Sarah Arbuthnot Lendt and the Invisible Workings of African American Literary Studies

Sarah Arbuthnot Lendt making announcements at the NEH Black Poetry Institute, July 2015

A few months back, I heard something surprising. Sarah Arbuthnot Lendt, the longtime program coordinator/budget director/planner for the Project on the History of Black Writing (HBW), told me that she didn’t even live in Lawrence, Kansas during the time of all those successful NEH institutes run by Maryemma Graham at the University of Kansas. 

Sarah was commuting from somewhere else.

But whenever we, the participants, arrived for the day’s events, Sarah always was already there. Folks stopped by the table where she sat to ask questions about anything and everything: payments, lodging details, transportation, the room temperature, even (no lie) how to get a particular brand of bubble bath, etc. 

We’d formally refer to Sarah as a program coordinator or administrator, but on a practical level, for our everyday needs, wants, and dilemmas, we viewed her as a... no, we viewed her as the problem-solver extraordinaire.

She played that role for the 2015 institute, and before that the 2013 institute, and before that the 2010 one. She also held lead administrative roles for a program from 2015 to 2019, and then again for a separate program between 2021 and 2024.

For each of those projects, somewhere out there is a final report or white paper. Sarah wrote or co-wrote those documents or gathered the necessary materials to make them happen. She rarely signed her name, instead attributing the reports to “HBW staff” or the broader team of project contributors.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, how much invisible labor supports major African American literary studies projects. Sometimes that labor takes the form of program coordination. Sometimes it’s editorial work. Sometimes, it’s meetings, documentation, or the quiet organizing that holds everything together without ever demanding the spotlight.

It's worth thinking about how this invisible work facilitates African American literary studies.  

Related

• Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement: Reflections

When an advanced group of scholars converged to study Black poetry

Participants in the NEH Summer Institute on Black Poetry at the University of Kansas, July 2015

One of the great things about Black poetry is that even advanced scholars still feel they have more to learn, especially by gathering with others to deepen and expand their knowledge. Without that shared spirit of curiosity, there’s no way we could’ve brought together so many talented people for the NEH Summer Institute, Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement, in July 2015.

The participants came from across the country and were at various stages in their professional careers. All of them arrived with accomplishments in literary studies. Yet, they chose to be there because they wanted to learn more about the histories and evolving dimensions of Black poetry.

Looking back, it’s striking to remember that room full of intellectuals, artists, researchers, and educators. Everyone was there with a common purpose to develop stronger, more effective ways of understanding and teaching Black poetry, so they could pass those lessons on to their students, readers, and broader communities.

They did it. They're still doing it.

Related: 

• Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement: Reflections

Maryemma Graham, NEH, and African American literary studies

Maryemma Graham, NEH Summer Institute, Kanas, July 2015

Here are two interrelated things we haven’t talked about enough:

1.) The decimation of the NEH by the current administration can—and will—have devastating effects on African American literary studies.

 
2.) Maryemma Graham has been one of our most crucial forces in implementing NEH Summer Institutes and other NEH-funded projects focused on African American literary studies.

There hasn’t been enough research or writing on the role and impact of the NEH in shaping our field, so it’s not surprising that many people simply aren’t aware of how summer institutes and other initiatives extended scholarly contributions and ideas well beyond the walls of academia. Folks often don’t realize how rare and important it was to bring together veteran scholars, rising scholars, and K–12 educators to focus on subjects in African American literature.

Consider just three of the many NEH-funded projects that Graham led at the University of Kansas: In 2010, "Making the Wright Connection: Reading Native Son, Black Boy, and Uncle Tom’s Children;" In 2013, "Don’t Deny My Voice: Reading and Teaching African American Poetry." And in 2015, "Black Poetry after the Black Arts Movement."

Those projects brought together several dozen specialists in African American literary studies and approximately 75 summer scholars to study Black literature and literary history, and then take what they learned back to their classrooms and communities. It was an incredible undertaking. Just imagine the intellectual and practical benefits for the wide networks of scholars, educators, students, general readers, and more.

But what happens when funding and institutional support for such projects disappears or is drastically defunded? We find ourselves in a position where an entire generation of professionals and students may be unaware of what they missed, of what could’ve been.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people benefited directly or indirectly from the many NEH projects that Maryemma Graham led, supported by her large, evolving teams of contributors. We knew, at the time, that what Graham was doing was special. But I don’t think we fully understood how fleeting those moments were, or how fragile that kind of support has always been.

If and when we find ourselves in better circumstances, it will be because we studied, took note of, and passed along the lessons from the gatherings and projects she organized.

Related:

• Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement: Reflections

You forgot to tell Evie Shockley how she unknowingly sparked all that Black poetry commentary

Evie Shockley at the NEH Black Poetry institute at the University of Kansas, July 2015

I can’t remember if I ever mentioned here how poet-scholar Evie Shockley served as a crucial motivator for the poetry-related work on this blog. 

