Nikky Finney and black poetry in 2011

I'll soon turn my full attention to Finney's newest volume, Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry. Lately though, I've been reflecting to the release of her last volume Head Off & Split (2011). But beyond her volume, what else was going on with poetry in 2011?

Here's a checklist of some other volumes published that year:

• Ascent: Poems by Doris Davenport
• The Undertaker’s Daughter by Toi Derricotte
• Bringing the Shovel Down by Ross Gay
• Mule & Pear by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• Head Off & Split by Nikky Finney
• Negro League Baseball by Harmony Holiday
• The Chameleon Couch: Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa
• Silver by Jason McCall
• Double Shadow: Poems by Carl Phillips
• Red Clay Weather by Reginald Shepherd
• the new black by Evie Shockley
• Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith
• The Armageddon of Funk by Michael Warr
• Ardency by Kevin Young

Finney appeared on the the cover of Poets & Writers. Later, she was awarded the National Book Award for Head Off & Split. Sonia Sanchez was appointed Poet Laureate of Philadelphia.  (In 2012, Smith's 2011 volume was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry). In 2011, Barack and Michelle Obama hosted a poetry reading at the White House, with Rita Dove, Jill Scott, Common, and others giving readings.

Three scholarly works, that I know of, on black poetry appeared in 2011: Meta DuEwa Jones's The Muse is Music: Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to Spoken Word, Evie Shockley's Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry, and my book The Black Arts Enterprise and the Production of African American Poetry.

I recall that Young's volume Ardency received fairly extensive coverage, in ways that was uncommon for black poetry. Thanks to the coverage on Finney and others, 2011 became the first time that I began documenting the year in black poetry. 

Related:
• A notebook on Nikky Finney for Spring 2020

Reflections on my Independent Study with Nikky Finney

By Christiana McClain

After reading "The Girlfriend’s Train," I realized I wanted Nikky Finney to be my mentor. I reached out to Professor Rambsy, because he knows several black poets. I told him that Nikky Finney would be traveling to Kansas City, Missouri, for a reading and my plans to ask her to be my mentor. He stopped me then and asked me to define "mentor."

I realized then that “mentor” was one of those words I had tossed around without ever defining that relationship for myself. I told him I was hoping she’d read at least one of my stories and provide feedback.

Rambsy and I talked back and forth about the best way to ask her. We thought about asking it through handwritten letters, as a question after her poetry reading, or even sending an email later down the line. After several drafts of a short email, I sent her one and awaited her response. She responded saying she would read my stories and also dedicate time for me to visit her at the University of South Carolina, where she works.

I remember being in her office, feeling grateful for her time but ultimately nervous as I waited for her opinion on my work. I was so used to the workshop experience, offering up my work that I have nursed and watching it be ripped to shreds.

So, I felt awkward when she wanted to know more about my writing process, my experience in workshop, and why I chose to write the things I did. I talked more than I had my entire first year of grad school, and even that wasn’t enough because she still said I was too quiet. Ha!

I didn’t realize that her questions would point to holes in my writing. When it came time for her to critique my stories, she started with the things I did well, but pointed out the biggest problem, the lack of dialogue. It wasn’t that my characters didn’t have thoughts or things worth saying, but that I was stripping them of their language. In the same way that I felt voiceless within my life, I was projecting that same voicelessness onto my characters and it was damaging my work.

There’s so much talk about mentors and the good they can do, but I did not understand it until that moment. I needed, not just a black woman writer as a mentor, but specifically Nikky Finney. Only she could have seen the way I was trying to write. It was and probably will be the only time I experienced workshop where a professor saw me and my work for what we are trying to become.

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Christiana McClain is a graduate of Spelman College and an MFA in creative writing at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She is a contributing writer for Cultural Front.

Related:
• A notebook on Nikky Finney for Spring 2020

Haley Reading Group: “Wealthier People Produce More Carbon Pollution"

[The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2018)]

In “Wealthier People Produce More Carbon Pollution-Even the 'Green' Ones,” David Roberts highlights the presence of wealthy people in considerations of climate change and carbon emissions. He makes it clear that although wealthy people often describe themselves as ‘Green’ or ‘environmentally friendly,’ their carbon footprints do not match their good intentions.

