can remember just sitting back and flipping through and looking at the words and the descriptions and it will come alive for me. And that was a beautiful thing. That was the first lesson for me about how words can take you somewhere else.

A couple of things stand out to me here.

For one, that early lesson that "words can take you somewhere else" is fascinating, and it's worth considering the processes by which large numbers of black men wordsmiths--rappers, preachers, public intellectuals, novelists, story-tellers--learned their lessons about the transport possibilities of words.

Second, Coates's engagements with Dungeons and Dragons occurred outside of formal academic settings, which raises the possibility of how leisure activities might influence or assist in shaping skills like reading and writing as well as critical and creative thinking.

7 Poems by Lucille Clifton on the Poetry Foundation Site

2012-01-28T07:08:00.000-06:00

Links to 7 poems by Lucille Clifton on the Poetry Foundation site.

• "homage to my hips"
• "won't you celebrate with me"
• "jasper texas 1998"
• "my dream about being white"
• "wishes for sons"
• "poem in praise of menstruation"
• "cutting greens"

Related:
A Selection of African American Poets on the Poetry Foundation Site

A Selection of African American Poets on the Poetry Foundation Site

2012-01-26T07:06:00.001-06:00

The Poetry Foundation site, a vital resource, includes poems by and information about several African American poets. I'm working on developing a notebook of links to the broad body of works that appear on the site.

From the Poetry Foundation site:

• 10 poems by Langston Hughes
• 10 poems by Gwendolyn Brooks
• 7 poems by Robert Hayden
• 6 poems by Margaret Walker

7 Poems by Robert Hayden on the Poetry Foundation Site

2012-01-26T06:58:00.004-06:00

I have regularly visited the Poetry Foundation site to check out a few pieces by Robert Hayden. The following 7 poems appear on the site:

• Frederick Douglass [includes audio]
• Middle Passage [includes audio]
• Runagate Runagate
• The Ballad of Nat Turner
• Those Winter Sundays [includes audio]
• Mourning Poem for the Queen of Sunday
• Witch Doctor

Related:
A Selection of African American Poets on the Poetry Foundation Site

Notes on Why Elizabeth Alexander's Presence on Twitter Matters

2012-01-25T10:58:00.001-06:00

A New Year's resolution by poet Elizabeth Alexander may have involved doing more to engage social media. She started tweeting on January 1, and noted in her first tweet that "first poem coming later today."

Sure enough, later that day, she tweeted, "diaspora dear/the new year/is here, coast/to coast funky/collard greens/build yr bones/for the great unknown/blackeyed peasly yrs/with love."

In a subsequent post, I'll write about Alexander's poems and her "twitter poetics" series, which includes her tweets about "ongoing observations on the process of writing in new forms and contexts." But for now, it seems worth mentioning why Aelxander's active presence on twitter could matter for those of us interested in studying poetry.

Alexander is obviously not the first African American writer on twitter, but she is one of the first major black poets on the social media site to start off by devoting her energies to a distinct twitter-based poetry project. (For various reasons, large numbers of published poets on twitter are hesitant about tweeting their poems on the site.). To the extent that major or highly visible figures in given fields can mobilize or at least influence attention on particular issues, what Alexander does on twitter could assist in motivating activities and shifting the black poetry gaze in alternative directions.

Black poets and poets in general do a good job interacting with the people, primarily other poets, in their discourse communities. But reaching out to the presumable non-poetry worlds might be a stretch and have some difficulties. The public nature of twitter, however, can create some new possibilities as a poet's literary identity converges with her twitter and online identity.

Decades ago there were fierce debates about whether black writers were black or writers first. Along those lines, today when folks encounter @ProfessorEA are they reading a black poet who tweets or a tweeting black poet? Or better, how do the poems in Crave Radiance by Alexander relate to and differ from the poems by @ProfessorEA?

Some defining moments in the history of black poetry have occurred when poets occupied by multiple writer identities. Remember the artist-activist role of poets during the black arts era, or the notion of the rapper as poet? I'm looking forward to what emerges from twitter-poets (or poem-tweets) from writers like Elizabeth Alexander.

Zombie movies, black boys & imagination

2012-01-24T14:06:00.000-06:00

It wasn't simply rap and Star Wars that stimulated the minds of a few black boys who went on to become major writers. Zombies were also important, at least in one notable recent instance.

Colson Whitehead's latest book Zone One, released just before Halloween back in October 2011, contributes to the expansive zombie apocalypse discourse--a discourse that includes novels, movies, comics, video games, and more. When discussing his book, Whitehead often noted his childhood interest in zombie films.

"Movies were my true primer," said Whitehead in an interview with Harper's. "The glorious feel-bad dystopian flicks of the 1960s and 1970s. The inexplicable monsters of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead were my template for this book [Zone One]."

Whitehead was a pre-teen when he first saw George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. The monstrous ideas and gruesome figures that the young Whitehead encountered in the film would have a lasting effect and re-emerge decades later in distinct literary fashion in Zone One. Like Romero who cast Duane Jones as the lead in his film, Whitehead presents an African American male as the protagonist of his novel.

In the Harper's interview, Whitehead pointed out the racial implication's of Romero's film starring an African American trying to escape the undead: "Night of the Living Dead is the story of a black man on the run from the mob of white people who want to destroy him, literally devour him — in other words, it’s a crucial subplot of the America narrative."

The zombie films that Whitehead watched as a youngster became aspects of mental footage that he eventually reworked and re-imagined for Zone One. In the past, major black novelists consulted history books and old newspaper articles to compose their works; Whitehead's research, on the other hand, involved the tasks of recalling and re-watching horror films. For over a century now, childhood memories have fueled the imaginations and works of African American novelists much to write about. So it was with Whitehead, though some of his youthful recollections included apocalyptic scenes and hordes of undead flesh-eaters.

Related:
Black Boys, Imagination, and Star Wars

Outliers & Cultural Legacies

2012-01-24T09:18:00.000-06:00

In chapter 6 of Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell provides a discussion about cultural legacies. He opens with disturbing descriptions of how longstanding cultural patterns and beliefs influenced violent conflicts among generations of families in Kentucky during the 19th century.

The compelling research findings concerning long-term and deeply held values led Gladwell to the conclusion that Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them.

He goes on to note the possibilities of “taking cultural legacies seriously” in order to learn “why people succeed and how to make people better.”

It’s worth noting that highlighting cultural legacies can easily give way to problematic racial and gendered generalizations—generalizations we have necessarily been inclined to critique or avoid.

Having said that, how might taking cultural legacies seriously hurt or improve our understanding of high academic achievement at SIUE? That is to say, how would a concentrated focus on cultural legacies limit or enhance our view of those who succeed in college?

Black Boys, Imagination, and Star Wars

2012-01-23T08:41:00.000-06:00

Aside from rap's initial emergence during the late 1970s, another major cultural phenomenon that, in retrospect, captured the imaginations of large numbers of black boys was George Lucas's Star Wars franchise. The first Star Wars was released May 25, 1977, The Empire Strikes Back May 21, 1980, and Return of the Jedi May 25, 1983. The Lucas films, along with his first two Indiana Jones movies (1981 & 1984) influenced large numbers of "fanboys" and artists, including Aaron McGruder.

McGruder, who was born May 29, 1974, was quite young when he first saw Star Wars, but it was still a memorable moment for him. "My first memory in life was three years old," said McGruder in a recent interview with Eric Larnick. "My dad took me to see Star Wars, and it's not just the first movie I remember, it's my first memory." When asked what shaped his "geek upbringing," McGruder said that "the biggest thing was Star Wars."

The most visible evidence of McGruder's interest in Star Wars appears in the multiple references he makes to the films in his comic strip and cartoon The Boondocks. Lucas brought McGruder on as a screenwriter for Red Tails, a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen. In a few different interviews, McGruder has expressed excitement and gratitude for receiving the opportunity to work with a producer/director whose work so greatly influenced him as a child.

Looking back, it's useful to consider how an action movie based on intergalactic space travel with aliens and robots inspired and stimulated the minds of young black boys. Since rap, with its attendant mantra of "keeping it real," so often dominates conversations about the artistic influences of black males during the 1970s and 80s, a consideration of how Star Wars, comic books, and other realms of speculative narratives and action movies stimulated the thinking of African American boys might be a necessary step for moving in alternative directions.

Colson Whitehead has often mentioned his interest in comic books, and his most recent novel Zone One reveals his longstanding ties to the zombie movie genre. Ta-Nehisi Coates regularly references his childhood interest in Dungeons and Dragons and other activities typically associated with geek or nerd culture. Like McGruder's work, the illustrations of Keith Knight and Darrin Bell suggest that they too had early interests in comic books and action/adventure movies.

It's fascinating to consider what things such as Marvel and D.C. comic books and major movies like Star Wars meant for the imaginations of black boys. Among other things, it takes us beyond the typical focus on their tough conditions and prompts us to consider their minds and thinking processes.

6 Poems by Margaret Walker on the Poetry Foundation Site

2012-01-23T08:10:00.002-06:00

Like Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker had a notable early presence in Poetry magazine. Her poem "For My People" appeared in the publication in November 1937. That poem has had a really wonderful journey.

The following 6 poems appear on the Poetry Foundation site.

• For My People
• Childhood
• For Malcolm X
• Lineage
• Sorrow Home
• Love Song for Alex, 1979

Related:
A Selection of African American Poets on the Poetry Foundation Site

Working with Collegiate Black Men

2012-01-22T12:52:00.000-06:00

This semester, I'm teaching four courses and have about about 110 students, and 35 to 40 of those students are young black men. 20 of the guys, all in one class, are 18 or 19 years old. The other guys, in two other classes, are between 20 and 22.

I'm looking forward to working with all my students this semester, but it's also really interesting to work with the young brothers. I had some of the older guys in a class when they were first-year students; they're now seniors. I'll have to put some thought into how they've grown and how I've grown since we first met a few years ago.

There are all kinds of statistics out there about troubled, down-trodden black males. They are, so the numbers tell us, the most adrift of the academically adrift, products of failing high schools and rough home environments, etc. There's another social side though. They are known to be cool, highly social, deep into rap and sports, and the list goes on.

So far, in my classes, we haven't had time to cover these various issues related to the contemporary dilemmas and social lives of black men because we've been busy discussing African American poetry--a subject and form that pervades my four courses. The poetry becomes our central focal point as well as our point of departure. For now, at least, in the regular classroom discussions, the poems that we have read about slavery, poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar, and poems related to Malcolm X have guided our conversations.

Throughout the semester, specific issues related to the struggles of black men will eventually emerge in some of the poems so I imagine I'll hear from some of the guys on how those various topics relate to their particular life experiences. Some topics have already come up after class, as two or three of the young men always wait around to ask me about something in the news, politics, or the newest music.

Related:
Collegiate Black Men, Rap, and Poetry

10 Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks on the Poetry Foundation site

2012-01-22T09:24:00.003-06:00

Gwendolyn Brooks published her first poems in the November 1944 issue of Poetry, and she published her most famous poem "We Real Cool" in the September 1959 issue of Poetry magazine. What follows are 10 of her poems that appear on the Poetry Foundation site.

• "a song in the front yard" [includes audio]
• "kitchenette building" [includes audio]
• "We Real Cool" [includes audio]
• "the mother" [includes audio]
• "my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell"
• "The Bean Eaters"
• "Of Robert Frost"
• "A Sunset of the City"
• "Mayor Harold Washington"
• "truth"

Related:
A Selection of African American Poets on the Poetry Foundation Site

10 Poems by Langston Hughes on the Poetry Foundation site

2012-01-21T09:40:00.006-06:00

This year, Poetry celebrates 100 years. To go along with their own efforts to acknowledge a century's worth of work, I'll highlight the presence of African American poets who published in the magazine over the years.

I have previously provided links to Hughes poems that appeared in Poetry. Today, I provide links to 10 Hughes poems that I have enjoyed that appear on the Poetry Foundation site.

• "I, Too"
• "The Weary Blues"
• "Mother to Son"
• "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
• "Harlem"
• "Theme for English B"
• "Madam’s Past History"
• "50-50"
• "Morning After"
• "April Rain Song"

Related:
A Selection of African American Poets on the Poetry Foundation Site

Making'em See Red: Malcolm X's Poetic Touch

2012-01-19T07:07:00.001-06:00

The other day, I was reading and listening to Malcolm X's "Message to the Grassroots" speech with my students in our Malcolm X and poetry course. I was mentioning to the students that in addition to being a skilled speaker, Malcolm was also once a poet. Maybe his interest in poetry or literary art haunts his well-known speeches.

At one point in "Message," Malcolm references several historical moments in an effort to clearly define the common features of real revolutions. "Look at the American Revolution in 1776," he says. "That revolution was for what? For land. Why did they want land? Independence. How was it carried out? Bloodshed."

Later, he goes "The French Revolution -- what was it based on? The land-less against the landlord. What was it for? Land. How did they get it? Bloodshed." Then, "The Russian Revolution -- what was it based on? Land. The land-less against the landlord. How did they bring it about? Bloodshed. You haven't got a revolution that doesn't involve bloodshed. And you're afraid to bleed. I said, you're afraid to bleed."

He repeats the phrasing that ends in "Bloodshed" several times during s small stretch in the speech. From one perspective, by repeatedly mentioning the word blood, Malcolm encourages his audience to see red. He clearly wanted to urge the audience to become more militant and discontent with passive tactics and injustice, so getting them to see red and sharpen their anger was a deliberate move in his approach.

Malcolm's approach to using distinct words to invoke particular imagery, in this case the view and idea of red, reveals a black political figure utilizing the devices of a poet or literary artist.

The Value of Early Support: The Cases of bell hooks & Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

2012-01-17T08:01:00.001-06:00

In retrospect, 1981 was a good year for bell hooks and Henry Louis Gates , Jr. They received or saw the culmination of a high level of support. That support would translate into even more support and recognition over the next several years, helping to make hooks and Gates two of the most notable figures in their respective fields.

hooks's most known early work Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism (1981) was published by South End Press, which was founded in 1977. The book became especially popular among large communities of both black and white women in the academy. During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, volumes of poetry and novels by black women had been popular. However, in 1981, hooks produced something that at the time was fairly rare: a nonfiction book that was black and feminist, accessible and scholarly.

Ain't I a Woman? appeared as African American Studies and Women's Studies Programs were further establishing themselves and seeking contemporary scholarly texts to serve as core works. hooks offered the possibility of disrupting the typical black male-centered focus of black studies and at the same time disrupting the focus on white women in Women's Studies. In addition, she served as a leading and courageous voice for black women.

Also in 1981, years before the publication of his well-known book, The Signifying Monkey, Gates received a MacArthur "genius" Fellowship. Gates had earned his Ph.D. in 1979, and he apparently showed the necessary promise to receive enough positive endorsements to earn the MacArthur. Receiving such a major and financially substantial fellowship at the start of a career is notable. Beyond the financial benefits, such major recognition gives a recipient cultural capital in their field and a high level of confidence.

Gates delivered in many ways. His fellowship was from 1981-1986, during which time he wrote Figures in Black (1987) and the more known The Signfying Monkey (1988). He has gone on to become one of the most prevalent and widely published scholars of African American literature.

Looking back, the support that bell hooks and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., received early in their careers seems to have prepared them to become such leading figures in African American literature and black studies. It didn't hurt that hooks and Gates each have published more than 20 books over the last 30 years. Of course, being a prolific writer always requires considerable external support.

The Upsides of the Vendler/Dove Debate

2012-01-16T09:02:00.000-06:00

Aside from the hard and hurt feelings that emerged as a result of the Rita Dove and Helen Vendler debate about Dove's poetry anthology, there might be a few upsides. Maybe. What follows are 5 potential upsides of the exchanges and coverage.

1. Poetry is worth arguing about - Arguments about poetry and among poets rarely rise to the levels of popular literature discussions. When a poet wins a major award, people take notice...briefly. But for the most part, there's little extended public discussion and debate about how poets' decisions matter. The Dove/Vendler exchange and the attention it garnered suggested that issues in poetry can and do attract broader notice.

2. Editorial decisions matter - Editors and folks who study book history have always had a sense that their decisions matter. However, the publicity related to Dove and Vendler have given more attention to the consequences and significance of the decisions that an editor makes when producing an anthology.

3. The Trouble with Permissions - In reviews of Dove's anthology, Vendler and others lamented the absence of works by Allen Ginsberg and Sylvia Plath. Dove noted in her introduction and in interviews that the high cost of reprinting rights prevented her from publishing works by those two poets and Sterling Brown. Bringing more attention to the high cost of reprinting rights could be positive, especially if it encourages publishers to lower their costs.

4. Explaining the literary establishment - Vendler gets many points wrong in her critique, but she does rightly question Dove's vague and perhaps outdated use of the phrase "literary establishment." In a subsequent interview with Jericho Brown though, Dove says a little more about the literary establishment, even acknowledging that she has received "all the perks commonly associated with the establishment." The issue of the literary establishment and the recognition that it now includes African American poets (and editors) is worth considering, especially for those interested in understanding the production of poetry works.

5. The value of blogs & twitter for black poetry news - Large numbers of readers were made aware of the Dvoe/Vendler debate via twitter. In addition, a number of bloggers wrote about the anthology and debate. The attention of the debate and anthology helped make more people mindful of the importance of blogs and twitter for raising awareness about news and relevant issues in contemporary poetry involving African American poets.

Why some became major Poets, Why others became major Public Intellectuals

2012-01-14T15:29:00.001-06:00

Earlier in the week, I was mentioning how bell hooks was a poet early on, but she ended up devoting her career to prose. For hooks and her generation of writers such as Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and the late Manning Marable, it seems that prose and especially scholarly prose about race became a highly recognized and rewarded mode of writing. Folks often mention that black women novelists displaced black arts poets, but what if it was scholarly work that displaced poetry and fiction?