Really, it’s true. Some poets, not in a mean or rude way, will flat-out tell you that they don’t have the time or interest to read what scholars write about poetry. That’s understandable, I guess. Sometimes our work is necessarily dull and meticulous in ways that creative writers, not to mention the general public, might find off-putting.

A lot of times, if you write about Black poetry, you don’t dwell on the indifference. You just keep it moving.

But every once in a while, hold up, every once in a while, you luck up and encounter someone like Evie Shockley. A noted poet and scholar. And she shows up at just the right at the moment when you’re just beginning to write about Black poetry on your little bitty blog. You're nervous and uncertain and a bit directionless. And she encourages you to keep going. She informs and reminds you that what you’re doing matters. That the writing and reading and researching and blogging you’re doing is valuable. It’s useful. It counts.

And when you get that kind of encouragement, from someone like an Evie Shockley, like the Evie Shockley, then, well, you just keep it moving. You go from writing 3, 7, maybe 13 blog entries per year to publishing over 200 entries a year for a stretch. All focused on Black poetry, Black poets, and Black literary history. You got so immersed in the work that you forgot to tell Evie Shockley how she unknowingly sparked all that Black poetry commentary productivity.

But even if you do tell her she was one of the key motivators behind the output, she’ll smile, say “thanks,” and probably go right back to her usual: “Have you read so-and-so’s new book? Or so-and-so’s latest poem? It’s really great.”

Related: 

• Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement: Reflections

When Joanne Gabbin organizes a Black poetry gathering

Joanne Gabbin, Houston A. Baker, Jr., and Jerry W. Ward, Jr., September 2004, James Madison University

"When Ma Rainey / Comes to town," writes Sterling Brown. "Folks from anyplace / Miles aroun’,/ From Cape Girardeau,/ Poplar Bluff,/ Flocks in to hear/ Ma do her stuff."

We could apply a remix of that for one of our greatest Black poetry organizers. 

When Joanna Gabbin 

Organizes a poetry gathering

Folks from anyplace

Miles around

From here and there and everywhere 

Flock in to hear.

Well, I'm not a poet, but you get the picture. 

First in 1994, then in 2004, and again in 2014, and with the torch passed in 2024, James Madison University became the site of epic gatherings of Black poets--each one shaped by the vision of Joanne Gabbin and her Furious Flower poetry events. 

Gabbin was fresh off her most recent gathering in 2015 when she joined the NEH institute Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement at the University of Kansas. Beyond the landmark conferences every ten years, she also founded the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University. The center, in its own words, "is committed to ensuring the visibility, inclusion, and critical consideration of Black poets in American letters, as well as in the whole range of educational curricula."

Through those major conferences and smaller seminars focused on key poets, Gabbin addressed a crucial challenge: how to bring large numbers of poets and educators into the same rooms. We have academic conferences for scholars and educators, and we have festivals that showcase creative writers. But bringing both communities together in distinct and purposeful ways is one of Gabbin’s great, yet often underdiscussed, contributions.

While Black poetry remains one of the most densely populated art forms, it continues to be neglected in scholarly discourse. Part of the reason is that poets and educators don’t always communicate enough. There’s too often a gap between those who write the poetry and those who teach it. With her gatherings, both conferences and seminars, Gabbin quietly and powerfully addressed those issues.

No wonder Maryemma Graham called on Gabbin to participate in those NEH institutes. Graham knew, as we all do, that special things happen when Joanna Gabbin comes to town.

Related: 

• Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement: Reflections

Jerry W. Ward, Jr. and Black Poetry

Jerry W. Ward, Jr. and Tyehimba Jess, July 2015 at the NEH Black Poetry Institute, University of Kansas

In the summer of 1997, I first began to get some sense that one of my undergrad professors Jerry W. Ward Jr. had a highly respected reputation beyond our little campus at Tougaloo College. On campus, he was well-known for his high standards, along with deep and expansive knowledge about literature. But that was about it. 

During the summer of 1997, I was a rising junior and participating in a UNCF/Mellon program at Emory University. At some point, a PhD student from Emory learned that I was a student at Tougaloo and said to me with a tone of disbelief, "you work with Jerry Ward? The Jerry Ward?" Before then, I hadn't thought enough about Ward's scholarly writings and his attendance at literature conferences and other gatherings taking place across the country. 

When I returned to campus that fall, I had far more questions for Dr. Ward. He was amused that I was "discovering" who he was beyond Tougaloo. More importantly, we ramped up our conversations about literature, Richard Wright, the Black Arts Movement, and more. I'm not sure if it was simply becoming more experienced as a student or the outside knowledge that I had this nationally-recognized resource right at Tougaloo.