Scientists discovered that “the variables that most predict carbon footprint are “per capita living space, energy used for household appliances, meat consumption, car use, and vacation travel” (135). Roberts argues that the energy used to produce to the lifestyles of wealthier people are far greater than their relatively small attempts at recycling and buying organic produce.

What reactions did you have to the article? Why?

The Candice Jenkins Blurb

Candice Jenkins was a few years ahead of me in the UNCF-Mellon program, so she's always been one of my key models, the kind of scholar so many of us wanted to grow up and be like. Thus, I was really pleased that she provided a blurb for my book.

Related:
• A notebook on Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers

Taking Black English Majors Seriously: Stefan Wheelock & Derrick Spires

In my research on English majors from Tougaloo College, I've been thinking about how an undergraduate institution serves as the basis for intellectual and scholarly development. Two of the people -- Stefan Wheelock and Derrick Spires -- that I interviewed went on to earn PhDs and publish scholarly books.

Wheelock is the author Barbaric Culture and Black Critique: Black Antislavery Writers, Religion, and the Slaveholding Atlantic (2015), and Spires published The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early United States (2019). Both professors informed me that lessons and encouragement that they gained at Tougaloo were foundational to what they've accomplished.

Wheelock noted that Jerry W. Ward, Jr. was central. "He taught me," explained Wheelock, "to believe in the mission of my work, to view writing and critical engagement with various readings as a difficult (though rewarding task), and to view my experiences as an academic as enriching, but never as something I should idolize."

Spires pointed out that approaches of various professors at Tougaloo cultivated his success and the success of others. "They take you seriously as an intellectual, and their doing so forced us to take ourselves seriously," he observed.

The point about seriousness emerged in another interview I conducted. When I asked Ward about some of the reasons why English department professors were successful supporting former students who went on to earn PhDs, he responded that, "We took mentoring very, very seriously."

Related:
• A notebook on English majors from Tougaloo College

The Department Chair as Connector: Ebony Lumumba

You ever been a room with Tougaloo English department chair Ebony Lumumba? If you have, you already know that not long into the conversation, she's talking to you about ways that you might collaborate to make opportunities happen with one of her English majors.

About four years ago, Lumumba pulled me aside and told me about a student she had that she wanted to apply to our graduate program. Lumumba began offering a verbal recommendation for the student, Rae'Jean (Spears) Alford. It worked out. Rae'Jean completed her studies here in December and was the black graduation speaker.

One of the lessons that Lumumba provides is what it means for a department chair to serve as a connector, in this case, someone working to link students to various professionals and opportunities.
Connectors, explained Malcolm Gladwell in his book In The Tipping Point (2000), "manage to occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches,” and “we rely on them to give us access to opportunities and worlds to which we don’t belong.” That's what Lumumba is for undergraduates, especially English majors, at Tougaloo.

Lumumba is part of a long line of Tougaloo College connectors that includes Candice Love Jackson and Jerry W. Ward, Jr. At different points, Ward and Jackson were department chairs as well. They all carried on practices of introducing English majors to scholars and other potential collaborators well beyond the college campus.

In my research on the successes of several former English majors at Tougaloo College, I realized that students flourished in part based on what they received from connectors like Lumumba.