It's notable that such a large number of black cultural figures born during the 1930s became leading poets and novelists. Maya Angelou (b. 1928), Toni Morrison (b. 1931), Sonia Sanchez (b. 1934), Amiri Baraka (b. 1934), Jayne Cortez (b. 1936), Eugene B. Redmond (b. 1937), and Ishmael Reed (b. 1938), to name just a few, established themselves as creative writers. Some of them wrote prose as well, and there were scholars and other prose writers born during that time period. However, the prevalence of poetry and fiction by that generation of writers is really pronounced.

By contrast, consider the black cultural figures born during the 1950s who distinguished themselves as scholars. Trudier Harris (b. 1948), Lani Guinier (b. 1950), Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (b. 1950), bell hooks (b. 1952), Cornel West (b. 1953), and Michael Eric Dyson (b. 1958) represent a generation of African American scholars who have collectively shaped conversations about the meaning of highly visible "black public intellectuals." Of course, writers of this generation are poets as well, including Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947) and Rita Dove (b. 1952), but as a group, the scholarly writers of that time period are more widely known than the creative writers.

What happened in American and African American creative life and history that facilitated the dramatic rise of poets born during the 1930s and black scholars born during the 1950s? Actually we know what happened for poets: those born during the 1930s were in their 30s during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements and more importantly during the Black Arts Movement. Those movements were crucial boosts for African American writers and creative life.

During the late 60s and early 70s, figures such as hooks, Guinier, West, and Gates were attending prestigious universities and then preparing themselves to go on and produce works that would assist in defining their careers and their fields. In addition, Black Studies was becoming more formally institutional and formalized, which meant opportunities and spaces for leadership and visibility. At the same time, English departments were becoming more open for scholars with interests in the then developing field of African American literary study.

In retrospect, Gates and hooks had quite a bit to gain from the developing audiences and interest in African American literature, which had a special and extensive focus on black women writers and black feminism. There was also a prevalent interest in theory, areas that Gates and hooks were quite capable of excelling in.

Clearly, birth years were not the only factors that determined who would become major poets and who would become major public intellectuals. However, certainly the circumstances and major shifts that occurred and which created important boosts and opportunities when cultural figures were in their 30s did matter in notable ways.

Studying Afrofuturism vs. Keeping it 100

2012-01-14T09:28:00.002-06:00

In the afrofuturism and poetry class the other day, we were talking about Alondra Nelson's essay "Afrofuturism: Past-Future Visions" from Color Lines. We had a good time talking about the limits of what some refer to as "black authenticity." In particular, we looked at the place in Nelson's essay where she wrote that

Black creative life has too often been determined by this impulse to "keep it real." In order to be taken seriously, we have fostered and encounraged a long tradition of social realism in our cultural production. And we feared that to stop keeping things real was to lose the ability to recognize and protest the very real inequities in the social world. But we created a cultural environment often hostile to speculation, experimentation, and abstraction.

A large number of my students are from Chicago, where instead of saying "keep it real," folks tend to say "keep it 100." You'll hear Jay-Z give a nod to the phrase/idea on his song "D.O.A." when he says "Ye told me to kill yall to keep it 100." The Ye he refers to is Kanye West, who hails from Chicago.

We spent some time in class talking about the significance of keeping it real or 100 and its consequences. We then turned our attention to how keeping it real can constrain artists' abilities to produce original and groundbreaking works.

Good thing, for example, that Langston Hughes took flights of imagination across vast geographic space and time to envision a black person speaking of rivers. It's also important that Octavia Butler was not especially concerned with keeping it real in any conventional sense in order to produce all those important speculative fiction novels. We'd hardly have the pleasure of checking out those magical elements of Toni Morrison's books if she was confined to keeping it 100.

A couple of folks did push back on some critiques of keeping it real. One of the young brothers mentioned that keeping it 100 was about being honest about things. Fair enough. There is something to be said about the value of telling the truth and the problem with falsehoods. Still, we all acknowledged that AF is giving us a somewhat rare opportunity to really give thought to the benefits of moving beyond the real.

bell hooks, the poet

2012-01-12T07:54:00.000-06:00

Prior to publishing more than 20 books and becoming one of the most well-known black feminists, bell hooks was a poet. In 1978, she published a volume And There We Wept: Poems. That was a few years before her first major book Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981).

[Related: Malcolm X, the poet]

During the 1980s onward, hooks was widely known as an author of black feminist essays, and she was a popular and respected commentator on topics concerning sexism and racism. She was frequently invited as a featured speaker on college campuses and at major conferences and symposiums.

In the many writings about hooks and her works or in the testimonies about how "she changed my life," rarely is it noted that hooks had an early life as a poet. For the most part, people probably did not know about her poems, which are far less available than her books and essays.

At the moment, what interests me more than the actual poems is the idea that the young woman who would eventually emerge as a major black feminists chose to express herself early on in verse rather than essays. In what ways, if any, did she work out black feminist thinking in her poems that helped her essays? What led her to publish books and essays, I wonder, as opposed to volumes of poetry?

Malcolm X, the Poet

2012-01-11T07:11:00.006-06:00

Long before he became our most revered black nationalist figure, Malcolm X was a poet. Manning Marable's biography A Life of Reinvention: Malcolm X made me aware of the leader's interest in poetry. Marable explains that while in prison Malcolm became "a devoted letter writer."

[Related: bell hooks, the poet]

Among other topics concerning the written correspondences, Marable observes that Malcolm's "letters were also filled with lines of verse." In one of the letters that Marable highlights, Malcolm wrote that "I'm a real bug for poetry. When you think back over all our past lives, only poetry could best wit into the vast emptiness created by men."

The ideas that Malcolm was a "bug for poetry" and that his letters were "filled with lines of verse" are fascinating. What kinds of poems did Malcolm read and write, and why did the genre appeal to him? When we consider Malcolm's superb rhetorical skills, it makes sense that he would be fond of poetry and wordplay at that crucial stage in his development.

Afrofuturism & Poetry Course Description

2012-01-10T08:08:00.001-06:00

The course description for one of the African American literature courses I'll teach starting today.

Afrofuturism:

ENG 345--Topics in African American Poetry and Folklore

Professor Howard Rambsy II

“The future is always here in the past.” Amiri Baraka

“sCReeeEEECHHHHHH” –Sonia Sanchez

There’s probably no need to mention Shine, Stagolee, and Kissie Lee, right? And you don’t need a reminder about the beautiful black rhetoric of Malcolm, Baraka, and Sanchez, do you? We’re likely already up on all those poets from Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, and Margaret Walker to Elizabeth Alexander, Tyehimba Jess, Evie Shockley, and Kevin Young who embodied the personas of others, yes? And at this point, we’re all well-versed in the verses and knowledge dropped by Dre3000, L-Boogie, Weezy, and Jay Electronica, correct?

Cool. Good. You’ve studied well.

So in an effort to make things interesting, or better yet, in the spirit of innovation, we’ll take a look at a sample of apparently familiar pieces related to black poetry using the lens of afrofuturism, a framework—honed and advanced by the sister-scholar Alondra Nelson—that assists in thinking about the interactions between and convergence of race and technology. With afrofuturism as a basis, we will come to terms with the ideas that African American folk culture and poetry are comprised of a long line of technologically-infused narratives, futuristic and speculative ideas, human iPods, folks with exquisite verbal skills, and supernatural racism-defying historical figures.

20 Years of Awards & Recognition in Poetry, 1992-2012

2012-01-10T07:19:00.001-06:00

I was recently writing that African American poets have been highly accomplished over the last few decades. Below, I provide a brief--not comprehensive--list of 20 awards and recognitions that poets have received over the last 20 years.

1992 - Derek Walcott awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1993 - Maya Angelou reads poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at inauguration of Bill Clinton.

1993 - Rita Dove appointed Poet Laureate of U.S.

1993 - Kevin Young is National Poetry Series recipient.

1994 - Yusef Komunyakaa wins Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

2000 - Lucille Clifton wins the National Book Award for Poetry.

2001 - Yusef Komunyakaa awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

2001 - Terrance Hayes is National Poetry Series recipient.

2001 - Sonia Sanchez is awarded the Robert Frost Medal.

2002 - Amiri Baraka appointed Poet Laureate of New Jersey.

2004 - Tyehimba Jess is National Poetry Series recipient.

2005 - Patricia Smith is National Poetry Series recipient.

2007 - Lucille Clifton awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

2008 - Michael S. Harper is awarded the Robert Frost Medal.

2009 - Elizabeth Alexander reads "Praise Song for the Day" at inauguration of Barack Obama.

2010 - Terrance Hayes wins National Book Award for Poetry.

2010 - Lucille Clifton is awarded the Robert Frost Medal.

2011 - Nikky Finney wins National Book Award for Poetry

2011 - Sonia Sanchez appointed Poet Laureate of Philadelphia.

2012 - Marilyn Nelson is awarded the Robert Frost Medal.

African Americans Assonance and Alliteration

2012-01-09T17:23:00.001-06:00

There’s something poetic about the prevalence of assonance and alliteration in African American history and cultural life. Here’s a quick checklist and notes.

The New Negro Movement is the alternate name of the Harlem Renaissance. A couple of decades prior to the movement, W. E. B. DuBois helped popularize the phrase "the Talented Tenth."

In music, jazz folks are familiar with a style known as bebop, and these days, folks are aware of the music and artistic culture hip hop. In addition to those things, consider what assonance and alliteration mean for the names of popular civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, SNCC, and the Black Panther Party. The largest gathering by the Nation of Islam would have to be the Million Man March.

In governmental realms, there’s Affirmative Action and the digital divide. In the community, we rarely refer to two of our most revered historical figures as King and X, opting instead to call them simply “Martin and Malcolm.” And one reason you remember Jesse Jackson is because his name is Jesse Jackson.

The assonance persists throughout the culture. Think about terms like "Afro-American" and "African American." Aren’t the most memorable characters from those old-school shows What’s Happening!!, Good Times, and The Jefferson’s, Rerun, J.J., and George Jefferson respectively?

That 60s and onward phrase "Black is Beautiful" was memorable for folks. People also recall Malcolm's statement "the Ballot or the Bullet."

Bill Cosby, in his show Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (note Cosby Kids) displayed interest in assonance and alliteration with his key characters Mushmouth and Dumb Donald. Years later, Cosby starred in his popular The Cosby Show as Heathcliff Huxtable.

Beyond their lyrics, there are a few rap personalities here and there that drew on the assonance and alliteration. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the guy whom ladies love...LL. Remember J.J. Fad? Or, Kris Kross? Method Man. Big Boi. Silk the Shocker. Rick Ross (or Ricky Rozay). Jim Jones. Diddy's record label Bad Boy and Jermaine Dupree's label So So Def.. In R & B, Tina Turner, Janet Jackson, and Tony Toni Tone. Rihanna is often referred to as Ri-ri. In gospel, Mary Mary and singer J. Moss's recent album was Just James.

If you're into contemporary African American poetry, you've likely heard of Cave Canem. Black arts folks are well aware of Sonia Sanchez and Amiri and Amina Baraka.

Credentialed & Accomplished, Poets Still Receive Little Popular Attention

2012-01-09T08:09:00.001-06:00

There are more black poets credentialed, published, and accomplished than ever before. But somehow, in general, poets are not as widely and popularly known, especially not "new" black poets. I've often wondered why.

In order to earn a living as a poet these days, it's usually necessary to get a job at a university. To secure that job, one typically needs an MFA degree and a book or two published by a "reputable" press. Oh, and it increases a poet's cultural capital and chances for advancement if he or she wins a notable literary award and publishes poems in prestigious journals along the way.

The processes, if not requirements, for employment and publication have helped create and sustain an extensive system in poetry that has led to a rather large number of African American poets with MFAs. Further, the extensive training that poets undergo now, added with their own individual talents, has led to the production of high-quality volumes of poetry and even more poems. So why are black poets still not widely known beyond the world of poetry?

There are actually many factors that lead to writers gaining widespread attention and just as many for why poets remain known in a particular field while gaining little popular appeal. For one, the specialized nature of poetry, although helping to ensure higher quality poems, also raises the chances that readers unfamiliar with distinct forms (i.e. ghazals, sonnets, and sestinas) might appreciate the work of poets much less.

There's also the matter of competition. In literature departments and in the literary publishing field, both of which are presumably filled with highly capable readers, the majority of the attention is placed on novelists and novels, not poets and volumes of poetry. Accordingly, there are more resources put into novels as opposed to poetry volumes. Back in November 2011 after the National Book Award winners were announced, Nikky Finney's publisher reprinted 5,000 copies of her award-winning volume Head Off & Split while Jesmyn Ward's publisher reprinted 50,000 copies of her book Salvage the Bones, which won in the novel category.

The lack of sustained media attention in the popular press also decreases the chances that African American poets will become widely known beyond the specialized field of poetry. When was the last time a leading black poet was the featured subject of a profile article in Ebony, The New Yorker, Essence, The New York Times, Newsweek, or any other major national publication? Rappers are the most likely subjects who are skilled at wordplay to receive substantial media coverage.

It's too bad that there are not more formal, direct links between (academic-based) poets and general, popular (black) audiences. Don't they have much to offer each other?

August Wilson, the poet

2012-01-08T12:30:00.000-06:00

Long before he was a renowned playwright, August Wilson was a published poet. His writings appeared in one of the leading black arts era publishing venues, Black World.

One of Wilson's poems "Muhammad Ali," published in the 1972 issue of the magazine, pays tribute to the revered boxing champion. "Muhammad Ali is a lion," the poem opens, and goes on to note that Ali is a lion "who breaks the back of the wind / Who climbs to the end of the rainbow with three steps / and devours the gold."

The Ali of Wilson's poem is a legendary figure capable of supernatural feats. In Wilson's poem, Ali's "fists are bullets," his "chest is a drum," and "he carries the sun in his hand."

African American Poets & The Poetry Establishment

2012-01-08T09:57:00.002-06:00

One of the many topics that came up in the Helen Vendler and Rita Dove disagreement was the issue of "the poetry establishment." Vendler critiqued Dove for making vague descriptions of a presumably white poetry establishment. Later in an interview for the Best American Poetry blog, Jericho Brown asks Dove about the poetry establishment, and she responds:

Of course there’s an establishment -- and there are subgroups and counter-groups. Occasionally subgroups and counter-groups can even become part of the establishment, or subdue the old guard. I’d still have to say, though, that -- in very broad terms -- East Coasters continue to hold sway as the core poetry establishment in the United States; the connections and resources are centered there, with the major commercial publishing houses and Ivy League schools orbiting Boston and New York. But the consortium of creative writers and creative writing programs at universities all over the nation -- AWP -- poses an ever stronger counter-pull, with eager students buying books, reviewing, posting blogs, attending poetry readings, eventually becoming teachers and/or writers themselves. You’ve also got the wonderfully mastered poetry books published by many university and a number of other independent presses; many if not most serious contemporary poets publish or began their publishing lives in academia.

Dove goes on to note that "I don’t deny that I have access to all the perks commonly associated with the establishment. But I’ve never felt particularly “establishment”, because I don't operate by pulling strings in good-old-boy/girl networks; I won’t agree to do something in exchange for future favors, and I haven’t cultivated a posse."

It's interesting to consider that for more than 25 years now we have had a select and growing group of African American poets who "have access to all the perks commonly associated with the establishment." Dove and Yusef Komunyakaa, both recipients of Pulitzer Prizes in poetry, along with Elizabeth Alexander, are among the more established African American poets in the country. Another Pulitzer Prize, Natasha Trethewey, who holds an endowed chair at Emory University, is also viewed by many as widely known in the poetry world. Trethewey's works are regularly reprinted in anthologies, and she is frequently linked to other established poets.

Figures associated with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s/70s often addressed the extents to which black poets were excluded from what might be considered the mainstream or establishment of poetry. In fact, considerable effort was made among black arts poets to create their own publishing venues and systems of valuation since the official channels were so exclusive and apparently anti-black. For some reason, although leading figures of the black arts era, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, and Haki Madhubuti, resist easy membership into what we might refer to as the establishment of American poetry.

Certainly those four poets are quite established and widely known well beyond the realms of poetry. However, their critiques of and tenuous relationships with or some formal institutions and literary practices, regularly place them at odds with what we tend to refer to as the establishment.

An Intergenerational Group of Poets who have written in the Personas of Enslaved People & Runaways

2012-01-04T07:21:00.003-06:00

Hughes did it. Check out aspects of "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." Hayden did it. Consider those poems where he wrote in the voices of runaways and as Wheatley. Margaret Walker, she did it too...has one in the voice of Tubman.

Dudley Randall wrote as Frederick Douglass. Alvin Aubert assumed the perspective of Nat Turner. And it's not just the elder established figures.

[Related: Persona Poems: A Major Trend in African American Poetry]

Elizabeth Alexander, too, has written in the voice of Nat Turner. Quraysh Ali Lansana as Tubman. Evie Shockley, Tim Seibles, and Vievee Francis have, like Randall, written as Frederick Douglass.

Thylias Moss wrote an entire collection, slave moth, in the voice an enslaved girl who strives toward freedom. Frank X. Walker has written two full-length books--Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York (2004) and When Winter Come: The Ascension of York (2008)--in the voice of slaves.

The title poem for Natasha Trethewey's Pulitzer-prize winning volume Native Guard is a sonnet sequence written from the first-person perspective of an ex-slave turned Union solider. Kevin Young's Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad is filled with the voices of enslaved and formerly enslaved figured.

Lucille Clifton has written in the voices of folks who were "loaded like spoons" into ships call Jesus, Angel, and Grace of God. And one of the funniest slave poems you'll ever read is Ishmael Reed writing at the beginning of Flight to Canada in the voice of a clever runaway named Quickskill.

It's fascinating when you think about how many African American poets have written persona poems based on slaves and runaways.

The Published Writings of Katherine Dunham, 1964-1979

2012-01-03T19:32:00.000-06:00

Island Possessed, paperback

By Danielle Hall

For many scholars and fans of Dunham, it is ostensibly natural to focus on her talents as dancer and choreographer or the Dunham Technique, but one area that also deserves attention is Dunham as a published writer. Over the course of her lifetime, Dunham published five books, several short stories, and journal/magazine articles--some under the pseudonym Kaye Dunn.