Either way, I began to benefit from Dr. Ward's knowledge of Black poetry, among other topics. I was thus pleased many years later when we got the opportunity to collaborate on NEH Summer Institutes directed by Maryemma Graham at the University of Kansas, first with "Making the Wright Connection: Reading Native Son, Black Boy, and Uncle Tom's Children" in 2010, "Don’t Deny My Voice: Reading and Teaching African American Poetry" in 2013, and "Black Poetry after the Black Arts Movement" in 2015. 

Those NEH Black poetry institutes gave Dr. Ward and me opportunities to work with others to share knowledge about the history and teaching of African American verse. In 2013, we collaborated with several resident faculty and 25 summer scholars, and we did the same in 2015. That’s a sizeable group of people studying, thinking about, and discussing African American poetry.

We may have taken Dr. Ward's participation for granted. That is, we didn’t think it unusual that he was a leading force in conceptualizing those NEH institutes. But limited resources have made it increasingly difficult for faculty in literary studies at HBCUs, or at teaching-focused institutions of any kind, to establish such well-respected reputations in scholarly discourse.

After all, Dr. Ward taught four courses per semester for much of his decades-long career, lived on a modest salary, rarely had access to a research-level library, and lacked the kinds of travel budgets that are standard for many others. Yet he produced thoughtful and illuminating scholarly writings and consistently participated in, and even led, scholarly gatherings like the NEH institutes on Black poetry.

Related: 

• Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement: Reflections

• A Notebook on Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

Tracking the Reception of Colson Whitehead and his Books

Since May 2001 with the release of Colson Whitehead's second novel John Henry Days, I've worked on a bibliography citing coverage of his work in newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals. 

In 2011 with the release of Zone One, I began producing public coverage roundups of Whitehead's books, continuing with The Noble Hustle (2014) The Underground Railroad (2016), The Nickel Boys (2019), Harlem Shuffle (2021), and Crook Manifesto (2023)

I worked with a designer to produce a visualization on some of the novels, Covering Colson Whitehead, 2016 - 2023.

Related:

• A Notebook on the Work of Colson Whitehead

Novels by Black Writers, 2025 - 2000

Here's a roundup of novels published since 2000. As always, it's a partial list. The list emerges from the work that I've done on the Novel Generator Machine.

2025

• Til Death by Busayo Matuluko

• The Life of Herod the Great by Zora Neale Hurston
• Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory
• When the Harvest Comes by Denne Michele Norris
• Zeal by Morgan Jerkins
• Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
• The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley
• The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
• The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
• Saint Monkey by Jacinda Townsend
• Mother Country by Jacinda Townsend
• Trigger Warning by Jacinda Townsend
• The Love Lyric by Kristina Forest
• King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby
• Blood in the Water by Tiffany D. Jackson
• The Scammer by Tiffany D. Jackson

• Marvel: Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

2024 

• The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
• James by Percival Everett
• A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams
• Long After We Are Gone by Terah Shelton Harris
• Faebound by Saara El-Arifi
• Ours by Phillip B. Williams
• The Queen of Sugar Hill--A Novel of Hattie McDaniel by ReShonda Tate
• The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste 
• One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole

• Smoke Kings by Jahmal Mayfield

• The Unicorn Woman by Gayl Jones

• American Ghoul by Michelle McGill-Vargas

• Out of Body by Nia Davenport

• 54 Miles by Leonard Pitts Jr.

• Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham

• The Queen of Sugar Hill: A Novel of Hattie McDaniel by ReShonda Tate

• This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan

• The Eternal Ones by Namina Forna

• Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi

• One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon

2023 

• Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
• Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
• Every Man a King—A King Oliver Novel by Walter Mosley 

• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
• The Fraud by Zadie Smith
• Lone Women by Victor LaValle
• Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

• The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis
• A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo
• Dangerous Love by Ben Okri
• All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby
• The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
• Hide by Tracy Clark
• Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
• River Spirit by Leila Aboulela
• The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle by Tendai Huchu
• Black Candle Women by Diane Marie Brown
• An Autobiography of Skin by Lakiesha Carr
• The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
• The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley
• You Never Know by Connie Briscoe
• Maame by Jessica George
• House of Cotton by Monica Brashears
• The Art of Scandal by Regina Black
• Liquid Snakes by Stephen Kearse
• Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison
• Gone Like Yesterday by Janelle M. Williams
• Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb
• Goodbye Earl by Leesa Cross-Smith
• The New Naturals by Gabriel Bump
• Promise by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• Night Wherever We Go: A novel by Tracey Rose Peyton
• No One Dies Yet by Kobby Ben Ben
• Last Seen in Lapaz by Kwei Quartey
• The Wildest Sun by Asha Lemmie
• Decent People by De'Shawn Charles Winslow
• Token by Beverly Kendall
• Time's Undoing by Cheryl A. Head
• Teeth, Claws, and Blood Red Heart by Fiona Zedde
• Lucky Gril by Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu
• Splinter--A Diverse Sleep Hollow Retelling by Jasper Hyde