Related:
• A notebook on English majors from Tougaloo College

A checklist of Black Arts-related scholarship, 1999 - 2023

1999: A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics by Komozi Woodard
1999: Dudley Randall, Broadside Press and the Black Arts Movement in Detroit, 1960-1995 Julius E. Thompson
2004: Afro-Blue: Improvisations in African American Poetry and Culture by Tony Bolden
2004: Wrestling with the Muse: Dudley Randall and the Broadside Press by Melba Joyce Boyd
2004: Furious Flower: African-American Poetry from the Black Arts Movement to the Present ed. by Joanne Gabbin
2004: "After Mecca": Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement by Cheryl Clarke
2004: Integral Music: Languages of African-American Innovation by Aldon Lynn Nielsen
2005: The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s by James Smethurst
2006: Ed Bullins: Twelve Plays and Selected Writings ed. by Mike Sell
2006: New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement ed. b Lisa Gail Collins and Margo Crawford
2008: The Heritage Series of Black Poetry, 1962-1975 ed. by Lauri Ramey in consultation with Paul Breman
2008: Avant-Garde Performance and the Limits of Criticism by Mike Sell
2009: Spectacular Blackness: The Cultural Politics of the Black Power Movement and the Search for a Black Aesthetic by Amy Abugo Ongiri
2009: Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music by Amiri Baraka
2010: Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles by Daniel Widener
2011: The Black Arts Enterprise by Howard Rambsy II
2011: Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry by Evie Shockley
2012: The Muse Is Music Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to Spoken Word by Meta Duewa Jones
2012: Jazz Griots: Music as History in the 1960s African American Poem by Jean-Philippe Marcoux 
2013: The Afro-Modernist Epic and Literary History: Tolson, Hughes, and Baraka by Kathy Lou Schultz
2013: Amiri Baraka and Edward Dorn; The Collected Letters ed. by Claudia Moreno Pisano
2013: Visionary Women Writers of Chicago’s Black Arts Movement by Carmen L. Phelps
2013: Nikki Giovanni: A Literary Biography by Virginia C. Fowler
2013: Understanding Etheridge Knight by Michael S. Collins
2014: SOS--Calling All Black People: A Black Arts Movement Reader eds. John Bracey Jr., Sonia Sanchez, James Smethurst
2014: Visible Man: The Life of Henry Dumas by Jeffrey B. Leak
2015: Imagine the Sound: Experimental African American Literature after Civil Rights by Carter Mathes
2015: S O S: Poems 1961-2013 by Amiri Baraka
2016: The Magic of Juju: An Appreciation of the Black Arts Movement by Kalamu ya Salaam
2017: Black Post-Blackness: The Black Arts Movement and Twenty-First-Century Aesthetics by Margo Natalie Crawford
2018: In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement by La Donna Forsgren
2018: Robert Hayden in Verse: New Histories of African American Poetry and the Black Arts Era by Derik Smith

2019: Building the Black Arts Movement: Hoyt Fuller and the Cultural Politics of the 1960s by Jonathan Fenderson
2021: Behold the Land: The Black Arts Movement in the South by James Smethurst

2023: Revolutionary Poetics: The Rhetoric of the Black Arts Movement by Sarah RudeWalker 

Related:
• A checklist of book lists
• The Black Arts Era

The Mark Anthony Neal Blurb

As I was finishing my manuscript for Bad Men, my publisher asked me for a list of scholars who they might contact to offer a book blurb. As I've noted here, Mark Anthony Neal's book Looking for Leroy, was a useful guide at an early stage in my research. More broadly, I've followed Neal's work for nearly the entirety of my career. So of course I mentioned his name to my publisher.

What a thrill to learn that he responded with a generous blurb.

Related:
• A notebook on Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers

From the Black Arts Enterprise to Bad Men

Back in 2011, the University of Michigan Press published my first book The Black Arts Enterprise. In April, the University Press of Virginia will publish my second book, Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers. How did I get from a book about the Black Arts Movement to one about bad men and black boys as muses for writers?

It's been a journey. After completing my first book, which concentrated on the 1960s and 1970s, I knew that I wanted my next full-length book to consider more contemporary authors and writings.
Some of the main subjects for The Black Arts Enterprise were Nikki Giovanni, Haki Madhubuti, Larry Neal, Sonia Sanchez, and Amiri Baraka. For Bad Men, some of the focal authors include Tyehimba Jess, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Kevin Young, Adrian Matejka, and Paul Beatty.

In this newest book, Baraka returns, as I devote a major section to one his poems, "Jungle Jim Flunks His Screen Test." In that regard, Baraka serves as one of the bridges from book one to book two.

The kinds of source material I consulted changed in important ways. My first book primarily focuses on poetry -- published in individual volumes, anthologies, and literary magazines. For Bad Men, I cover poetry volumes, but I also take a look at online news articles, blog entries, a comic strip, rap lyrics, and a novel.

Related:
• A notebook on Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers

Bad Men: book summary

Here's a summary of my upcoming book, Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers

How have African American writers drawn on "bad" black men and black boys as creative touchstones for their evocative and vibrant art? This is the question posed by Howard Rambsy’s new book, which explores bad men as a central, recurring, and understudied figure in African American literature, and music. By focusing on how various iterations of the bad black man figure serve as creative muse and inspiration for literary production, Rambsy puts a wide variety of contemporary African American literary and cultural works in conversation with creativity research for the first time.