In my continued analysis of Dunham as artist-intellectual, it becomes critical to investigate other ways that she sought to engage herself and her audience within Diaspora culture, politics, and black aesthetic traditions. This is just a general list of Dunham’s literary work during the 1960s and 1970s.

1964 Dunham's short story "The Crime of Pablo Martínez" appears in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, published under Kaye Dunn.

1967 Dunham's short story "Afternoon into Night" (first published in Bandwagon Magazine, June 1952) is reprinted in The Best Short Stories by Negro Writers, edited by Langston Hughes.

1974 Dunham’s fifth book Kasamance: A Fantasy, a book of allegorical African tales for youth set in Senegal. It was published in hardback with illustrations by Bennie Arrington based upon original drawings by Dunham’s husband, John Pratt.

Both short stories and Kasamance: A Fantasy may be of interest to literary scholars interested in youth and adult speculative fiction, and especially for scholars specializing in African-American, Afro-Cuban or Afrodiasporic literature forms. Dunham may be of interest as a writer of fantasy and speculative fiction of the African diaspora.

Island Possessed, hardcover

1969 Dunham’s fourth book, Island Possessed is published in hardcover. Written during a visit at her home in Dakar, Senegal in 1967, Dunham reflects upon her fieldwork on dance anthropology in Haiti in 1936. This text provides insight into race, class, and gender boundaries. It also discusses Voudun religious practices and Haitian political history and culture.

1978 Kaiso!: An Anthology of Writings, edited by VéVé Clark and Margaret B. Wilkerson is published (later reprinted as Kaiso!: Writings by and about Katherine Dunham, edited by VéVé Clark and Sara E. Johnson in 2005). This is the only and largest anthology documenting Dunham’s life and achievements.

Danielle Hall is a program coordinator and contributing writer for Black Studies @ SIUE.

Persona Poems: A Major Trend in Black Poetry

2012-01-03T08:16:00.001-06:00

When poets Treasure Redmond and Adrian Matejka complete their volumes of poems on Fannie Lou Hamer and Jack Johnson, respectively, in the next year or so, their books will contribute to one of the most important trends in contemporary black poetry.

For the last ten years alone, writers have published several volumes of poetry featuring persona poems. Collectively, books containing persona poems, that is, poems written in the voice of a figure other than the poet, have helped shape the landscape of African American poetry.

Rita Dove’s American Smooth (2004) and Sonata Mulattica (2009), Cornelius Eady’s Brutal Imagination (2001), Marilyn Nelson’s Carver: A Life in Poems (2001), Natasha Trethewey Bellocq's Ophelia (2002) and Native Guard (2006), Ai’s Vice (2000) and Dread (2003), Frank X Walker’s Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York (2004) and When Winter Come: The Ascension of York (2008), A. Van Jordan’s M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A (2004), Quraysh Ali Lansana’s They Shall Run: Harriet Tubman Poems (2004), Thylias Moss’s Slave Moth: A Narrative in Verse (2004), Tyehimba Jess's leadbelly (2005), Kevin Young’s Black Maria (2005) and Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels (2011), and Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler (2008) include several, if not all, persona poems.

The appearance of so many books by well known African American poets featuring persona poems reveals an important common interest among the writers. Black poets have seem drawn to the practice of embodying the voices of others, especially African American historical figures. Accordingly, persona poems empower contemporary poets to participate in narrating the past from first-person perspectives.

Persona poems by African American poets have a long history, stretching back to Robert Hayden, Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar and beyond. The production of full-length volumes or extended series of persona poems by several poets, however, seems to represent a fairly recent phenomena in the history of black poetry.

African American Poets & the Black Female Body

2012-01-02T14:01:00.005-06:00

I was reading an article "Michelle Obama’s backside is your business how?" by Mary C. Curtis about Wisconsin Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner's troubling comments about the First Lady's "large posterior." Eventually, I imagine, a poet, most likely a black woman poet, will write memorable pieces about Obama as well as about what her physical presence and body might mean for contemporary public discourse. In the meantime, I thought about 7 poems by black women poets that address aspects of black female bodies.

"song in the front yard" by Gwendolyn Brooks has a subtle mention of a woman and the effect she has on a young girl. Rather than stay in front yard, the young speaker would prefer to go out back, "be a bad woman," ''wear the brave stockings of night-black lace / And strut down the streets with paint on my face." The idea of taking a "strut down the streets" reveals an interest in the movements of the women.

"homage to my hips" by Lucille Clifton is a classic and especially popular among black women. It's a tribute to "these hips" that "don't fit into little / petty places." She notes that "these hips have never been enslaved."

"The Venus Hottentot" by Elizabeth Alexander is especially well known. The poem critiques a scientist and by extension the Western gaze for the problem of racist and sexist objectification. At one point, Alexander, writing in the voice of Saartjie Baartman, observes that "I am a black cutout against / a captive blue sky, pivoting / nude so the paying audience / can view my naked buttocks."

"Project Princess" by Tracie Morris celebrates and describes a black girl. Morris points at one moment how the young black woman chooses to wear clothing that conceals aspects of her body: "Jeans oversized belie her hips, back, thighs / that have made guys sigh / for milleni year."

"Raised by Women" by Kelly Norman Ellis pays tribute to different kinds of black women. Among those she describes are "Some big legged / High yellow, mocha brown / Hip shaking / Miniskirt wearing / Hip huggers hugging / Daring debutantes / Groovin / 'I know I look good' / Type of Women."

"Switch" by Tara Betts also contributes to the discourse here. The poem describes a woman who is "rockin / two-pocket shorts" and mentions the woman's "pelvic metronome." What really gives the poems its rhythmic energy is the repeated phrase "switch girl," which invokes, among other things, an alluring kind of walk or hip movement.

"Hip-Hop Ghazal" by Patricia Smith appeared in a 2007 issue of Poetry magazine. The poem is a ghazal that concentrates on the word and idea of "hips." One stanza goes "Gotta love us girls, just struttin' down Manhattan streets / killing the menfolk with a dose of that stinging view. Hips."

Blogging about Poetry in 2011

2012-01-02T11:33:00.000-06:00

What a year for my work on poetry. For one, my book The Black Arts Enterprise, which focuses on publishing history and modes of production during the Black Arts Movement, was published by the University of Michigan Press. Second, our black studies program continued to organize several mixed media projects, including a major exhibit, on poetry for hundreds of students and general citizens in the region.

And finally, and perhaps most visibly to longtime readers here, I greatly expanded my efforts on this blog to write regularly about African American poetry. Over the last 12 months, I somehow managed to produce more than 200 blog entries on black poetry. The process was and remains demanding and exciting.

There's really no easy way for me to sum up the highlights of what I blogged about in 2011. I'm not sure I had a solid focus; poetry subjects took me all over the place. I covered issues related to the significance of poet birth years, the value of the Poetry Foundation site as a resource for blogging, my focus on 30 Days of Black Arts Poetry, and dozens of writings on individual poets.

Blogging about poetry made it possible for me to connect with readers in ways that were far less possible than my writings for journals and books. I am certainly not abandoning those traditional modes of writing and publishing, but my increased blogging has provided me with an alternative outlet as well as useful ways of transmitting ideas about poetry. Right now, I'm thinking (and planning to later write) about how blogging has affected my approaches to producing scholarship on African American poetry.

In the meantime, below, I'm providing the full list of my blog entries on poetry and related matters. I've also included entries by some of my black studies contributors who publish here. In a future post, I'll condense the list, highlighting specific topics that might be of special interest to readers. Thanks for reading.

Blog Entries on Poetry in 2011

Blogging about Poetry in December 2011

2012-01-01T11:07:00.000-06:00

Well, we finished the year strong as December turned out to be a good month for blogging about poetry. My contributors pitched in and assisted with writings about the Eugene B. Redmond Digital Collection. Toward the end of the month, I started producing wrap-ups and notebooks reflecting on the year in poetry.

I was also pleased to learn that Sonia Sanchez was appointed Poet Laureate of Philadelphia at the end of the year.

[Related content: Blogging about Poetry in 2011]

• December 31: The Year in African American Poetry: A Chronology
• December 30: Sanchez, Black Arts Poet, Appointed Poet Laureate of Philly
• December 30: Reading Black & Radically: A Brief Reflection
• December 30: The Coverage of Rita Dove's Anthology
• December 29: Calvin Forbes's "Talking Blues," a Favorite in 2011
• December 29: Blogging & Linking to Poetry Foundation Site in 2011
• December 28: The Poetry Foundation Site as a Vital Resource
• December 27: An Extended Notebook on the works of writers, artists & cultural workers
• December 27: Objectification and History in Derek Walcott's Omeros by Emily Phillips
• December 27: The Coverage of Michael Eric Dyson's Jay-Z Course
• December 27: A Notebook on the work of Kevin Young
• December 26: A Notebook on the work of Allison Joseph
• December 26: A Notebook on the work of Margaret Walker
• December 26: A Notebook on the Work of Evie Shockley
• December 26: Poetry News Coverage in 2011
• December 20: The Case for Kevin Young's Ardency
• December 19: African American Poetry on 2011 Best of Lists
• December 16: How Age Matters in the 'Rap as Poetry' Debate
• December 16: 100-plus Poems I Read & Re-Read (online) in 2011
• December 14: The Empowering Possibilities of Black Boys Writing, Reciting Rhymes
• December 13: Notes on the Black Books Book Sale
• December 12: Poetry & the black national anthem at the Presidential Inauguration
• December 10: Collegiate Black Men, Rap, and Poetry
• December 10: Blogging about Poetry in November 2011
• December 9: Eugene B. Redmond: A Human Vertex By Cindy Lyles
• December 9: Divas of the 20th Century Awards Ceremony By Danielle Hall
• December 8: Poster for A 1974 Poetry Festival
• December 7: Notes on Adrian Matejka's "Fisticuffs"
• December 7: Katherine Dunham & EBR Digital Collection By Danielle Hall
• December 7: Communal Inspirations & the EBR Digital Collection By Clarissa Richee
• December 6: Background on Eugene B. Redmond's Extensive Photographic Work
• December 5: Ntozake Shange & the EBR Digital Collection By Danielle Hall
• December 5: Metro East & the EBR Digital Collection By Clarissa Richee
• December 5: Redmond, Dunham & the EBR Digital Collection By Cindy Lyles
• December 5: Utilizing the EBR Digital Collection
• December 5: The EBR Digital Collection
• December 5: A Long Walk with Adrian Matejka & Jack Johnson
• December 4: Recent Rap as Poetry Debates, Conversations
• December 3: The Poet as Essayist: Rita Dove's Response to Helen Vendler
• December 2: Margaret Walker, Struggle & Poetry magazine in the late 1930s
• December 1: A Renegade Woman: Margaret Walker's "Kissie Lee" by Cindy Lyles

The Year in African American Poetry: A Chronology of news, events, & publications in 2011

2011-12-31T12:20:00.006-06:00

A list of African American poetry-related events and activities that caught my interest this past year.

• January 25 – Kevin Young's volume of poetry Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels was published by Knopf. The book received extensive coverage.

• January 30 – Reginald Shepherd's Red Clay Weather was published by University of Pittsburgh Press.

• February 1 – Nikky Finney's volume Head Off & Split was published by Triquarterly press. The book eventually received the National Book Award for Poetry.

• February 17 – Mississippi poet/arts organizer C. Liegh McInnis reads poem “Mississippi Courage” as opening for speech delivered by Cornel West at Jackson State University.

• March 1 – Evie Shockley's the new black was published by Wesleyan Press.

• March 15 – Yusef Komunyakaa's The Chameleon Couch: Poems and Carl Phillips's Double Shadow: Poems were both published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Komunyakaa's and Phillips's books were finalists for the National Book Award for Poetry.

• March 15 – Eugene B. Redmond published his epic poem "A Tale of Two Captains & Two Avenues in the Life of East St. Louis" in The Making of an All-America City: East St. Louis at 150 edited by Mark Abbott.

• March 25 – Mississippi poet/arts organizer C. Liegh McInnis reads “A Poem for Minister Farrakhan” prior to Farrakhan’s speech at the Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement conference at Jackson State University.

• March/April – Nikky Finney appeared on the cover of Poets&Writers.

• April 29 – Elizabeth Alexander gives keynote address at the “Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women” Conference.

• May 11 – Michelle and Barack Obama hosted a poetry reading at the White House with Rita Dove, Jill Scott, and Common among the participants. Common's invitation and presence at the event sparked negative reactions from conservatives, including Sarah Palin.

• May 10 – Tracy K. Smith's Life on Mars was published by Graywolf Press. Smith's book was selected as one of the 100 Notable Books of 201 by The New York Times; the book also appeared on the 2011 poetry list for Publishers Weekly.

• June 1 – SIUE's Lovejoy Library launched a digitized version of the entire run of Eugene B. Redmond's Drumvoices Revue. It's one of the few free and fully accessible African American-based print journals now online.

• June 19 - 25 – Joanne Gabbin organized "Continuous Fire: A Seminar on the Poetry of Sonia Sanchez" at James Madison University. Our contributors Cindy Lyles and Danielle Hall participated in the seminar.

• June 30 – Meta DuEwa Jones's The Muse is Music: Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to Spoken Word was published by University of Illinois Press.

• September 5 – Rachel Eliza Griffiths's Mule & Pear was published by New Issues Poetry & Prose.

• September 20 – The Best American Poetry 2011 edited by Kevin Young (with David Lehman as the series editor) was published by Scribner.

• September 26 – My book The Black Arts Enterprise and the Production of African American Poetry was published by the University of Michigan Press.

• October 25 – The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry edited by Rita Dove was published by Penguin Press. A negative critique by Helen Vendler prompted a response from Dove and subsequent extended coverage.

• October 28 – Evie Shockley's Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry was published by the University of Iowa Press.

• November 16 – Nikky Finney won the National Book Award for Poetry. Her powerful acceptance speech assisted in generating even more media attention for her win.

• November 28 – SIUE's Lovejoy Library launched the Eugene B. Redmond African American Cultural Life digital collection.

• November/December – The disagreement between Helen Vendler and Rita Dove about the anthology that Dove edited led to extensive coverage.

• November/December – Select volumes of poetry by African American poets appear on various "best of 2011" lists.

• December 29 – Sonia Sanchez was named Poet Laureate of Philadelphia.

Sonia Sanchez, Black Arts Poet, Appointed Poet Laureate of Philadelphia

2011-12-30T11:43:00.003-06:00

Yesterday's announcement that Sonia Sanchez was selected as the first poet laureate of Philadelphia was welcome and exciting news. Sanchez has been a popular poet and, more broadly, a leading artist-activist figure for decades now and to receive this honor in a city she has resided since 1976 seems especially important.

I first became aware of Sanchez's poet in undergrad, and I began studying her works and contributions in more detail as I researched what would become my book on the Black Arts Movement. Sanchez's poetry and plays as well as her emphatic, distinct styles of performance made her a leading black arts figure. Sanchez was also teaching courses in the San Francisco area in the mid-1960s before and then as the first black studies program was developed at what is now San Francisco State University.

Like so many poets associated with black arts, Sanchez blended the sensibilities of artist and activist; her works advanced the political nature of poetry. And even well beyond the mid-1970s--the time period usually announced as the end of the Black Arts Movement--Sanchez, along with Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Eugene B. Redmond, Quincy Troupe, Ishmael Reed, Haki Madhubuti, and several other writers, continued advancing black arts principles and compositions.

In many respects, Sanchez's appointment as poet laureate confirms the continuing prevalence of writers who gained widespread recognition during the black arts era. Sanchez, consequently, was never really a mainstream or crossover poet. She derived most of her fame among black audiences; she published her early works with Dudley Randall's Broadside Press. And for decades now, she has been an powerful inspiration for countless numbers of people, especially artistically and politically minded young black women.

Our program's lead contributors Cindy Lyles and Danielle Hall participated in a seminar on Sonia Sanchez organized by Joanne Gabbin this past summer at James Madison University. Sanchez was also in attendance and as inspiring as ever, Cindy and Danielle reported.

As Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, I imagine Sanchez will continue inspiring audiences. I'm also hoping that her appointment encourages more city governments and perhaps states to consider appointing more poet laureates.

Reading Black & Radically: A Brief Reflection

2011-12-30T09:53:00.001-06:00

David Walker's Appeal

I recently came across a post "Radical Black Reading, 2011" on the Public Archive site. I was tremendously flattered to have my book The Black Arts Enterprise mentioned. Even more, I was pleased to have my work noted alongside other works, including Alondra Nelson's Body and Soul and Evie Shockley's Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry.

Public Archive provides extensive information on black diaspora, so beyond those U.S.-based books, that radical black reading list included mentions of and a link to "a list of notable books on Haiti or by writers of Haitian descent published since January 2010." The two lists "Radical Black Reading, 2011" and "Reading Haiti" contained writers I was familiar with and many that I was not. The authors, works, and presses identified by Public Archive had me thinking more and more on the idea of reading black and radically as well as the practice of pursuing radical black readings.

The idea of "reading radically" can have multiple connotations these days, referring to contents (i.e. certain strands of books about militant figures and consciousness-building topics), approaches (i.e. a Marxist, feminist, or critical race theory ways of reading), or formats (i.e. on a blog, twitter, in a book, an e-reader, by a particular press). Back in the day, I associated reading radically with the idea of immersing myself in books about "black consciousness." That mode of reading, now that I think back on it, was associated with different real and virtual communities of readers--readers who were for the most part not associated with my formal classroom learning activities.

There was an informal study group in my hometown, for example, that suggested that every up and coming street scholar needed to be familiar with Frederick Douglass's Narrative, David Walker's Appeal, Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-education of the Negro, and various other writers. Later, when I was in undergrad, it was on to Malcolm, DuBois, Wright, Fanon, and others. I also discovered a host of black feminist writers, including bell hooks, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and Patricia Hill Collins.

bell hooks's Talking Back

The black feminist readings were radical at the time too because of how those works constantly challenged the regular black readings I had come across. At the same time, the works by DuBois, Wright, Malcolm, and others were a departure from the typical (white) curriculum, and collectively, they offered useful critiques of Eurocentricism.

Now that I'm reflecting, I'm realizing there was yet another realm of "black radical reading" that caught my attention. Poetry. When I was in undergrad, I was far more consumed by the sounds and performances of spoken word poetry and cyphas than I was with "literary" and book-based poetry. Beyond the actual poetry, what was most important was that the readings facilitated interactions with all kinds of ideas, artists, and conscious folks.

I didn't fully appreciate how "radical" or at least alternative the poetry readings and cyphas were back then until I started attending regular poetry readings in graduate school. I also wasn't fully aware of the degrees to which I benefited from book and author suggestions offered by people in all those informal reading groups.

The "Radical Black Reading, 2011" post from Public Archive gave me a discomforting feeling that I still hadn't read black and radically enough. That discomforting feeling was familiar, useful, and welcomed. So of course, I jotted down some titles and started reading.

The Coverage of Rita Dove's Anthology

2011-12-30T09:24:00.011-06:00

Individual volumes and anthologies of poetry are typically published with little coverage in the news media. That could have been the fate with The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry (2011) edited by Rita Dove. However, the spotlight on Dove's anthology gained increasing attention after Vendler offered a harsh critique of the book.

The tone of Vendler's critique and Dove's subsequent response led more and more commentators to chime in on the book and on the Dove and Vendler disagreement. I've provided a round-up of commentary on the anthology and the disagreement.

Sept 16: Shaking Up the Canon: PW Talks with Dove, Craig Teicher, Publishers Weekly
Sept. 19: The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry, Publishers Weekly
Oct. 21: New anthology...on 20th century verse, Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
Oct. 30: Don't miss Dove's intro to poetry anthology, Richard Wakefield, Seattle Times
Nov. 13: Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry, Jan Gardner, Boston Globe
Nov:: Are These Poems to Remember?, Helen Vendler, The New York Review of Books
Nov. 1: Shelf Life, Jeremy Bass, The Nation
Dec.: Defending an Anthology, Rita Dove, The New York Review of Books
Dec. 2: Dove Defends Anthology, Harriet Staff, Poetry Foundation
Dec. 10: Is This the Vendler to Remember?, Marguerite María Rivas, AROHO Speaks
Dec. 12: A Conversation with Rita Dove, Jericho Brown, The Best American Poetry Blog
Dec. 13: The Politics in Poetry: Vendler vs. Dove, Jay Adler, the sad red earth
Dec. 13: Helen Vendler, Rita Dove, and the Changing Canon of Poetry, The Takeaway
Dec. 16: Dove Connects Poets' Intergenerational Conversations, NewsHour Poetry Series
Dec. 18: Penguin's Flightless Anthology, John Olson, Tillalala Chronicles blog
Dec. 20: Bloodletting over an Anthology, Peter Monaghan, Chronicle of Higher Education
Dec. 21: The Dove Anthology, Second Wind, R. T. Smith, Shenandoah Literary Org
Dec. 22: Poetry anthology sparks race row, Alison Flood, Guardian
Dec. 28: Race and American Poetry: Dove v. Vendler, Jonathan Farmer, The Millions

2012
Jan. 2: Rita Dove On New Anthology, Advice for Young Poets, NPR

Calvin Forbes's "Talking Blues," a Favorite in 2011

2011-12-29T10:44:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite poems from 2011 was "Talking Blues" by Calvin Forbes, which was published in the July/August issue of Poetry. I first wrote about the poem back in June when it appeared online.

The speaker of the poem talks to and about "raccoon," a figure who has recently moved from "the country" to the city. "I saw raccoon on Lenox Avenue / Stealing milk from a baby," the speaker notes at one point. Later, the speaker goes, "Nobody in Harlem studying you raccoon / So you better go about your business."

In some ways, the poem does not have high formal "literary" style, not the kind of style or features that typically wins awards or acknowledgment; however, a few things made the poem enjoyable to me. For one, the character raccoon is a famous (or is that an infamous?) character in black folk culture. Part of what drew me to the poem has to do with my interest in African American folklore.

I also appreciated how the poem alludes to that important migration in African American history from the South to the North or from a rural area to Harlem. "Raccoon you know you too country," says the speaker of the poem at one point, "You better leave the city." So many southern and rural folks who have made moves north have found ourselves in the position of Raccoon.

Finally, I suppose the rarity of encountering a poem in Poetry, especially during this contemporary era, about a raccoon, black folk culture, and that historic African American migration also made "Talking Blues" appealing to me.

Blogging & Linking to Poetry Foundation Site in 2011

2011-12-29T09:49:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, I was writing about how I've relied on the Poetry Foundation site in my blogging in 2011. Below, I've compiled a list of blog entries where references and links to the site were used this past year. I had an especially good time looking through the Poetry archives for info on Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, Margaret Walker, and other African American poets.

• December 28: The Poetry Foundation Site as a Vital Resource

• November 29: Responses to Margaret Walker's "For My People"

• November 28: 10 Poems by Margaret Walker

• November 21: Places Poets Love

• November 14: Online responses to poem by Reginald Dwayne Betts

• November 6: 10 Poets who gained widespread attention in their 20s

• November 4: A Prelude to Rita Dove's Anthology?

• October 1: Summarizing a Worldview in Nikki Giovanni’s “Nikki-Rosa” by Cindy Lyles

• September 30: Reginald Dwayne Betts's 'Big Word' Love Poem & the Poetry Podcast

• July 31: Working out, listening to Robert Creeley

• July 22: 5 Animated poems by African American poets

• July 15: Smartphones and Black Poetry: Some Preliminary Impressions
• July 14: Langston Hughes in Poetry magazine
• July 14: "We Real Cool" & "For My People" First Appeared in Poetry Mag.

• July 13: The Journey of Margaret Walker's "For My People"
• July 12: 4 Langston Hughes poems from 1926 Poetry Magazine

• June 23: Calvin Forbes Shines Some light on Raccoon in Poetry Magazine

• June 21: Pleasant Surprises: Thomas Sayers Ellis, Nikki Giovanni & Poetry Magazine

• June 19: 20 Poems (with Audio) by Black Poets on the Poetry Foundation Site

• June 3: Poetry as Passport: Getting to Other Worlds through Translations

• May 30: 150+ Years of Antislavery Poems by Black Poets

• April 14: Rita Dove Addresses "Racist Selectivity"

• April 2: 10 Poems by Kevin Young

• April 2: How Public are Poets?

• March 14: Nikky Finney, Nikki Giovanni, & the Black Poetry Best Seller List

The Poetry Foundation Site as a Vital Resource

2011-12-28T10:52:00.002-06:00

This past year, I spent a considerable amount of time on the Poetry Foundation site, which contains hundreds if not thousands of poems, images, articles, and news items. I went to the site primarily for materials related to African American poetry. As my blogging about poetry increased this year so did my visits to the site.

[Related: Blogging & Linking to Poetry Foundation Site in 2011]

The Poetry Foundation site served as an invaluable resource for poetry published decades ago such as early poems by Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Margaret Walker as well as contemporary pieces by Calvin Forbes and Nikki Giovanni. When I compiled a list of 100-plus poems that I had read and re-read online over the past year, the majority of those pieces were from the Poetry Foundation site. No doubt, the site was one of my most frequent online destinations in 2011.

I also spent time looking for poems by black poets on Poets.org. It's a useful site as well. However, it is not as expansive as the Poetry Foundation site. One reason for the latter's size and ambition has to do with a gift of $200 million from Ruth Lily in2003. The gift made it possible for the organization to retool itself, maintain successful programs, and create many new ones.

Somewhere along the way, the web-site was redesigned and updated, and the rights to publish a large number of poems was secured. Many of the poems that are available on the site had been published by the foundation's well-known print magazine, Poetry. Many other poems on the site, however, are from a variety of other sources.

In the spring of 2012, I will teach a course on technology and African American poetry. My students and I will have reason to make frequent visits to the Poetry Foundation site; we'll also work to identify other online resources for studying poetry.

I'll also keep blogging about poetry in the new year, and so I'm certain to rely on the Poetry Foundation site again and again as a resource.

An Extended Notebook on the works of writers, artists & cultural workers

2011-12-27T17:41:00.003-06:00

Developing a notebook or series of notebooks on the works of various writers, artists & cultural workers has been one way to present and share ideas concerning African American artistic thought, history, and black studies in general. In addition, the development of this extended notebook has made it possible to highlight important features of works by several writers and at the same time organize and collect notes on writers and different cultural trends.

Notebooks on the work of:
• Amiri Baraka
• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Katherine Dunham
• Nikky Finney
• Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• Allison Joseph
• Aaron McGruder
• Eugene B. Redmond
• Evie Shockley
• Margaret Walker
• Colson Whitehead
• Kevin Young

Black Studies contributors:
• Danielle Hall
• Cindy Lyles
• Emily Phillips
• Dometi Pongo
• Clarissa Richee

A Notebook on the work of Katherine Dunham

2011-12-27T15:27:00.000-06:00

The artistic productions of dancer, choreographer, and cultural worker Katherine Dunham were linked to black studies long before the idea of black studies was even fully articulated. So we have long been interested in her works. We also have local ties to Dunham as she made East St. Louis her permanent residence, and she worked at SIU's East St. Louis campus.

Our contributor Danielle Hall has been our lead writer on Dunham. Danielle is pursuing research and writing projects on Dunham so she has especially active in producing entries.

• December 27: Bodies in Motion: Katherine Dunham & Derrick Rose by Danielle Hall
• December 7: Dunham, Redmond & the EBR Digital Collection by Danielle Hall
• December 5: Redmond, Dunham & the EBR Digital Collection by Cindy Lyles
• October 5: Katherine Dunham’s Use of Technology and Dance by Danielle Hall
• September 30: The Hurston, Dunham, and Hughes Connection by Danielle Hall
• September 22: Remembering Stormy Weather: Dunham and Agency by Danielle Hall
• September 16: Preserving the Legacy of Dunham Technique by Danielle Hall
• July 3: EBR and the Ghosts of Dunham, Hurston, & Schomburg by Howard Rambsy II

Objectification in Pursuit of History in Derek Walcott's Omeros

2011-12-27T14:06:00.002-06:00

By Emily Phillips

In Derek Walcott’s epic Omeros, the figure of Helen is constantly gazed upon, “the island beauty…in her looks” (96). She is used to symbolize the island of St. Helena and to address colonialism as a haunting part of its history. For example, Major Plunkett, a key figure in the poem, seeks validation for his presence on the island, Helen's role as a maid in his home, and his lust for her by constructing a history of the island that is meant to “help her people, ignorant and poor” (97).

By attempting to make Helen a symbol of the island and “her people,” Plunkett distances himself from his attraction toward her and the complex power dynamic present in their relationship. Plunkett doubly objectifies her: first, as the object of his lust, and second, as symbol rather than person.

Throughout the epic, Helen’s beauty alludes to “the face that launched a thousand ships” that is the myth of her namesake, but even as she is inspired by a Homeric past and is fashioned by Major Plunkett and perhaps even Walcott himself, toward the end of the epic, the narrator suddenly becomes conscious of these attempts and asks, “Why not see Helen / as the sun saw her, with no Homeric shadow, / swinging her plastic sandals on that beach alone, / as fresh as the sea-wind? / Why make the smoke a door?" (271).

Helen is consistently portrayed as object rather than as a person with an interior life of her own, a fact Walcott calls into question, further complicating an understanding of both the character and her presence in the text. This insight made in the poem about the poem illuminates the difficulties in constructing a history and understanding of the island and its past, and calls attention to the problematic slippage that arises in such a quest.

[Related: Notes on Derek Walcott's Omeros]

***************
Emily Phillips, a contributing writer for Black Studies @ SIUE, is currently pursuing her PhD in American Literature at Saint Louis University.

A Notebook on the work of Emily Phillips

2011-12-27T13:52:00.002-06:00

Emily Phillips has been one of our long-time contributors; she has been especially active as a contributing blogger about contemporary African American poetry. Over the years, she has written about Allison Joseph, Lucille Clifton, Rita Dove, Marilyn Nelson, and various other poets.

Emily completed her M.A. in literature at SIUE. She is currently earning her Ph.D. at St. Louis University. Emily's initial writings from 2010 were foundational for our projects on poetry.

2011
• December 27: Objectification in Pursuit of History in Derek Walcott's Omeros
• October 31: Notes on Derek Walcott's Omeros

2010
• November 2: Lessons Reading Poets
• November 2: Allison Joseph's "The Jealous Girl"
• November 1: Rita Dove's "Friedrich Augustus Bridgetower Discovers..."
• October 30: Rita Dove’s American Smooth
• October 29: Lucille Clifton's Voices
• October 29: Elizabeth Alexander’s “Praise Song for the Day”
• October 28: Marilyn Nelson's Carver: A Life in Poems, Pt. 2
• October 28: Marilyn Nelson's Carver: A Life in Poems, Pt. 1
• October 16: Honorée Jeffers's Outlandish Blues
• September 15: Tara Betts's Arc & Hue
• September 7: Allison Joseph's poem "Who you calling Ugly?"
• September 6: Body Perception in A. Joseph's poem "Skinny Legs"
• September 3: Allison Joseph's Imitation of Life
• August 24: Allison Joseph's Worldly Pleasures
• August 2: Lucille Clifton's Mercy
• July 29: Rita Dove's Sonata Mulattica
• July 26: Allison Joseph's Voice: Poems

Bodies in Motion: Katherine Dunham & Derrick Rose

2011-12-27T09:32:00.001-06:00

By Danielle Hall

Katherine Dunham is not a name that would typically surface in conversations about basketball, but after watching the Chicago Bulls vs. L.A. Lakers game (aired on 12/25/11), I discovered that she and Chicago Bulls player, Derrick Rose had a few things in common. Dunham and Rose are natives of Chicago’s Southside and have characterized aesthetic movements and elements of Chicago life in both fashion and performance.

The continuities between Dunham’s stage performances and Rose’s court performances can be found in Chicagoan themes in their wardrobe. Here, the uniform and/or costume, is just as much a part of the performance as body consciousness, control, and movement across the court or stage is.

In 1943, Katherine Dunham and her Dancers appeared in the film Stormy Weather where their costumes, set designs (by John Pratt), and their social “slow dance” movements in this first sequence can be read as a scene depicting life in Chicago’s Southside or “Black Belt” community in the 1920s. VéVé Clark stated that "Their style is meant to be mimetic… suggest a reality of the Chicago streets. The angular lines in the costumes reflect the reticulations of the elevated train tracks above, under which this disparate group has huddled" (Clark, Kaiso! p. 329). Even the details of Dunham’s shoes have lines that move around the shoe.

The “AdiZero Rose 2 collection for Adidas has Chicago written all over it,” said Georgia Garvey of the Chicago Tribune. In his first game of the season, Derrick Rose’s new shoe was one of the attractions of the game. A part of his shoe line, the “Windy City,” bears the same colors of the Chicago Bulls uniform (black, red, and white) and pays homage to Chicago with a blue “L” on the back of the heel, which signifies the city’s blue-line “L” train as well as other angular designs that “mimic the look of the CTA train car,” said Garvey.

In both examples, aesthetic attire has and continues to be a method used to accentuate individual body parts, such as the feet, and entire bodies in motion. Thus, in dance and sports, any given move or technique can be rhythmic, mimetic, or influenced by things one has learned or has come into contact with in his/her daily environs. Reading the body and material culture as a text often provides examples of how individual memory is able to help shape our understanding of history and culture, from lived experiences as well as those experiences figurative and imagined.

Notes:
Clark, VéVé. “Performing the Memory of Difference in Afro-Caribbean Dance: Katherine Dunham’s Choreography, 1938-87.” In Kaiso! Writing By and About Katherine Dunham, eds. VéVé Clark and Sara E. Johnson, 320-37. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005.

Danielle Hall is a program coordinator and contributing writer for Black Studies @ SIUE.

The Coverage of Michael Eric Dyson's Jay-Z Course

2011-12-27T08:45:00.000-06:00

This fall at Georgetown University, Michael Eric Dyson taught a course entitled "The Sociology of Hip Hop: Jay-Z." The course drew considerable media attention this semester. Rarely has a black studies-related course gained so much publicity.

There have been college courses on rap and rap stars before, but Dyson is popular and so was his subject Jay-Z. In addition, the course was offered at the prestigious Georgetown University which gave the class even more credibility and attention. I've provided links to only 20 or so of the many, many news articles about the class that appeared over the last couple of months.

• December 19: Michael Eric Dyson to Teach Jay-Z 101, The Network Journal
• December 9: Decoding Jay-Z at Georgetown University, AllHiphop.com
• December 7: Dyson Calls Jay-Z 'An Icon Of American Excellence', Vibe
• December 5: Professor teaches class on the wisdom of Jay-Z, The Chicago Sun-Times
• December 3: 'Hova' as homework? Professor teaches course on Jay-Z lyrics, Sctimes
• December 2: Jay-Z provides the blueprint for college course, USA Today
• December 2: Reading, writing, rap? Jay-Z inspires college course, TheGrio
• December 2: Jay-Z's Georgetown Class, Huffington Post, BlackVoices
• November 3: You Won’t Learn Hip Hop in This Man’s Classroom, Gawker
• November 2: Jay-Z 101: Georgetown sociology course, Washington Post
• October 20: J-Hoya: Georgetown Offers Course on Jay-Z, ABC News
• October 17: Professor offers Jay-Z 101, Vancouver Sun
• October 16: Jay Z To Be Studied As A Course, Nigerian Entertainment Today
• October 14: Hov 101: Georgetown course covers Jay-Z, hip-hop, TheGrio
• October 14: Georgetown Professor Explains His New Class on Jay-Z, The Nation
• October 13: Predicting the Syllabus for Georgetown’s Jay-Z Class, Yahoo.com
• October 13: Dyson Teaching Course on Jay-Z at Georgetown, Black Enterprise
• October 12: Georgetown Introduces a Course on Jay-Z, Complex
• October 12: Georgetown offers class on all things Jay-Z, Consequence of Sound
• October 11: Jay-Z Course Being Taught at Georgetown University, Pop Crush
• October 10: Michael Eric Dyson On Jay-Z Georgetown University Course, Rapfix, MTV

A Notebook on the work of Kevin Young

2011-12-27T02:17:00.001-06:00

Kevin Young's focus on black history, music, humor, and grief in his works have made him an important subject for our interests in African American studies and artistic thought. He has also produced an expansive body of work that

Young is one of our most accomplished contemporary poets. His volumes of poetry include Most Way Home: Poems (1995), To Repel Ghosts: Five Sides in B Minor (2001) Jelly Roll: A Blues (2003), Black Maria: Poems (2005), For the Confederate Dead (2007), Dear Darkness: Poems (2008), and Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels (2011). He edited Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers (2000), Blues Poems (2003), John Berryman: Select Poems (2004), Jazz Poems (2006), and The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing (2010).