Employing concepts such as playfulness, productivity, divergent thinking, and problem finding, Rambsy examines the works of a wide range of writers—including Elizabeth Alexander, Amiri Baraka, Paul Beatty, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Tyehimba Jess, Trymaine Lee, Adrian Matejka, Aaron McGruder, Evie Shockley, and Kevin Young—who have drawn on notions of bad black men and boys to create innovative and challenging works in a variety of genres. Through groundbreaking readings, Rambsy demonstrates the fruitfulness of viewing black literary art through the lens of creativity research.

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You can order Bad Men from the University of Virginia Press. Receive a 30% by discount using the promo code: 10BAD30.

Related:
• A notebook on Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers

Some guidance from Mark Anthony Neal's Illegible Black Masculinities

Back in 2013, I had some really vague ideas about what I wanted to cover for my second book. I knew I was going to write about black men and writers. I was slowly gathering ideas, but still things weren't really coming together.

That's when I discovered Mark Anthony Neal's Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities (2013). His book convinced me that I was moving in the right directions. His book provided me with useful guidance at an early, early stage of my research.

I devoted a number of blog entries to Neal's book. And as I worked on my own book project, I kept returning to some of Neal's ideas. I ultimately moved in some different directions, but I viewed his thinking about prominent black men like Jay-Z, Avery Brooks, and the late Gene Anthony Ray as useful for what I was formulating about black men writers and subjects.

Then, there was Neal on this crucial character from The Wire, Stringer Bell. Thinking about how creators and the audience were so intrigued by this complex black male muse was particularly relevant to my own explorations. When I started writing about works by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Aaron McGruder, Colson Whitehead, and Kevin Young, my critical lens had been influenced in part by Neal's Looking for Leroy.  

Related:
• A notebook on Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers

A notebook on Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers

My second book, Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers, is published by the University of Virginia Press. It's been a long journey to this point, so I'm excited for the book to finally appear. In many respects, Bad Men is a book about creativity, specifically how large numbers of black writers are inspired by bad men and vulnerable black boys.

[Related: Book trailer]

For information about aspects of the book, see links to the following entries:

2023

• 28 Days & Ways of Thinking about Bad Men & Vulnerable Black Boys

2020
Entries
Contents of the book
• Bad Men as creative touchstones for outstanding compositions
• Preface -- Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers
• Bad Men: Book summary
• Bad Men & Creativity
• Writing about a poetic trilogy of bad men

Writing the book
• Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers
• From the Black Arts Enterprise to Bad Men
• Some guidance from Mark Anthony Neal's Illegible Black Masculinities
• Cornelius Eady, Tyehimba Jess, Bad Men, and the Slow Hunch

Presentation of the book
• Those Bad Men postcards
• The Mark Anthony Neal Blurb
• The Candice Jenkins Blurb

Keywords 
• Concentrated Cultural Catalogs

Connections to other works
• Stagger Lee, Murder Ballads, Laura Morris, and me

• Mark Twain and the generative power of difficult men

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You can order Bad Men from the University of Virginia Press.

Digital Humanities Club: Week 4

We've been talking about artwork and photography for a while now. So for our session on February 18, we browsed a variety of art books.

Some of the books included photography, and other books included comic art. The students had a good time perusing and commenting on the different kinds of images. They were also excited to highlight the comic art that they viewed as the most compelling.

Related:
• The East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club -- Spring 2020

Nikky Finney's generational cohort

Nikky Finney is part of generational cohort that includes a number of prominent poets. Some are award-winning figures. Some are defined as "experimental." One is the co-founder of one of the largest, most successful black poetry organizations.

A few members of Finney's generational cohort include: 

Most of those, at least those born after 1955, were a little too young to have participated actively in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. They were watchful though, and a few got involved at the end.

These poets really began establishing themselves in the 1980s and onward. Rita Dove may be one of our most decorated. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987, and she was U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995. Along with Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady co-founded Cave Canem in 1996. The program has been a major force in the world of poetry and contemporary literature for some time now.

Finney had been well-known among groups of poets for some time. She served as a mentor. She published books. Still, winning the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011, really boosted her visibility on a national scale.  