2011
• December 20: The Case for Kevin Young's Ardency
• December 19: African American Poetry on 2011 Best of Lists
• November 17: Notes on Memorable Lines from Kevin Young's "Bereavement"
• June 26: 5 Reasons Kevin Young's Ardency Matters
• May 20: Four Contemporary Black Male Writers & Their Fathers
• May 7: Kevin Young & the Langston Hughes Connection
• April 2: 10 Poems by Kevin Young
• March 7: Cinque and Processional
• February 7: Multi-threaded Comments on Kevin Young’s Ardency
• February 7: Kevin Young’s Expansive Body of Work
• February 7: Brief Background on the Amistad Case
• February 7: The Coverage of Young’s Book
• February 7: The Design and Structure of Ardency
• February 7: The Title Page
• January 24: Books by K. Warren, E. Shockley, & K. Young

2010
• July 5: Kevin Young's "Bereavement"

2009
• October 4: The Promise of Kevin Young
• February 6: Poetry and the Economy

A Notebook on the work of Ta-Nehisi Coates

2011-12-26T19:38:00.000-06:00

A Notebook on the Work of Colson Whitehead

2011-12-26T17:55:00.000-06:00

I've been actively following Colson Whitehead's work for more than 10 years now, after someone hipped me to his work when I was a graduate student. In recent years, I've published a couple of essays about his writing and started blogging about his work and reception.

He is the author of The Intuitionist (1999), John Henry Days (2001), The Colossus of New York (2003), Apex Hides the Hurt (2006), Sag Harbor (2009), and Zone One (2011).

2011
• December 21: The Case for Colson Whitehead's Zone One in 2011
• October 19: Publishing Books, Extending Conversations: C. Whitehead, R. Kennedy
• October 14: Colson Whitehead, zombies, and afrofuturism HBW blog
• October 13: Top 10 list for Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist HBW blog
• October 12: The Coverage of.... Zone One By Colson Whitehead HBW blog
• October 11: Colson Whitehead & the Upper Floors HBW blog
• October 10: Colson Whitehead, Zone One, and Publishing History HBW blog
• September 10: Covers for Apex Hides the Hurt
• August 23: The ongoing pre-publication buzz for Zone One
• July 22: The Novelist as Sports Writer & Blues Writer: Colson Whitehead
• July 3: "Last Night" (excerpt from Zone One) by Colson Whitehead
• May 25: Big Publishers, ARCs, and the promotion of a Black Writer
• May 20: Four Contemporary Black Male Writers & Their Fathers
• April 26: How Major Writers Become Legendary on Twitter
• March 31: Colson Whitehead Novel on Twitter
• February 1: The Early Buzz on Colson Whitehead's Newest Novel
• January 5: What Will Black Writing Be?

2010
• November 1: Top 10 Reasons for Re-Reading The Intuitionist
• February 25: Whitehead Finalist for PEN/Faulkner Award

2009
• December 2: Société post-raciale? "C'est stupide."
• November 8: Colson Whitehead & Twitter
• June 22: More on Whitehead Reviews
• May 3: Reviewing Colson Whitehead’s Reviews

A Notebook on the work of Aaron McGruder

2011-12-26T17:41:00.000-06:00

Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks (the comic strip and television show) has been an important source of conversations and writings about race, black studies, African American character, politics, history, and various other topics.

McGruder attended the University of Maryland, where he majored in African American Studies. His comic strip became syndicated in 1999, and his television show The Boondocks premiered on November 6, 2005.

2011
November 13: Huey Freeman, Black Militant Nerd
July 17: Huey Freeman as Black Public Intellectual?
July 17: Writing about Huey Freeman (again)
May 20: Four Contemporary Black Male Writers & Their Fathers
April 27: The Boondocks, and uhh, Black Studies
March 25: Why Huey vs. Riley Matters
February 25: Huey Freeman vs. Intellectual Solitude

2010
September 10: The Boondocks vs. The Boondocks
August 11: Beating Uncle Ruckus
July 30: Huey and Riley; Or King’s & McGruder’s Double Consciousness
July 6: The Coverage of the Boondocks
June 14: Huey vs. Riley

A Notebook on the work of Allison Joseph

2011-12-26T16:36:00.002-06:00

A couple of years ago when we began implementing plans to blog regularly about poetry, we chose to make our writings about Allison Joseph's poetry central to our overall project. As a prolific writer who has covered a range of topics, we concluded that she would provide us with many points of departure.

Since arriving at SIUE, poets Stacey Lynn Brown and Adrian Matejka have really led the way increasing the appreciation and lore of Allison Joseph. Stacey and Adrian are constantly identifying poets, volumes of poetry, and individual poems people would enjoy. And they are particularly inclined to highlight Allison Joseph. Stacey's and Adrian's enthusiasm about Joseph's poetry has in part inspired and guided our interest in blogging about her writings.

2011
• October 8: The Writer as Runner: Allison Joseph by Howard Rambsy II
• October 7: 20 Poems by Allison Joseph complied by Howard Rambsy II
• October 7: Allison Joseph and Productivity in Poetry By Howard Rambsy II
• October 6: "Bio Note" By Allison Joseph By Clarissa Richee
• October 5: The Poet Showdown: “Prompt” by Allison Joseph By Cindy Lyles
• October 4: Blogging about Allison Joseph compiled by Howard Rambsy II
• October 4: “Elegy for the Person Letter” by Allison Joseph by Clarissa Richee
• October 3: Allison Joseph and Paradoxes: An Introduction by Stacey Lynn Brown
• October 3: Allison Joseph Week
• May 6: The Enviable Persistence of Poet Allison Joseph by Howard Rambsy II
• March 10: Allison Joseph's Presence Among our 100 books by Howard Rambsy II

2010
• November 2: Allison Joseph’s “The Jealous Girl” by Emily Phillips
• September 10: Notes on Allison Joseph Reading by Howard Rambsy II
• September 7: Allison Joseph's poem "Who You Calling Ugly?" by Emily Phillips
• September 7: Allison Joseph and the fourteen-line box by Howard Rambsy II
• September 6: Body Perception in Joseph's poem "Skinny Legs" by Emily Phillips
• September 5: 10 Poems by Allison Joseph
• September 3: Allison Joseph and Creativity by Howard Rambsy II
• September 3: Allison Joseph's Imitation of Life by Emily Phillips
• August 24: Allison Joseph's Worldly Pleasures by Emily Phillips
• July 26: Allison Joseph's Voice by Emily Phillips
• July 26: Looking for Allison Joseph by Howard Rambsy II

A Notebook on the work of Margaret Walker

2011-12-26T13:12:00.000-06:00

Margaret Walker's poetry has been central to our many mixed media projects, and her poetry has increasingly become a topic for blog entries. Walker's poems "Molly Means," "Kissie Lee," "Bad-Man Stagolee," and "For My People" have been heavy in our rotation. These works seem to always appear on my course syllabi.

Walker's poems serve as mediums for the display and preservation of a range of black cultural ideas. She projects an African American collective or communal voice in many of her works that appeals to readers.

2011
• December 16: 100-plus Poems I Read & Re-Read (online) in 2011
• December 2: Margaret Walker, Struggle & Poetry magazine in the late 1930s
• December 1: A Renegade Woman: Margaret Walker's "Kissie Lee" By Cindy Lyles
• November 30: Verbal Effects and Margaret Walker's "Molly Means" By Clarissa Richee
• November 29: Responses to Margaret Walker's "For My People"
• November 28: 10 Poems by Margaret Walker
• November 28: Margaret Walker Week
September 30: 100 Black Arts Era poems
September 24: Women Writers & Black Arts Poetry
• September 21: 15 Malcolm X Poems by Poets of the Black Arts Era
• September 19: A Look at Margaret Walker's "For Malcolm X" By Clarissa Richee
• July 14: "We Real Cool" & "For My People" First Appeared in Poetry Mag.
• July 13: The Journey of Margaret Walker's "For My People"
• May 18: The Rise & Fall of Signature Poems

2010
• March 11: EBR Focus on Margaret Walker

A Notebook on the Work of Evie Shockley

2011-12-26T10:00:00.001-06:00

We've started building a series of posts on the work of Evie Shockley, a poet and literary scholar. She is the author of the volumes of poetry the new black (2011), a half-red sea (2006), and The Gorgon Goddess (2001). She is also author of Renegade Poetics Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (2011).

Her writings have appeared in several venues, including Callaloo, A Broken Thing: Contemporary Poets on the Line, Poets on Teaching: A Sourcebook, and Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry. Shockley teaches literature at Rutgers University.

• October 15: Decoding Evie Shockley's "mesostics..." Pt. 3 by Cindy Lyles
• October 14: Evie Shockley’s “On New Year’s Eve" by Clarissa Richee
• October 13: Decoding Evie Shockley's “mesostics..." Pt. 2 by Cindy Lyles
• October 13: Eric Ruckh & Jeffrey Skoblow Celebrate "Howl"
• October 12: Blogging about Evie Shockley
• October 11: Evie Shockley's “my life as china” by Clarissa Richee
• October 10: Decoding Evie Shockley’s “mesostics..." Pt. 1 By Cindy Lyles
• October 10: Evie Shockley Week
• August 22: Evie Shockley's "improper(ty) behavior"
• July 1: Evie Shockley's "ode to my blackness"
• May 6: 10 Poems by Evie Shockley
• April 29: Evie Shockley and This Douglass Poetry Discourse
• Feb. 28: Evie Shockley Addresses Thomas Jefferson
• Feb. 16: The Visual Experience of Evie Shockley’s the new black
• Jan. 24: Books by K. Warren, E. Shockley, & K. Young

Poetry News Coverage in 2011

2011-12-26T09:26:00.004-06:00

African American poetry continues to receive little news coverage, but there were a few books and poets that generated extended commentary in 2011.

First, Kevin Young's book Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels, published in late January, received a relatively large number of reviews and notice, especially for a volume of poetry. No other volume by an African American poet received as much coverage as Young's book. There was some talk here and there about Evie Shockley's the new black, Tracy K. Smith's Life on Mars, Rachel Eliza Griffiths's Mule & Pear, Yusef Komunyakaa's The Chameleon Couch, Reginald Shepherd's Red Clay Weather, and Carl Phillips’s Double Shadow.

In May, Barack and Michelle Obama hosted a poetry reading at the White House that drew considerable attention in large part because Common was invited to read at the event. Some Republicans, including Sarah Palin, questioned whether it was appropriate to invite a rapper whom they considered to be "controversial." Notably, the commentary about Common's invitation and presence made him, a rapper, the most discussed "poet" at the White House reading.

Nikky Finney appeared on the cover of the March/April issue of Poets&Writers, which contained a major profile on her and commentary about her volume Head Off & Split. When Finney won the National Book Award for Poetry in November, she received extensive coverage.

The most widely discussed and covered poetry news toward the end of the year has been the focus on Helen Vendler and Rita Dove. Vendler offered a negative, troubling review of Dove's anthology The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century Poetry. Dove offered a strong response, and their conflict drew extensive commentary.

The Case for Colson Whitehead's Zone One in 2011

2011-12-21T08:56:00.002-06:00

In 2011, the publication and coverage of Zone One by Colson Whitehead was one of the major events, or really series of events, in African American literature. By my count, the book received more than 110 reviews in online and print publications, not to mention the dozen or so accompanying interviews and profiles on Whitehead.

Whereas such a large number of reviews is remarkable enough, what made the coverage of Zone One even more notable was how the novel prompted so many reviewers and commentators to discuss the significance of a literary novelist writing genre fiction, in this case, a zombie novel. Zone One, set in New York City during the near aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, appeared at the right times to gain wide exposure.

For one, the book was published during a moment when popular culture is experiencing (or displaying?) intense interest in zombies, most notably with the popular television show The Walking Dead. In addition, Doubleday, Whitehead's publisher, wisely released the novel on October 18, just in time for Zone One to be linked to activities associated with Halloween. To be sure, on October 31, Whitehead hosted a screening of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead at the Library of Philadelphia.

Rarely does an African America authored work that has yet to receive a major award or that has yet to be turned into a film receive so much coverage. The marketing or promotional strategists at Doubleday certainly deserve credit for publicizing the book, and Whitehead deserves credit for the compelling story and writing. The vast majority of 100-plus online and print magazine reviewers were overwhelmingly positive about Whitehead's book; the more than 130 reviewers on amazon.com are nearly equally divided on where they stand with Zone One.

Despite the widespread coverage of the novel, Zone One received little notice in African American popular venues in part because few of those sites devote considerable attention to literary novels. Scholars of African American literature concentrate on literary novels, but typically not contemporary ones, which explains the absence of noted black literary critics offering commentary on Whitehead's book.

The reviewers in mainstream venues rarely, if ever, highlighted that Whitehead is a black novelist. As far as I could tell, there was no discussion concerning how Zone One fit within traditions of African American literature. There was almost no mention of the racial implications of zombies and zombie stories, except for a Wall Street Journal review that offers a little historical context and Whitehead's observation in an interview that "Night of the Living Dead is the story of a black man on the run from the mob of white people who want to destroy him."

The extensive coverage of Zone One this year marked an important event in the history of African American literature, even if we have yet to give that publishing event adequate attention.

The Case for Kevin Young's Ardency

2011-12-20T08:14:00.001-06:00

I thought and still think that Kevin Young's Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels was a really important book. I thought prominent reviewers would have felt as I did, and I assumed that Ardency would have appeared on more of those "best of 2011" lists. Well, that didn't happen. Oh well...

Nonetheless, Young's book remains a standout work for me, as a volume of poetry and as an artist's powerful engagement with black and American history. African American poets have a long history of writing about slavery and narratives of liberation. Young writes within that history, but Ardency expands the tradition in notable ways.

For one, Young provides an expansive book-length treatment on the Amistad revolt, and the thoroughness of his volume reveals the extent to which he has pursued extensive research on his subject. A book like Ardency demonstrates the possibilities of the poet as historical researcher.

Young's volume also makes a useful contribution to black studies on multiple fronts. The work displays artistry, history, cultural ideas, and the monumental processes of Africans captives encountering America and then transitioning back to Africa. If there was a major black studies best books of 2011 list, certainly Ardency would be a top contender, right?

Well, maybe I'm stretching, as I'm less sure about where contemporary poetry fits in the discourse and operations of African American Studies these days. I mean, beyond our program.

I wish Young's Ardency appeared on more of those year-end "best of" lists so that more readers would become aware of this valuable black studies volume of poetry.

African American Poetry on 2011 Best of Lists

2011-12-19T19:43:00.001-06:00

I've been looking over the various "best of 2011" book lists that have been appearing. Volumes of poetry appear less frequently on those lists, but you can find some, and there are some "best of poetry" lists out there.

Here are a few volumes by African American poets that I noticed on lists.

Yusef Komunyakaa's The Chameleon Couch appears in the "poetry" section of the 2011 round-up list on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch site.

Evie Shockley's the new black and Tracy K. Smith's Life on Mars appear in The Library Journal's best books of poetry list.

Smith's book also appears on The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011; her book also appeared on the 2011 poetry list for Publishers Weekly.

Harmony Holiday's volume Negro Baseball League appears on Joshua Marie Wilkinson's Best Poetry Books of 2011 for No Tell.

Shockley's the new black appears on Megan Kaminski Best of Poetry Books of 2011 for No Tell.

Rachel Eliza Griffiths's Mule & Pear was selected by Roxane Gay for her list of notable books for 2011 for The Rumpus. (Gay opens with observations about the limits of lists in general).

Kevin Young's Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels is highlighted in MIichael Brodeur's best poetry books of 2011 for The Boston Globe. Brodeur also includes Carl Phillips's Double Shadow on his list.

Nikky Finney's Head Off & Split and Reginald Shepherd's Red Clay Weather appear on Don Share's best poetry books of 2011 for The Boston Globe.

Yusef Komunyakaa's The Chamelon Couch is on Valerie Duff's best poetry books of 2011 for The Boston Globe.

A Notebook on Dometi Pongo

2011-12-18T12:19:00.004-06:00

Pongo in NYC with black studies crew 2010

Dometi Pongo has been one of our leading contributors since arriving to the university back in 2008. He has helped us coordinate programs, led public humanities projects, and produced the one-of-a-kind Malcolm X Mixtape, to name just a few of his contributions.

Pongo or "Proph" (short for his stage-name Prophecy) graduated on Saturday. I've provided links to some of our coverage of him and his writings on the blog. I imagine this list will grow as his graduation will hardly stop us from calling on him for assistance.