Many anthologies present poets chronologically based on their ages. Thus, we're often in positions of reading through the table of contents pages and considering poets according to their years of birth. From there, we might be inclined to consider poets as part of a generational cohort.

For now, I've been thinking of Finney as part of the cohort poets born during the 1950s. But I could consider the poets born between 1955 and 1965. At some point, I might think of her regional cohort -- poets from the South. Perhaps, I could think of her among black women poets. Or, even women poets in general.

Whatever the case, it's sometimes useful to think of poets as parts of groups or cohorts. So often, we think of poets one-at-a-time. But what about communities of poets or "schools" of poets? A consideration of larger groups of writers makes it possible to think about the intersections and departures. Doing so also dissuades us from thinking about writers in isolation.

Related:
• A notebook on Nikky Finney for Spring 2020

Shaker: Wilma Rudolph Appears While Riding the Althea Gibson Highway Home

By Christiana McClain

In "Shaker: Wilma Rudolph Appears While Riding the Althea Gibson Highway Home" from Head Off & Split, Nikky Finney uses historical figures Althea Gibson and Wilma Rudolph to draw comparisons between the speaker’s attempt to love again to a legacy of movement and perseverance.

Unlike the other poems, I’ve reviewed that deal directly with the persona of another black woman, this poem prioritizes the voice and actions of the speaker. The two historical figures (Wilma Rudolph and Althea Gibson) loom over the poem, serving as guidance for the speaker.

This poem follows the narration of a black woman, initially becoming undone and nostalgic, attempting to win over their lover’s affection. The speaker relies on external things like cheap blinds, record player, liquor, and clothes that don’t resemble them for distraction. It isn’t until they reflect on the night before, where a mirror forced them recognize the parts of themselves that would never be unrecognizable.

I have focused on poems that prioritize the memory of deceased black women, but this one focuses on a speaker forced to remember themselves. It could be a cliché lesson except this speaker’s self-realization is rooted in the legacy of black women who were not only excellent athletes and civil rights activists, but women who since childhood fought to achieve their goals.

This poem deals not with the death of black women, but with the way black women’s legacy leaves traces of itself in the lives of black women still trying to make meaning in a world that won’t allow them to ever stop moving. For me, this poem isn’t a mantra on moving forward, but one that lands on how a black woman looks to those before her for learning how to move in the world once recognizing herself. It’s about black women anchoring themselves to other black women who exceeded obstacles.


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Christiana McClain is a graduate of Spelman College and an MFA in creative writing at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She is a contributing writer for Cultural Front.

Related:
• A notebook on Nikky Finney for Spring 2020

Haley Reading Group: "Tragedy of the Common"

[The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2018)]

J. B. Mackinnon’s “Tragedy of the Common” discusses how White-Rumped Vultures became an endangered species. He follows biologist Vibhu Prakash as he works to highlight to major cause in the White-Rumped Vulture’s decrease of at least 58% around 1997.

Mackinnon states that the veterinary drug diclofenac was the culprit in vulture’s demise. According to him, the drug was “persisting in livestock carcasses and poisoning vultures after so much as a single exposure” (115). Despite being banned, the drug is still illegally used and harming both the vultures and other agriculturists who rely on the vultures to eat rotting carcasses to keep diseases from spreading.

How did reading about the circumstances of the vultures alter or support your thinking in one notable way?

That post-graduation Tougaloo nudge

Charrita Danley Quimby did it. She earned a master's in English. It was an important accomplishment, and it was adequate for the projects she wanted to pursue.

But then, she met with one of her former professors from Tougaloo College. "I had dinner with Dr. Ward," Quimby noted, "and he TOLD me 'It’s time for you to get back in school and get your PhD.' So, I did."

In my interviews with former English majors from Tougaloo College and my own reflections, I'm learning that a post-graduation nudge or advice has been important for continued progress for several people. We usually talk about what students gain during their time at colleges and universities. We focus on what they may have learned in classes or what they experienced during that time. But what about months after graduating, or what about even years later?

The success of Tougaloo College English majors is linked to the support that they receive from professors or other Tougaloo graduates in the field of English well beyond time at the college.

Stefan Wheelock, a Tougaloo grad who earned his PhD at Brown University, informed me that Ward "was emotionally and intellectually present during my graduate school years." Valerie Matthews earned her PhD at the University Of North Carolina, and received tangible assistance from Tougaloo. "Toward the end of my journey," she said, "Dr. Ward filled a critical spot on my dissertation committee and traveled on his own dime to my defense in North Carolina."

Ward was not the only one providing nudges and assistance for students long after they graduated. Candice Love Jackson has continually provided advice to her former students, Professors Julius Fleming and Jarvis McInnis. Professor Shahara'Tova Dente, a Tougaloo grad, informed me that Jackson has kept in touch and made her aware of opportunities and provided useful advice as well.

Briana Whiteside graduated from Tougaloo and then came and worked with me, earning her M.A. in English, and then earning her PhD at the University of Alabama. She's now an assistant professor at UNLV. I periodically reach out to her when opportunities arise encouraging her to apply the way Tougaloo folks have done for me.

Related:
• A notebook on English majors from Tougaloo College

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.'s Numerous, Essential Introductions

Jerry W. Ward, Jr. and Eugene B. Redmond at event in East St. Louis, Feb. 2005

I'm researching a project related to former English majors from Tougaloo College, where I earned my undergraduate degree. In the process, I have been conducting interviews and thinking about ways that the English department supported several students who eventually earned PhDs.

One name that keeps coming up, not surprisingly, is Jerry W. Ward, Jr., a long-term and noted scholar and professor from Tougaloo. Now, prior to my recent research, if someone had asked what Ward's major contributions to former students like me had been, I would've said something like, he helped students like me with our writing. Or, he helped us solidify research projects. He offered guidance, and served as an important model.

I still think those things are true. But something new has emerged in the course of my research. Something else that Ward did that was really important: he made numerous, essential introductions. I always benefited from those introductions, but until recently I had not adequately put the practice into context of contributions to my advancement as a scholar and professional.

Yet, when a professor introduces a student to numerous scholars, artists, and other useful contacts, they are providing a vital service and raising the chances of future opportunities.  Ward personally introduced me (and other students) to dozens of scholars and artists in our field.

The practice of making numerous, essential introductions is something that we should strive to emulate.

Professor Valerie Matthews, a 1992 graduate of Tougaloo, noted to me in an interview that "Dr. Ward wrote personal letters to scholars such as Houston Baker and Trudier Harris to prepare the way for my graduate school applications." That is, outside of letters of recommendation, Ward wrote letters connecting an undergraduate with potential graduate mentors. Harris, by the way, ended up directing Matthews's dissertation.

Candice Love Jackson's crucial contributions to African American Literary Studies at SIUE

Candice Love Jackson and Eugene B. Redmond

Candice Love Jackson taught at SIUE for only a few years 2010 - 2012, before moving into an administration position at another institution. But during her brief time at SIUE, Jackson made crucial contributions to African American literary studies that shaped the course of what we've been doing here ever since.

Jackson arrived to our department after having served as department chair at Tougaloo College from 2004 - 2010. During that time, Jackson had hosted a film series and lecture series. She did extensive work with programming, as she sought to make, in her words, "English the IT major" at Tougaloo.

I had been doing extensive programming at SIUE prior to Jackson's arrival, but when she showed up, we began having active conversations about how to make the related courses in literature really stand out. In other words, we wanted to make African American literature an IT course of study at SIUE.

During her time here, we expanded our course offerings. For the 2011-2012 academic year, Jackson and I taught a combined 15 African American literature courses. I don't think the department had ever offered so many classes on black lit in a year. But since that time, we haven't turned back, teaching 14 or 15 African American-related classes each semester since 2012.

Just as important, an active conversation about building African American literary studies at SIUE has persisted since that moment in 2010. We were able to make the case for making an additional hire in African American literature in 2015 in large part based on the expanded courses Jackson and I created in 2010. We've been able to make a case for yet another hire in 2020.

Looking back on things, Jackson taught me the value of trying to make s program or major the it one.

Related:
• A notebook on English majors from Tougaloo College
• Candice Love Jackson's crucial contributions to English majors at Tougaloo College

A notebook on English majors from Tougaloo College

I'm working on a project related to Tougaloo College and former English majors. I graduated from Tougaloo with a degree in English and history, and over the years, I've been in touch with various former English majors from the college who became college professors.