2011
Decmeber 13: Notes on the Black Books Book Sale
November 19: Reflecting on “From Profit To Prophecy”
October 27: Dometi Pongo at the Black Verse Exhibit
October 24: Cole World: Message to the Grassroots
October 16: Handwritten & Typed Versions of Rhymes by Dometi Pongo
October 6: Rick Ross and the Streets
September 14: Bridging the Gap – Notes on “Murder to Excellence”
September 5: From Chicago (to SIUE) to NYC
July 25: A Poet, A Rapper, and His Notebooks
March 29: Reflections on the Ta-Nehisi Coates visit

2010
September 2: C.H.I. to N.Y. Part II
May 18: Chess Lessons in NYC
April 25: Mixtape Showcase
March 21: Pongo’s “Miss Amerikkka”
March 19: Pongo's "Education (Intro)"
March 19: The Malcolm X Mixtape

2009
August 8: Recruiting Talent, Building Black Studies

How Age Matters in the 'Rap as Poetry' Debate

2011-12-16T20:03:00.003-06:00

The other day my colleague Adrian Matejka and I were noting how "young" Rita Dove was when she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987. She was about 35. Gwendolyn Brooks was even younger at 33 when she won.

The idea that an African American poet who wins a major poetry award like the Pulitzer in her early 30s is "young" has to do with the fact that so many of the big prizes and the substantial recognition go to poets who are typically older. Today, many of the most well-known African American poets such as Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, and Yusef Komunyakaa are in their 60s and 70s. Derek Walcott and Maya Angelou are in their 80s. That these and other black poets and poets in general have been active for so many decades explains why accomplished poets in their 30s can easily be viewed as, relatively speaking, young.

Age apparently matters different in rap.

Many prominent rappers distinguished themselves when they were in their late teens and early 20s. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking about Nas, who was 21 when his classic album Illmatic was released in 1994. Biggie was only slightly older at 22 when his album Ready to Die was released. Rakim was 19 when Paid in Full came out in 1987.

Interestingly, Jay-Z released his debut album Reasonable Doubt (1996) when he was 26, a somewhat older age for a major rapper. By the time Jay-Z was 34, however, he was publicly contemplating "retirement." Remember that? For years, rappers in their late 30s were routinely dismissed and ridiculed for being "old."

Jay-Z has been a central figure in the "rap as poetry" debate, and I wonder if his age (he recently celebrated his 42nd birthday) has something to do with the shift in the broader conversations concerning how and why hip hop verbal performance might be viewed as literary art. As Jay-Z ages, he and others are inclined to view rap as something beyond an adolescent male practice.

Perhaps their move to view rap as poetry has something to do with age. That is to say, a rapper like Jay-Z who's now in his early 40s is more likely to advocate that rappers are poets than he would have done in his 20s.

100-plus Poems I Read & Re-Read (online) in 2011

2011-12-16T09:27:00.006-06:00

Blogging so frequently about African American poetry during the last 12 months led me back to some poems again and again. I have provided links to more than 100 poems that I found myself returning to at least 3 or 4 times during the course of the year.

The poems linked below only represent pieces that were easily available to me online. Quite a few of the poems I encountered appeared only in books. Believe it or not, the process of compiling these 100-plus poems actually made me more aware of how relatively few of the poems that I covered multiple times this year appeared online.

A - H
• “The Venus Hottentot” By Elizabeth Alexander
• "Race" By Elizabeth Alexander
• "Narrative: Ali" By Elizabeth Alexander
• "Butter" By Elizabeth Alexander
• "Still I Rise" By Maya Angelou
• "Digging Max (At Seventy Five, All the Way Live!)" By Amiri Baraka
• "Somebody Blew Up America" - By Amiri Baraka (with saxophonist Ron Brown)
• "Obama Poem" - By Amiri Baraka (with Ron Brown)
• "Dope" By Amiri Baraka
• "In the Funk World" By Amiri Baraka
• "For you: anthophilous, lover of flowers" by Reginald Dwayne Betts

Gwendolyn Brooks

• "Switch" Tara Betts
• "kitchenette building" By Gwendolyn Brooks
• "a song in the front yard" By Gwendolyn Brooks
• "The Bean Eaters" By Gwendolyn Brooks
• "We Real Cool" By Gwendolyn Brooks
• "wishes for sons" By Lucille Clifton
• "won't you celebrate with me" By Lucille Clifton
• "homage to my hips" By Lucille Clifton
• "Yet Do I Marvel" By Countee Cullen
• "Black Boys Play the Classics" By Toi Derricotte
• "American Smooth" By Rita Dove
• "Son of Msippi" By Henry Dumas
• Selection of Poems By Henry Dumas
• "We Wear the Mask" By Paul Laurence Dunbar
• "Sympathy" By Paul Laurence Dunbar
• "Raised by Women" By Kelly Norman Ellis
• "All Their Stanzas Look Alike" By Thomas Sayers Ellis
• "Concerto no. 7: condoleezza {working out}" By Nikky Finney
• "Left" By Nikky Finney
• "Talking Blues" By Calvin Forbes
• "Nikki-Rosa" By Nikki Giovanni
• "Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)" By Nikki Giovanni
• "Bury Me in a Free Land" By Frances E. W. Harper
• "The Slave Auction" By Frances E. W. Harper
• "The Slave Mother" By Frances E. W. Harper
• "Frederick Douglass" By Robert Hayden
• "Those Winter Sundays" By Robert Hayden
• "At Pegasus" By Terrance Hayes
• "Shafro" By Terrance Hayes

Langston Hughes

• "I, Too" By Langston Hughes
• "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" By Langston Hughes
• "The Weary Blues" By Langston Hughes
• "Dreams" By Langston Hughes
• "Dream Variations" By Langston Hughes
• "Let America Be America Again" By Langston Hughes
• "Life is Fine" By Langston Hughes
• "Madam and Her Madam" By Langston Hughes
• "Madam and the Phone Bill" By Langston Hughes
• "Po' Boy Blues" By Langston Hughes
• "Theme for English B" By Langston Hughes

I - P
• "Tired" By Fenton Johnson
• "The Heart of a Woman" By Georgia Douglass Johnson
• "Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem" By Helene Johnson

Allison Joseph

• "Thirty Lines about the Fro" By Allison Joseph
• "Sonnet for a Good Mood"By Allison Joseph
• "Elegy for the Personal Letter" By Allison Joseph
• "Three Miles" By Allison Joseph
• "It Was a Funky Deal" By Etheridge Knight
• "For Malcolm, A Year After" By Etheridge Knight
• "Facing It" By Yusef Komunyakaa
• "The Day I Saw Barack Obama Reading Derek Walcott's Collected Poems" By Yusef Komunyakaa
• "Santuaries for the Deacon's Sons" By Gary Copeland Lilley
• "Battle Royale" By Adrian Matejka
• "The Battle of the Century" By Adrian Matejka
• “Carefree as a Plantation Darky in Watermelon Time” - audio - By Adrian Matejka
• "Battle Royale" - audio - By Adrian Matejka
• "Fisticuffs" - audio - By Adrian Matejka
• "Sporting Life" - audio - By Adrian Matejka
• "If We Must Die" By Claude McKay
• "Tropics in New York" By Claude McKay
• "America" By Claude McKay
• "The Lynching" By Claude McKay
• "Black Statue of Liberty" - live version - By jessica Care moore
• "The Summer After Malcolm" By Larry Neal

Margaret Walker

Q - Z
• "Song No. 2" By Sonia Sanchez
• "Writer's Block" By Evie Shockley
• "For My People" By Margaret Walker
• "Molly Means" By Margaret Walker
• "Kissie Lee" By Margaret Walker
• "Lineage" By Margaret Walker
• "Childhood" By Margaret Walker
• "For Malcolm X" By Margaret Walker
• "Sorrow Home" By Margaret Walker
• "On Being Brought From Africa to America" By Phillis Wheatley
• Five Haikus By Richard Wright
• "Black Cat Blues" By Kevin Young
• "Dirty Deal Blues" By Kevin Young
• "Bereavement" By Kevin Young
• "Reward" By Kevin Young
• "Ode to the Midwest" By Kevin Young
• "Slow Drag Blues" By Kevin Young
• "Errata" By Kevin Young
• "Urgent Telegram to Jean-Michel Basquiat" By Kevin Young

The Empowering Possibilities of Black Boys Writing, Reciting Rhymes

2011-12-14T20:14:00.001-06:00

There's a moment--really several moments--in Ta-Nehisi Coates's memoir The Beautiful Struggle where he mentions the empowering possibilities of rap. In particular, he describes how spending time trying to write rhymes made him feel better. "Even though I was alone," wrote Coates, "I felt bigger."

There were incredible odds out there, Coates acknowledged. However, "the rhyme pad was a spell book--it summoned asphalt elementals, elder gods, and weeping ancestors, all of whom had your back" (111). There was something magical about the practice of writing and reciting raps that gave Coates emotional and psychological strength.

Jay-Z makes similar observations in his book Decoded. He recalls a moment at age nine when he became inspired to rap after witnessing an older boy in the neighborhood freestyling. "That night, I started writing rhymes in my spiral notebook," Jay-Z remembers. "From the beginning it was easy, a constant flow. For days I filled page after page."

He goes on to describe how his mother eventually gave him a three-ring binder for him to keep all his rhymes. After a friend "peeked inside my notebook" and later started "reciting m rhymes like they were his," Jay-Z "started writing real tiny so no one could steal my lyrics, and then I started straight hiding my book, stuffing it in my mattress like it was cash. Everywhere I went I'd write."

There are, no doubt, a million things to say about the problems with rap. The celebrations of violence and materialism. The misogyny. The list goes on.

But it's fascinating reading about the young Coates and Jay-Z becoming empowered through the acts of writing and reciting raps.

Related: Collegiate Black Men, Rap, and Poetry

The Black Panther Party and Study Groups

2011-12-14T09:02:00.002-06:00

As a teacher and director of black studies, who has organized reading groups for years now, I was really inspired reading the section in Alondra Nelson's book Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination about how Huey Newton and Bobby Seale started off in a "political study group" at Merritt Junior College in the early 1960s (53). Newton's and Seale's participation in those groups helped them form and sharpen the ideas that would lead them to found the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

Nelson notes that Newton and Seale ultimately viewed some of the groups that they associated with "to be too beholden to political moderation" (54). Nonetheless, the groups did give them spaces and opportunities to read a range of materials and to share, discuss, and debate ideas beyond typical classroom settings. They further honed their ideas while working together at an anti-poverty center.

The work with reading groups and then a poverty center gave the founding members an important basis for formulating approaches that merged abstract and concrete concerns. As Nelson notes, "Newton and Seale sought to construct an organization whose commitments were more evenly divided between theory and practice" (56).

Initially, I was drawn to the idea of study groups because it encouraged me concerning some of the approaches that our program takes. I thought longer on it, though, and realized how much I've benefited from informal and formal study groups beginning in high school through college and grad school. Interestingly, one of the early study groups that I belonged to was created by a guy whose mother was a former Black Panther.

I distinctly remember him regularly running down the history on the Panthers. He was unaware of the study group part, but still, his Party talk was important and foundational for me. My positive and consciousness building experiences in that early study group led me search out and establish similar groups.

Reading that section in Body and Soul was a reminder that quite a few big movements have roots in these lil study groups.

Related: A Notebook on Body and Soul by Alondra Nelson

[Thanks to a recent tweet from @alondra, I plan to check out Donna Murch's Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, which provides more extensive background on how the BPP emerged from a study group.]

Notes on the Black Books Book Sale

2011-12-13T16:05:00.002-06:00

Long-time black studies participants Dometi Pongo & Kacee Aldridge at the book sale

Our black books book sale was a huge success last week. We sold more than 60 books, and more importantly, we had dozens of students stop by just to browse all the books by and about African Americans. We've been talking about building consciousness, expanding knowledge, and so a used black book book sale was key to those interests.

As always, our project coordinators Cindy Lyles and Danielle Hall facilitated the event and provided visitors with suggestions about the books that they might find appealing and informative. It was exciting to reach out to and engage with so many folks using African American books as the basis.

We had volumes of poetry, books about history and politics, books about business and dance. Works by Frederick Douglass, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker were included in our collection. By the end of the day, Cindy made a statement I wasn't expecting to hear: "All our poetry has been sold."

That's really good news, I thought; it's rare to sell large numbers of volumes of poetry.

I was never so pleased to see so many of my old books leave me and go on the others. It's our plan to have another sale and some browsing sessions during the spring semester.

Related: Education and Ideas Festival

Two Black Women Graduate Students Shaping Intellectual & Cultural Life at SIUE

2011-12-13T08:41:00.004-06:00


Danielle Hall leading black studies event at elementary school

Over the last few months, our program coordinators, Cindy Lyles and Danielle Hall, have become leading contributors to the intellectual and cultural life of our university. They have led two separate reading groups, written several blog entries related to African American history and culture, and installed a major exhibit on poetry. Overall, they have coordinated approximately 50 public humanities programs this semester that have drawn over 800 attendees.

Our program has benefited from the efforts of a talented, hardworking, and diverse group of contributors; they have collaborated in producing an array of projects and artistic compositions to serve large numbers of students and citizens. Cindy and Danielle are extending the progress that we have made over the years, and they are adding new dimensions to how we serve students and produce black studies @ SIUE and beyond.

Cindy, a graduate student in English, and Danielle, a graduate student in historical studies, are both poets and have ties to "conscious" communities. Cindy's writings on poetry and Danielle's writings on Katherine Dunham and music have been vital additions to our site.

Undergraduate black women at our university constitute an under-served population, whose academic and cultural interests are inadequately acknowledged by traditional college courses. Black women also have few scholarly models at the university. Thus, the active interactions that Cindy and Danielle have with African American women attendees and participants at our programs have become especially important features of black studies.

Cindy Lyles & Professor Anushiya Ramaswamy at black studies event at Lovejoy Library

What might the results be if SIUE and other universities empowered more black women graduate students to take leadership roles and coordinate public humanities projects? What if more black women graduate students were encouraged and called on to contribute their intellectual gifts and cultural knowledge to the production of various projects and activities?

This semester, I have become more and more aware of the significant contributions that just two sister graduate scholars can make to a program and the larger university.

Poetry & the black national anthem at the Presidential Inauguration

2011-12-12T08:10:00.002-06:00

The other day someone mentioned James Weldon Johnson, and it reminded me of a moment when Johnson's words haunted a major public event. On January 20, 2009, Reverend Joseph Lowery gave the benediction at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Lowery opened the benediction by reading the words "God of our weary years, God of our silent tears;" he went on to read the entire last stanza of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson.

At the time of Lowery's benediction, few, if any, on-air commentators mentioned that Lowery was reading Johnson's poem/song lyrics, which are widely known as the black national anthem. Not until Lowery presented Johnson's words did I realize how well the song stood up as a poem and benediction. For many African Americans and especially elder black people of Lowery's age, the inauguration ceremony was a most fitting moment to present the black national anthem, even if it was hidden in public view.

It says something about the versatility of Johnson's piece that "Lift Every Voice and Sing" could pass as a benediction at the inauguration of Obama. Johnson's poem has a sermonic quality that was useful for Lowery...Reverend Lowery. "Lift Every Voice and Sing" is also written in the first-person plural voice, providing a broad sense of community.

Lowery had closed his benediction with a humorous series of rhymes about racial tolerance:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter from audience) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter from audience) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter from audience) -- and when white will embrace what is right.

Those rhymes at the end were humorous and memorable for attendees and viewers. Notably, the rhymes at the beginning from "Lift Every Voice and Sing" had set a tone that Lowery would embrace aspects of verse in his benediction.

Perhaps it's a good thing that the television commentators were unaware that Lowery was presenting the last stanza of the black national anthem in the opening of his benediction. Can you imagine the kind of conservative backlash that would have emerged if some audiences knew what they were listening to? How interesting things would have become if during Lowery's benediction a television commentator had offered the following whispered observation: "and what you're hearing now is a section of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing' also known as the black national anthem."

Whatever the case, even without citation, there it was in plain view: the ghosts of Johnson's poem and the African American national anthem proudly haunting the inauguration of the nation's first black president.

Clarissa Richee's Commentary on Poetry

2011-12-11T21:30:00.000-06:00

Clarissa Richee produced several entries on poetry for our blog this semester. She has primarily written about poetry. Clarissa, an avid support of literature and the arts, was born and raised St. Louis, Missouri. She graduated from Drury University with duel degrees in English and Creative Writing. She is currently working toward her Master’s degree in Creative Writing and teaching composition at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Entries
• December 7: Communal Inspirations & the EBR Digital Collection
• December 5: Metro East & the EBR Collection
• November 30: Verbal Effects and Margaret Walker's "Molly Means"
• October 14: Evie Shockley’s “On New Year’s Eve"
• October 11: Evie Shockley's “my life as china”
• October 6: "Bio Note" By Allison Joseph
• October 4: “Elegy for the Person Letter” by Allison Joseph
• September 19: A Look at Margaret Walker's "For Malcolm X"

Cindy Lyles's Black Studies Cultural Commentary

2011-12-11T20:49:00.000-06:00

Cindy Lyles has been a lead contributor for our blog, primarily writing about poetry. She has also produced entries for the Project on the History of Black Writing (HBW) blog. Cindy has facilitated our reading group focused on Malcolm Gladwell's collection of essays What the Dog Saw.

Cindy is a poet, graduate student in literature, and program coordinator for Black Studies @ SIUE. In addition to producing verse, she writes about black women, African American poetry, and her hometown East St. Louis. This past summer, Cindy participated in a Sonia Sanchez Seminar sponsored by the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison.

Entries
• December 9: Eugene B. Redmond: A Human Vertex
• December 5: Redmond, Dunham & the EBR Digital Collection
• December 1: A Renegade Woman: Margaret Walker's "Kissie Lee"
• November 23: Song: The Invisible Character in “Song of Solomon” HBW
• October 25: Exploring the Tight Bond between Music and Poetry HBW
• October 19: The Process of Creating a Poetry Exhibit
• October 15: Decoding "mesostics from the american grammar book Pt. 3
• October 13: Decoding “mesostics from the american grammar book” Pt. 2
• October 10: Decoding “mesostics from the american grammar book” Pt. 1
• October 5: The Poet Showdown: “Prompt” by Allison Joseph
• September 21: I Say: Speaking Agency in Sonia Sanchez’s “Song No. 2” HBW
• August 27: A Fire Like Hers: Sonia Sanchez’s morning haiku

Ta-Nehisi Coates, the Black Scholar

2011-12-10T15:36:00.001-06:00

tEarlier this week when I came across an NPR headline that announced "Black Scholar Of The Civil War Asks: Who's With Me?," my immediate question to myself was whether Ta-Nehisi Coates was aware of that black Civil War scholar. Coates has spent considerable time on his blog over the last few years writing about the Civil War, and I knew he would be interested in the scholar NPR highlighted.

Turns out, the scholar that NPR had in mind was, in fact, Coates. In a recent special issue of The Atlantic, he has a feature article Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War? The NPR article highlights Coates's interest in the war and in his efforts to raise awareness about what it meant and means for African Americans and the nation in general.

It's cool that NPR referred to Coates as a scholar, and it's even cooler how he earned that title. Folks familiar with Coates's background know that attended but did not finish his undergraduate degree at Howard University. He first became a journalist at a newspaper in Washington D. C. and then went on to work for larger papers, including The Village Voice and Time before becoming a journalist and blogger for The Atlantic in the late summer/early fall of 2008.

In addition to writing about politics, football, black history and consciousness, and various news items, Coates has blogged quite a bit about the Civil War. He published a few posts on the subject of history, black people, and the War in late 2008. But he really took off on his writings about the Civil War in the summer of 2009. In fact, from April 2009 to June 2011, he published more than 300 entries on subject.

In the process of reading books about the Civil War and visiting historic battlegrounds, Coates has actively engaged with the many commenters on his blog. Conversing with a wide range of commenters about the Civil War, Coates often acknowledges, has made it possible for him to sharpen and broaden his ideas. The appearance of his writings and musings on a major venue like The Atlantic gives Coates a visibility that is fairly uncommon for an African American or scholar. (Few magazines and newspaper have black journalists and bloggers as senior editors).

Coates's high level of serious engagement on the subject of the Civil War likely led the folks at NPR to refer to him as a "black scholar" in their headline. A part of me was pleased to see him earn that title. Referring to him as such allows us to expand the idea of what a black scholar is and does.

On the other hand, I wondered about how that idea--black scholar--barely begins to capture what it is Coates does and how his writing has inspired me and so many others. Recently, my students and I finished reading Coates's memoir The Beautiful Struggle. A recall a number of the brothers being inspired by the fact that Coates was a "failed" rapper and a college dropout and yet had still written this wonderful book and was dropping all kinds of knowledge on his blog. Perhaps, they appreciated that Coates was so scholarly without following the traditional path of a scholar.

Collegiate Black Men, Rap, and Poetry

2011-12-10T11:47:00.000-06:00

J. Cole. Drake. Rick Ross. Jay-Z and Kanye's Watch The Throne. Weezy. All of that is just the tip of the iceberg. The young black men that I work with at my university expect me to be conversant in the happenings of rap music. They are far more knowledgeable on the day-to-day details of rap scenes than I am, but they still push me to keep up, sometimes even assigning homework.

"Professor you need to check out this mixtape and then tell me what you think?"
more than one has said to me, referencing a major artist's "underground"
productions.

Back in late September when J. Cole's album Cole World was released, that's all we were talking about. How good is it? How does it compare to J. Cole's various mixtapes? Where do we put J. Cole among all the other rappers out there? We addressed similar issues concerning Drake as his album Take Care was recently released.

A large number of my guys are from Chicago, and thus some of them have a Kanye-bias. I'm from the South, and I might, probably, possibly have some slight soft spots for aspects of my down South folks. Maybe. I also have probably have some biases for strands of East Coast "conscious" rap. Whatever the case, you can imagine the kind of friendly debates that ensue when we start trying to rank the top rappers.

In October, I organized a session with 20 of the guys about the top 10 rappers. That was October and the session was supposed to take one hour. But, we kept going on and on for over a month. We couldn't agree, so we decided to put things on hold until next semester.

There are areas where these guys school me quite a bit on rap music. But I end up doing most of the talking and teaching when we turn our attention to African American poetry. They've had little experience on and exposure to noted poets. For instance, I have to hip them to work by contemporary folks like Kevin Young, Jessica Care Moore, Elizabeth Alexander, Patricia Smith, Tyehimba Jess, and various others.

I've been enjoying the processes of introducing the guys to recent developments in this literary world of verbal art, and I've certainly benefited from the extended conversations that we've had about rap.

Danielle Hall's Black Studies Cultural Commentary

2011-12-10T10:42:00.005-06:00

Danielle Hall, one of our lead contributors, has been making contributions to our blog and the Project on the History of Black Writing (HBW) blog over the course of the semester. She writes about Katherine Dunham, hip hop, film, black women intellectuals, and African American cultural history. She has also facilitated our reading group focused on The Art of Choosing.

Danielle is a Spoken Word poet from St. Louis, Missouri, and a second-year graduate student in the department of history at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where she also serves as a program coordinator for the Black Studies Program and as a Fellow for the Eugene B. Redmond Collection. This past summer, she participated in the Furious Flower Poetry Center Seminar on Sonia Sanchez at James Madison University and the 28th Annual International Katherine Dunham Technique Seminar.

Entries:

2012
The Published Writings of Katherine Dunham, 1964-1979

2011
• December 27: Bodies in Motion: Katherine Dunham & Derrick Rose
• December 9: Divas of the 20th Century Awards Ceremony
• December 7: Katherine Dunham, Redmond & the EBR Digital Collection
• December 5: Ntozake Shange & the EBR Digital Collection
• November 17: Black Womanhood in Their Eyes Were Watching God - HBW blog
• November 1: Liner Notes and 1990s Hip Hop Print and Media Culture - HBW blog
• October 5: Katherine Dunham’s Use of Technology and Dance - HBW blog
• September 30: The Hurston, Dunham, and Hughes Connection
• September 22: Remembering Stormy Weather: Katherine Dunham and Agency
• September 16: Preserving the Legacy of the Katherine Dunham Technique
• August 30: Why We Do (and need) Black Studies @ SIUE

Blogging about Poetry in November 2011

2011-12-10T08:02:00.000-06:00

There were all kinds of things to write about concerning black poetry in November. The biggest, most publicized news was Nikky Finney receiving the National Book Award for Poetry. Her win and the subsequent coverage inspired me to think and write about a range of issues.

Other topics and poets also came up as I blogged during the month. I also added a few entries concerning rap.

[Related content: Blogging about Poetry in 2011]

• November 30: Verbal Effects and Margaret Walker's "Molly Means" Clarissa Richee
• November 29: Responses to Margaret Walker's "For My People"
• November 29: Amiri Baraka's "Digging" - A Powerful Jazz Tribute
• November 28: 10 Poems by Margaret Walker
• November 28: Margaret Walker Week
• November 26: Why the Coverage of Poets Matters
• November 25: Why Poetry Awards Matter
• November 23: Adam Bradley on Common's Creative Process
• November 23: College classes on "The Wire" and Jay-Z
• November 22: From L. Clifton to N. Finney: Achievements of Black Women Poets
• November 21: Places Poets Love
• November 21: Nikky Finney, Facebook & Youtube
• November 19: Some of Adrian Matejka's Jack Johnson poems (online)
• November 19: Reflecting on “From Profit To Prophecy” by Dometi Pongo
• November 19: Redmond Reading at Lovejoy Library
• November 18: Nikky Finney's Poetry-Prose Voice
• November 17: Notes on Memorable Lines from Kevin Young's "Bereavement"
• November 17: Coverage of Nikky Finney's Big Win
• November 16: Winning & Losing Awards, Gaining Prestige in Poetry
• November 15: Ebony magazine & Black Arts Poetry
• November 14: Eric Ruckh & Jeffrey Skoblow Read "Howl" at the Underground
• November 14: Online responses to poem by Reginald Dwayne Betts
• November 14: My First Book Blues
• November 13: Notes on My First Book Signing
• November 12: Jay-Z, Adam Bradley, & the Rap-Poetry Conversations
• November 9; A Notebook on the Work of Amiri Baraka
• November 7: Blogging about Poetry in October 2011
• November 6: 10 Poets who gained widespread attention in their 20s
• November 4: A Prelude to Rita Dove's Anthology?
• November 3: A Notebook on the work of Nikky Finney
• November 2: A Notebook on the work of Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• November 2: Rachel Eliza Griffiths as Zora Neale Hurston's Janie
• November 2: A Poet Channeling the Work of Black Women Novelists
• November 2: And She's a Poet: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• November 2: Online Poems By Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• November 2: And She's a Photographer: Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Eugene B. Redmond: A Human Vertex

2011-12-09T08:14:00.000-06:00

By Cindy Lyles

In mathematics, vertex typically means a corner or a point where lines meet. The term most commonly elaborates on polygonal figures and shapes; rarely does it exemplify a person. It is, however, the most fitting word to describe Eugene B. Redmond while browsing through Lovejoy Library’s EBR African American Cultural Life Digital Collection.

Browsing Redmond’s expansive archive of pictures presents, in one place, many artists, cultural figures, and intellectuals at different events in a multitude of settings. While navigating through the site by one of four search fields — subjects, cities, people, or events, — one finds herself astounded by just how much Redmond has captured through his photographs. Even more amazing is that this vast array of topics congregates through the work of one individual.

Professor emeritus, poet laureate, activist, and playwright constitute some roles Redmond has played. His photography adds to this list making him a cultural historian and human vertex connecting several people, places, and events undeniably integral to and demonstrative of African American cultural life. This digital collection reflects the mathematics of the man; through the one, many meet.

Related: The EBR Digital Collection

Divas of the 20th Century Awards Ceremony

2011-12-09T07:50:00.001-06:00

Award Recipients, Source: EBR Digital Collection

By Danielle Hall

Long before the launch of BET’s “Black Girls Rock” award shows, Eugene B. Redmond captured the Divas of the 20th Century Awards Ceremony in 1991. The photos from the event constitute an important find in the EBR African American Cultural Life digital collection. The Divas event featured African American women writers, dancers, choreographers, scholars, and entertainers.

One photo in particular captured five women of captivating distinction receiving awards and holding boxed roses: Carmen de Lavallade, Maya Angelou, Ruby Dee, Esther Rolle, and Eleanor Traylor.

Redmond's photograph presents an important gathering that highlights amazing African American women whose artistic and intellectual visions have challenged racialized and gendered boundaries, thrusting black womanhood, black livelihood, and black women’s intellectualism into public consciousness.

Related: The EBR Digital Collection

Poster For A 1974 Poetry Festival

2011-12-08T21:46:00.003-06:00

Beyond thousands of photographs, the Eugene B. Redmond (EBR) Collection contains over one hundred posters and programs from conferences, special events, and festivals covering over 30 years. One of the posters that caught my attention was from the 1974 Melvin A. Butler Third Annual Memorial Black Poetry Festival.

Source: EBR Digital Collection

The poster includes photographs of several poets and cultural workers, including Redmond, Pinkie Gordan Lane, Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde, Larry Neal, Dudley Randall, and Jerry W. Ward, Jr., to name a few. The poster also presents a schedule of the festival activities, which was hosted by the Department of English at Southern University in Baton Rogue, Louisiana.

When I first saw the poster in the collection, I recalled an article that I read about the festival in an old issue of Black World magazine. Ward wrote the report on the festival and provided a summary of the proceedings. “One of the most valuable contributions Southern University (Baton Rouge) makes to Black Art,” wrote Ward, “is its annual poetry.”

Ward's article and the poster offer visual and narrative snapshots of Redmond participating in a 1970s event as a poet two years before the publication of his major book Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry (1976). The items also highlight the convergence of a diverse group of writers in a common location as they celebrate poetry and engage in conversations about black verse.

Related: The EBR Digital Collection

The Black Studies Book Sale

2011-12-07T10:37:00.003-06:00

Contributor Vince Manuel checking out Richard Wright

To conclude our education and ideas festival, we will host a book sale Thursday, December 8, from 11:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. on the first floor of Peck Hall.

This book sale, a black books book sale in fact, serves as a fund-raising effort for our program. And more importantly, the book sale provides students with an opportunity to browse through a fairly large collection of books by and about African Americans.

The chance to look over hundreds of black books in one place can be an important activity for raising consciousness. There's all kinds of intellectual and intrinsic value about sifting through a "black studies" section of a makeshift bookstore.

So if you're around, stop by. Bring a friend. Our books are between $1 - $5. Even if you don't plan to buy anything, it might be worth stopping by to check out what we have.

Notes on Adrian Matejka's "Fisticuffs"

2011-12-07T08:49:00.005-06:00

Yesterday at "A Long Walk with Adrian Matejka & Jack Johnson," an exhibit featuring poems by Matejka concerning the first black heavyweight boxing champion, I asked a few people to drop me a line via email and let me know what poems stood out to them and why. A number of folks emailed me about Matejka's poem "Fisticuffs."

The part about the poem that many of them found intriguing was that Johnson, as channeled by Matejka, has a specific name for his punch, and that name is connected to a former lover.

"I named that back / punch Clara," writes Matejka. "No man has ever / met my Clara & was still standing / to talk about it." He goes on to note that "The woman herself / quit me, carried the gift jewels / & my roll with her." He traveled to St. Louis to retrieve his belongings, but Clara only ended up taking the rest of Johnson's money before leaving him again.

I'll likely compel some of my young respondents to stutter, if not rework their answers, when I go: "hold up, what do you know about naming a punch after your girlfriend or boyfriend who stole your heart and money?" Everyone will start pleading the 5th.

Whatever the case, there's something alluring for readers and listeners about the idea Matejka presents concerning this powerful punch being linked to the hurt Johnson's former woman caused him.

Katherine Dunham, Redmond & the EBR Digital Collection

2011-12-07T07:53:00.001-06:00

By Danielle Hall

It would be difficult to discuss the EBR African American Cultural Life Digital Collection without highlighting the remarkable photos of Redmond with the legendary Katherine Dunham. The friendship between Redmond and Dunham dates back to 1967 when Redmond met Dunham for the first time while teaching at Southern Illinois University’s Experiment in Higher Education (EHE).

During that time, Dunham had established the Performing Arts Training Center (PATC) in East St. Louis- also under the EHE. Redmond visited the PATC often, offering his services and community knowledge, and soon became a counselor and senior consultant there.

Dunham was influential to the East St. Louis community and especially to Redmond. She helped him shape and understand the relationships between literary, cultural, visual art, dance, music, poetry, black diaspora, and drums as the heartbeat of culture. Redmond was greatly influenced by his work with Dunham; hence, “drum voices” would appear in the title of his study, Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry, A Critical History (1976) and Drumvoices Revue, a literary journal.

A photo of Redmond with Dunham on her 91st birthday July 2, 2000, and the large birthday card is one of five photos from the online archived photo collection that captures one of several birthday celebrations Redmond celebrated with her over the course of a nearly four-decade friendship. Issues of Drumvoices Revue contained images of and interviews with Dunham as well as some of Redmond's own poetic tributes to Dunham and her contributions to dance and her community. The digital collection offers us an important opportunity to see notable figures such as Dunham in her later years and helps us to stay connected to what often becomes a distant memory of our American greats.

Related: The EBR Digital Collection

Communal Inspirations & the EBR Digital Collection

2011-12-07T07:51:00.001-06:00

By Clarissa Richee

Photographs from that EBR African American Cultural Life Digital Collection that have caught my attention show a myriad of black artists, actors, and writers interacting with various groups of African Americans by attending writer’s conferences, speaking at schools, or participating in local festivals and events. What struck me was the ways that these accomplished blacks were pictured, not as celebrities, but as ordinary people, getting involved and looking to make a difference.

For many college students, the idea of a modern black community is tenuous at best. Many feel that in this day and age, notions of a unified African American society, along with the strength of black-centered movements, is a thing of the past, and I believe it is something many people miss. For many young people, the idea that black people are on their own, and there appears to be little camaraderie or fellowship.

The Redmond photos, however, contradict that type of thinking. One photo depicts author, Raymond Patterson, teaching and interacting amiably with a group of college students. Another shows Danny Glover standing with a group of administrators from the East St. Louis board of education. Yet another shows Terry McMillan and Elizabeth Nunez talking together at a Midwest Black Writers and Thinkers Symposium.

It is precisely because of the fame and prominence of these individuals that the moments depicted in the snapshots resonate so strongly. It is inspiring to see the sense of community in the images and to see that so many accomplished figures aren’t living in a world so far away. It really means something that they are sharing their success and encouraging others to see that similar achievements are not out of reach.

Related: The EBR Digital Collection

Background on Eugene B. Redmond's Extensive Photographic Work

2011-12-06T20:00:00.003-06:00

In 1976, Eugene B. Redmond published Drumvoices, his monumental study of African American poetry. Who could've known then that one consequence of that book would have been the development of one of the largest photograph collections of black writers ever assembled? Looking back, in some ways, Drumvoices seemed like preparation for the production of such an extensive collection of images.

Redmond's book covered the works of more than one hundred poets. The process of researching the history of African American poetry had led Redmond to meet dozens and dozens of writers, cultural workers, and supporters of the arts. As a poet, he also shared stages across the country with multiple artists, and his work with the formation of black studies programs provided him to participate in a range of diverse communities.

In 1986, Redmond co-founded the EBR Writers Club in East St. Louis. Although Redmond had been taking photographs here and there for over a decade already, the creation of the writers' club gave him added incentive to provide an extensive visual record of literary activities. In 1991, he became the founding editor of Drumvoices Revue literary and cultural arts magazine. Working with the publication led Redmond to document and publish large numbers of photographs of writers giving readings and interacting with fellow artists.

Redmond's collection of photographs now includes more than 100,000 images. He has taken thousands of photographs of major black writers, including Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, and Quincy Troupe. He also stuck to his multi-disciplinary roots working black studies programs by documenting the activities of a range of cultural workers such as Katherine Dunham, Miles Davis, Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, SIUE students, and generations of East St. Louis citizens.

The photographs in the EBR African American Cultural Life Digital Collection provide a sense of Redmond's extensive photographic work and approaches to collecting materials related to artistic culture over the last couple of decades. The EBR digital collection is a powerful repository of the work that Redmond has been since at least the production of Drumvoices.