I'm working on an article about the routes of some of those Tougaloo graduates. Since I won't fit everything in the article, I've decided to include a few observations here on my site.

Entries
• List of Former English Majors from Tougaloo who earned PhDs
• Tougaloo College's Super-connector: Cynthia Spence
• The Department Chair as Connector: Ebony Lumumba
• Jerry W. Ward, Jr.'s numerous, essential Introductions
• That post-graduation Tougaloo nudge
• Candice Love Jackson's crucial contributions to English majors at Tougaloo College
• Candice Love Jackson's crucial contributions to African American Literary Studies at SIUE
• Taking Black English Majors Seriously: Stefan Wheelock & Derrick Spires

Haley Reading Group: "Tragedy of the Common"

[The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2018)]

J. B. Mackinnon’s “Tragedy of the Common” discusses how White-Rumped Vultures became an endangered species. He follows biologist Vibhu Prakash as he works to highlight to major cause in the White-Rumped Vulture’s decrease of at least 58% around 1997.

Mackinnon states that the veterinary drug diclofenac was the culprit in vulture’s demise. According to him, the drug was “persisting in livestock carcasses and poisoning vultures after so much as a single exposure” (115). Despite being banned, the drug is still illegally used and harming both the vultures and other agriculturists who rely on the vultures to eat rotting carcasses to keep diseases from spreading.

How did reading about the circumstances of the vultures alter or support your thinking in one notable way?

The Journalist as Recovery Worker

There were more than 14,000 murders in 2018. With a number so high, there's no surprise that we only hear about a fraction of the deaths in given year. The majority never appear or quickly fade from public consciousness. The idea of that erasure explains why families of victims are grateful when the lives of their loved ones receive attention.

[Related: The Journalist as Detective]


I think about that every time I watch True Life Crime and host Dometi Pongo interviews relatives and friends of a person who was tragically killed. He almost always begins by asking those who knew a person best to tell him about their loved one. He did so again in a recent episode about a young girl, Mujey Dumbuya, who was killed in Michigan in 2018.

By returning to the story, to the scene of the crime, to the family and friends, Pongo does important journalistic recovery work. For the most part, we hear about the deaths of famous people. The news cycle rarely has time to deeply consider a young person who was known only by a relatively small number of people.

On the one hand, Pongo brings attention to terrible crimes, but in the process, he retrieves wonderful memories of a life lived -- showing photographs and video clips of a young person smiling and dancing and spending time with friends.

The coverage True Life Crime offers tends to prompt local outlets to revisit the cases as well. After airing an episode about Jerika Binks, a runner who went missing, Runner's World ran a story about her case the the show. WoodTV, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Michigan Live ran stories in anticipation of the story about Dumbuya. 

At the end of this recent episode, Dumbuya's mother shared a phone video of her daughter expressing love to her mom. That private moment became a public one. It was sad but also a joyous retrieved moment. It was testament to the power of the True Life Crime and Pongo to perform recovery work.

Related:
• A Notebook on Dometi Pongo's True Life Crime series

The Journalist as Detective

I’ve witnessed him as a student, as a rapper, and as a journalist. And recently, I started thinking of Dometi Pongo as a kind of detective.

[Related: The Journalist as Recovery Worker]

In the fourth episode of the True Life Crime series, Pongo follows the case of Jerika Binks, a young woman who had gone missing in Utah. Pongo worked with a local reporter to gather information. He interviewed family and friends, and he returned to the scenes of where she may had gone missing.

Like in previous episodes, Pongo's raising multiple questions, and trying to find out what happened. But this case departed from the others because Binks was missing. The case remained unsolved. Eventually though, after Pongo's initial visits to Utah, the body of Binks did turn up, and there was at least some closure for the family.

The processes of Pongo initially searching for answers was a reminder, for me, of the kind of detective or investigative work that many journalists do beyond only reporting on the news. Pongo was interviewing people, retracing potential crime scenes, searching for answers to a perplexing and painful mystery.

Related:
• A Notebook on Dometi Pongo's True Life Crime series

A Notebook on Dometi Pongo's True Life Crime series

A few writings on Dometi Pongo's MTV show, True Life Crime.