Related: The EBR Digital Collection

Adrian Matejka's Jack Johnson Poems

2011-12-06T07:44:00.000-06:00

In 2005, poet and professor Adrian Matejka began researching the life and career of the first African American heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson (1878 – 1946). At the time, Matejka wasn't drafting and writing poems. He was primarily researching—reading books, studying old newspaper clippings, and taking notes.

“I spent two years,” said Matejka, “reading biographies and books about boxing and books about African American life at the turn of the century...before I ever wrote a poem.”

As he researched Johnson’s “extraordinary life,” Matejka wondered why “no one has written a book of poems about this guy?” He noticed that a few individual poems had been written about Johnson, but no full-length volumes of poetry had been written. That absence motivated Matejka to produce his Jack Johnson project.

In 2007, he started writing. Many of his pieces were persona poems, written in the voice of Johnson. Matejka's “Sporting Life” and “Cannibalism” were among his earliest Johnson poems to appear in print. Between 2008 and 2011, Matejka published several poems in various print and online publications.

Matejka’s poems on Jack Johnson will appear as a book-length volume a year or so from now. In the meantime, he has granted black studies @ siue permission to display some of his poems from the upcoming book. A year ago, we organized a visual display featuring his poems and photographs of Johnson. For this year’s exhibit, we have taken some of the audio recordings of Matejka’s poems and had our long-time contributor Al Henderson add instrumentals.

Related: A Long Walk with Adrian Matejka & Jack Johnson

A Long Walk with Adrian Matejka & Jack Johnson

2011-12-05T16:41:00.001-06:00

As part of our education and ideas festival, we will host a mobile audio exhibit, "A Long Walk with Adrian Matejka & Jack Johnson." The exhibit will take place at Lovejoy Library on Tuesday, December 6, at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., and on Wednesday, December 7, at 1:00 p.m.

The exhibit showcases poems by Matejka about the first African American heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson. Matejka's poems, many written as persona poems, channel the first-person perspective of Johnson as well as his friends and foes. In addition to including poems, the exhibit also contains Matejka’s commentary about his overall approach to producing his project on Johnson.

We refer to the exhibit as "a long walk" because visitors are free to move around the library while listening to the poems and commentary on our audio devices.

Metro East & the EBR Collection

2011-12-05T12:25:00.002-06:00

Hughes poster, EBR Digital Collection

By Clarissa Richee

While searching through the Eugene B. Redmond African American Cultural Life Digital Collection, one of the most striking and interesting discoveries for me were the roles of St. Louis and East St. Louis played in the furthering of Black Arts. Often when we hear about the Black Arts Movement, places such as Chicago, New York, or even Atlanta come to mind. However, right here, close to home, St. Louis and East St. Louis reveal a cultural wealth of African American music, poetry, and performance.

One poster in particular announces the second annual Langston Hughes St. Louis World Black Poetry Festival. With a bright orange background and bold type, the poster details a myriad of events, celebrating various forms of poetry and African American rhetorical traditions, from rap, to haiku to open-mic readings. These events, to take place over various parts of St. Louis, East St. Louis, and Illinois, offer a chance for people young and old to demonstrate their passion and creativity and to encounter poetry in ways that extend beyond the page.

Too often perhaps, East St. Louis is painted as a grunge and dangerous city, one many wouldn’t suspect as an important historical center for the promotion of black culture. However, it is wonderful to know that is and has been a Black Arts community thriving here, and that there are organizations, festivals, programs and opportunities for our people to get involved.

Related: The EBR Digital Collection

Ntozake Shange & the EBR Collection

2011-12-05T11:29:00.002-06:00

By Danielle Hall

Ntozake Shange, source: EBR Digital Collection

Scholars, researchers, visitors and friends of the university or Redmond will find the EBR African American Cultural Life Digital Collection to be a vibrant trove of images spanning thirty plus years of major writers, scholars, artists, events, themes, and movements documenting black culture and life. One of the unique characteristics of the Collection has been Redmond’s ability to capture major figures in history and also the atmosphere of candid moments as well as everyday life.

One of the images that stood out to me was of Ntozake Shange in February 1991. Here, she was seated with a pen in her right hand and leaning on a table with her left her hand on her forehead. She looks relaxed and in thought or conversation following what seems to have been a book/poetry reading and signing when taken together with three other images of her with the same date.

Typically, we tend to limit our focus of writers and artists to their “textual” productions or representations, and very seldom are we able to see the “behind-the-scenes” thought processes, inner-workings, and manifestations of work, especially by capturing African American women and other women of color in non-derogatory images or spaces.

Related: The EBR Digital Collection

Utilizing the EBR Digital Collection

2011-12-05T08:37:00.000-06:00

So far, over 350 individuals are featured in photographs or named as participants on included posters in the EBR African American Cultural Life Digital Collection. Seventeen cities in the U.S. are represented as well as Ibadan, Nigeria, where Eugene B. Redmond traveled in 2003 and 2004.

The digital collection contains posters and photographs from 11 different conferences; posters of readings by Redmond; and photographs of Katherine Dunham birthday celebrations and the Toni Morrison Nobel Prize celebration hosted by Maya Angelou at her home in North Carolina.

There are seven clickable images at the top of the home page that execute different types of searches. Clicking on the image of Maya Angelou on the home page, for example, retrieves images about women writers, and clicking on the poster of Martin Luther King, Jr. retrieves the 24 posters in the collection. The different menus on the home page can also be used to search for a particular person, event, city, or subject.

Each photograph contains metadata--a description of the people in it, the date, and the event. In some cases, information was not available. If readers are aware of missing information about an image or item, they can submit additional info in the "Comments” section on each page.

Related: The EBR Digital Collection

**********
Mary Z. Rose, Lovejoy Library Catalog and Metadata Librarian, provided content and information for the above entry.

Redmond, Dunham & the EBR Digital Collection

2011-12-05T08:11:00.002-06:00

By Cindy Lyles

One particular photo from the EBR African American Cultural Life Digital Collection shows Redmond and Katherine Dunham seated side-by-side engaging in conversation. The caption explains that others are in Redmond and Dunham’s presence only they are not photographed, thus highlighting the two prominent East St. Louisians.

When coming to terms with the artistic and intellectual legacy of East St. Louis, Redmond and Dunham are two essential figures on account of their literary, cultural, and activist works that have influenced many. In an age when the city’s tarnished reputation to the broader public overshadows some of its positive attributes, it is easy to forget the city's important intellectual and artistic traditions. The snapshot of Redmond and Dunham is a reminder of that rich heritage.

A common sentiment among youth I volunteer in East St. Louis is that the city does not produce people of prominence. Much like Nathanael in the biblical gospels inquiring about Nazareth, the youth ask, “Can anything good come from here?” I, like Philip responding to Nathanael, say to them, “Come and see.” This Redmond and Dunham photo is an invitation to come and see the good coming from East St. Louis.

The EBR Digital Collection makes aspects of East St. Louis's intellectual and cultural more apparent to large numbers of people.

Related: The EBR Digital Collection

The EBR Digital Collection

2011-12-05T08:04:00.017-06:00

As part of the continuing process of establishing the Eugene B. Redmond Collection, faculty and staff at Lovejoy Library recently launched the EBR African American Cultural Life Digital Collection. The site contains more than 250 total items, including 230 photos and 24 posters from the EBR Collection.

A poet and professor, Redmond has been and remains a major cultural historian, amassing a photograph collection of more than 100,000 images, hundreds of books and magazines, and dozens of conference programs and posters over the last four decades. Redmond's materials serve as one of the largest records of African American literary and cultural activity ever assembled by an individual.

The digital collection provides a glimpse of the holdings in the EBR Collection. This week, as part of our education and ideas festival, we're providing a series of blog entries about the collection highlighting some of our experiences looking through the materials online.

Entries:
The EBR Digital Collection
Utilizing the EBR Digital Collection By H. Rambsy II
Redmond, Dunham & the EBR Digital Collection By Cindy Lyles
Metro East & the EBR Digital Collection By Clarissa Richee
Ntozake Shange & the EBR Digital Collection By Danielle Hall
Background on Eugene B. Redmond's Extensive Photographic Work By H. Rambsy II
Communal Inspirations & the EBR Digital Collection By Clarissa Richee
Katherine Dunham, Redmond & the EBR Digital Collection By Danielle Hall
Poster for A 1974 Poetry Festival By H. Rambsy II
Divas of the 20th Century Awards Ceremony By Danielle Hall
Eugene B. Redmond: A Human Vertex By Cindy Lyles

Education & Ideas Festival

2011-12-05T07:34:00.005-06:00

This week, we conclude our semester of projects and activities with a series of “public thinking” events, blog entries about Lovejoy Library’s EBR Digital Collection, a production of a mobile audio exhibit focusing on poet Adrian Matejka’s writings on the boxer Jack Johnson, and a black books book sale.

Our coordination of several activities related to education and ideas in concentrated places and time led us to refer to what we’re doing as a “festival” as opposed to something more formal like a “symposium” or “conference.”

Public Thinking Events: For two years now, we’ve organized events where large numbers of students associated with the Haley Scholars Academy and our orientation courses for first-year black men and women gather to share and exchange ideas. This week’s events will focus on: 1.) Educational environments, diversity, and shifting demographics and 2.) Mind work—the pursuit of introspective thinking. The events will take place on the first floor of Lovejoy Library on Tuesday, December 6, from 11:00 a.m. – 3:45 p.m., and on Wednesday, December 7, from 12:00 p.m. – 2 p.m.

The EBR Digital Collection: This week, we’ll run a series of blog entries focusing on Lovejoy Library’s Eugene B. Redmond (EBR) Collection. The library has recently expanded its digital collection of the Redmond materials. Our contributors, Clarissa Richee, Cindy Lyles, and Danielle Hall will assist me in writing about the appearance of the materials from the collection online.

A Long Walk with Adrian Matejka and Jack Johnson: On Tuesday, December 6 from 1 – 3 and then Wednesday, December 7 from 1 – 2, at Lovejoy Library, attendees can use our audio devices to listen to selections from Adrian Matejka’s upcoming book on Jack Johnson.

The Black Books Book Sale: Thursday, December 8, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., we’ll host a book sale featuring works by or about African Americans. The books are $1 to $5. The book sale serves as a fundraiser for the program and as an opportunity for students to view large numbers of black books, even if they do not plan to buy. The book sale takes place on the first floor of Peck Hall.

Recent Rap as Poetry Debates, Conversations

2011-12-04T11:51:00.002-06:00

A year ago when Jay-Z was making the rounds promoting his book Decoded, he frequently made the point that rap was poetry. Jay-Z's book, his "rap as poetry" proposition, and the appearance of Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois's edited work The Anthology of Rap, which was released right before Decoded, helped spark all kinds of conversations about whether rap was poetry and the implications--positive and negative--of thinking of the musical form in that way.

The "rap as poetry" debate was one of the more visible conversations concerning African American verse last year. Notably, and unfortunately from my view, the conversations did not touch on the work of actual black poets enough. There was, for instance, inadequate attention given to links between rap artists and African American literary artists. There was also little talk about where spoken word poetry fit within the discussion.

In May 2011, the "rap as poetry" conversation got more attention when the rapper Common was invited to participate in a poetry reading at the White House. Most of the media coverage concerning Common's invitation to the White House event focused on whether it was a problem for the Obamas to invite a rapper who made previous harsh comments against a former president, George W. Bush. Less publicized though was the issue of how inviting a rapper to a poetry reading could be viewed as an endorsement of rap as poetry.

This semester, Michael Eric Dyson is teaching a sociology course at Georgetown University focused on Jay-Z. The course has received substantial news coverage and wide-ranging discussion. Although the course is not a literature course per se, much of the coverage concentrates on the idea that Dyson and his students spend time analyzing Jay-Z's lyrics in much the same way students might analyze works by poets. Even if the rapper isn't a poet, the Dyson course and the media attention the class is receiving suggests that Jay-Z's lyrics are worthy of serious analysis.

So, the rap as poetry discussion becomes, at some level, questions about the extents to which we should take rap seriously.

Obama Administration & Increased Racial Diversity in Higher Education

2011-12-04T07:45:00.001-06:00

This past Friday, the Departments of Justice and Education sent a 10-page document "Guidance on the Voluntary use of Race to Achieve Diversity in Post-secondary Education" to colleges and universities encouraging them to work to improve racial diversity on their campuses.

The document serves as one way that the Obama administration is working against "race-neutral" policies proposed and endorsed by the Bush administration and a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. In an article about the document, New York Times journalist Sam Dillon explains that in order to achieve racial diversity the "guidelines" suggest "that institutions use other criteria — students’ socioeconomic profiles, residential instability, the hardships they have overcome — that are often proxies for race."

The document opens noting that there are "benefits of participating in diverse learning environments":

Learning environments comprised of students from diverse backgrounds provide an enhanced educational experience for individual students. Interacting with students who have different perspectives and life experiences can raise the level of academic and social discourse both inside and outside the classroom; indeed, such interaction is an education in itself. By choosing to create this kind of rich academic environment, educational institutions help students sharpen their critical thinking and analytical skills.

The Poet as Essayist: Rita Dove's Response to Helen Vendler

2011-12-03T09:13:00.006-06:00

Yesterday, The New York Review of Books published Rita Dove's serious and extended response to Helen Vendler's critique of Dove's anthology The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century Poetry. Vendler had previously criticized various aspects of the anthology, and Dove responded by offering reasons that Vendler's assessments were flawed.

"Helen Vendler seems to have allowed outrage to get the better of her, leading to a number of illogical assertions and haphazard conclusions," wrote Dove. "I cannot let her get away with building her house of cards on falsehoods and innuendo." She goes on to detail the major ways that Vendler's biases intrude on her ability to offer a balanced and accurate assessment of The Penguin Anthology.

Here's Dove's hard-hitting closing paragraph:

The amount of vitriol in Helen Vendler’s review betrays an agenda beyond aesthetics. As a result, she not only loses her grasp on the facts, but her language, admired in the past for its theoretical elegance, snarls and grouses, sidles and roars as it lurches from example to counterexample, misreading intent again and again. Whether propelled by academic outrage or the wild sorrow of someone who feels betrayed by the world she thought she knew—how sad to witness a formidable intelligence ravished in such a clumsy performance.

Wow. You don't see that kind of response in a high-profile venue every day.

It's also uncommon to see a major poet, much less a major black poet, assuming the role of essayist and taking a major white literary critic to task. Of course, we've seen glimpses of Dove's ability to respond like this before. Back in 2004, she wrote a letter to the editor to Poetry magazine where she critiqued Garrison Keillor's anthology Good Poems and the positive reviews of the anthology given its absences.

Dove's response in The New York Review of Books drew quite a bit of praise and cheers from folks on facebook and twitter. Folks were rightly pleased to see Dove talk back to and take a stand against the Vendler's problematic review.

I wondered if the positive response to Dove's rebuttal would inspire her and other major poets to provide more essays in the future. Or, would the value of "talking back" also inspire her and other poets of her stature to take up more "militant" poetry in order to critique the kind of "clumsy performance" offered by folks such as Vendler.

Related: A Prelude to Rita Dove's Anthology?

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Medical Discrimination

2011-12-02T08:19:00.003-06:00

An early chapter in Alondra Nelson's book Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination prompted me to give some thought to historic instances of medical mistreatment addressed by African American writers. I mentioned an episode from Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. And now, a narrative from the scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr's life came to mind.

In an essay in The Atlantic, excerpted from his book Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness?, the writer Toure explains Gates's experience going to a doctor in West Virginia when he was 14 years old when he broke his hip and hurt his knee. After an x-ray, the doctor determined that "nothing was wrong" and viewed Gates's pain as "psychosomatic," wrote Toure.

Gates told Toure that his physical pain was dismissed by the doctor based on racial biases. "White guy thought I was imagining things. And that's why I walk with a cane and I've had a dozen operations since I was fourteen."

Looking back on the terrible, racist diagnosis, how does Gates feel? "I hope that motherfucker's burning in hell," Gates informed Toure.

The treatment that Gates received from the doctor is part of a larger history of medical discrimination experienced by African Americans. That kind of treatment, Nelson's book indicates, gave the Black Panther Party and other groups even more motivation to participate in African American health activism.

Related: A Notebook on Body and Soul by Alondra Nelson

Margaret Walker, Struggle & Poetry magazine in the late 1930s

2011-12-02T07:46:00.002-06:00

Margaret Walker's poem "The Struggle Staggers Us" appeared in the July 1938 issue of Poetry magazine. Walker's poem expressed a communal view as the "our" and "us" of her poem, for example, signaled a collective struggle.

I've wondered how readers viewed that poem, a sonnet in fact, about "struggle" in 1938. I'm also fascinated by the idea that a black writer interested in struggle would submit her work to Poetry during the late 1930s.

But then, why not submit to Poetry? "For My People," Walker's most famous poem, had appeared there, so why not this struggle poem as well? Maybe she submitted them around the same time since they appeared so close. Her poem "We Have Been Believers" appeared in the March 1939 issue of the publication.

During the late 1930s, Walker was working with the Federal Writers' Project in Chicago. She interacted with artists such as Katherine Dunham, Frank Yerby, and Richard Wright. Talk of various kinds of struggle--economic and political--were a part of the regular conversation. And beyond any concerns about large-scale struggles, Walker acknowledges seemingly small, detailed concerns as well: "There is a journey from the Me to You," she writes. "There is a journey from the You to Me."

Interacting with cultural workers and literary artists in Chicago, Walker was certainly aware that she was in the city where Poetry was based. She could've hand-delivered her poems. The appearance of three of her works in Poetry in the late 1930s was a major achievement for a poet then in her early 20s. The publications likely gave her a sense of confidence and accomplishment; the appearances certainly led to national visibility for her work.

Walker's poem was not the first work to address struggle. But looking back, the poem's focus and its publication in Poetry does seem significant. And as a piece by one of the then emerging black artists working in Chicago during the late 1930s, "The Struggle Staggers Us" is an important literary artifact from a vital moment in African American cultural history.

Related: Margaret Walker Week