Entries
• The Journalist as Recovery Worker
• The Journalist as Detective
• Dometi Pongo, True Life Crime, and Kedarie Johnson
• Dometi Pongo, True Life Crime, on the case of Junior Guzman-Feliz
• Dometi Pongo and the debut of MTV's True Life Crime series

Related:
• A Notebook on Dometi Pongo

Still thinking about Nikky Finney's "Plunder"

Back in 2011, I thought that Nikky Finney's sonnet sequence "Plunder" was one of the big events in black poetry that year. In addition to expanding the realm of African American sonnet sequences, Finney's poem stands out for taking on a particular cultural figure.

Despite the fact that we often say poets are political, we have relatively few extensive treatments by poets of living governmental figures. I'm accustomed to biting zingers about presidents. Like in his short poem "Memo to Bush 2," Amiri Baraka goes, "The main thing wrong with you is, you ain't in jail." So there's that.

But Finney went further by producing this extended mediation on Bush and how, speculatively, his inner mind works. So often, we come across pieces focusing on the consequences of powerful men's thoughts and actions. But here, with "Plunder" we got someone working with the history and the motivations, the public and the private.

The length of the poem may be one reason that the piece has not gained more attention. Poems of that length don't appear as much in anthologies, so it's difficult for them to be passed on to different generations of readers. Too, the poem -- or series of poems -- does not fit neatly into our typical definitions of black poetry, which is to say it doesn't celebrate black culture, doesn't proclaim love for black women or black music, and doesn't even make outward defiant protests against anti-black racism. 

Early on when I was pursuing research for what would become my upcoming book, Finney's "Plunder" was one of the many artistic compositions that I thought about that used a bad white male figure in part as a muse. My writing for the project ultimately focused on primarily black male figures. Still, I keep returning to this extended mediation on Bush by Finney and thinking what it means to produce work like that.

Related:
• A notebook on Nikky Finney for Spring 2020

"Shark Bite" from The World Is Round

By Christiana McClain

Full disclosure, I love this poem for its creative brilliance. Nikky Finney uses the poem “Shark Bite” to undertake the difficult topic of inherited trauma through the consumption of food.

It begins with a cautionary warning on certain things never being consumed. What seems an innocent bite of shark meat, turns into a consumed memory of an enslaved black woman who awakens inside of the speaker’s stomach.

The speaker details the enslaved black woman’s movements and her refusal to sit still or idly wait another death. Instead, as the speaker’s body becomes unsettled by the shark meat, the speaker vomits up the memories of the black woman and others killed on the sunken ship The Henrietta Marie.

In this poem of 22 stanzas with 63 lines, 17 of those stanzas were composed of three lines, 3 composed of 2 lines, 1 stanza composed of 1 line, and the last stanza composed of 4 lines. Moreover, she used 37 different verbs without the reuse of the same word.

This poem isn’t just about inheriting a memory of lived trauma, but of what the trauma imposed on one black woman does to another. Through the differing stanzas, shifting number of lines, and variation in verb use, Finney is showing us the interruption that violence perpetuates. It is non-linear and lasting in its impact.

It didn’t matter that an enslaved black woman died gruesomely years ago, because that trauma will send ripples through the body of another black woman, hundreds of years later. Just like the enslaved woman could not be contained by a ship of those who enslaved her, the memory of her violent death could not be contained in the body of the speaker nor by any confines of a poetic form.


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Christiana McClain is a graduate of Spelman College and an MFA in creative writing at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She is a contributing writer for Cultural Front.

Related:
• A notebook on Nikky Finney for Spring 2020

Digital Humanities Club: Week 3

For our session on February 11, we continued working on collages. We also took some time to discuss artwork, which happens to be of interest to a few of the participants.

Related:
• The East St. Louis Digital Humanities Club -- Spring 2020

Haley Reading Group: “The Island Wolves”

[The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2018)]

Kim Todd’s article “The Island Wolves” discusses the history of wolves and moose on Isle Royale National park. Scientists began to study the wolves' impact on the ecosystem on the island. They believed their research was free from human intervention. However, the research findings help reshape experts' understandings of wolves and human involvement in balancing ecosystems.

Todd states that the main lesson of Isle Royale is that “the future is unpredictable” because no management decision can predict how things will turn out (95). The study leads scientists to question their research methods and possible new methods as they search for balance on the island.

What aspect of the article most captured your interest?

On first meeting Nikky Finney

I first met Nikky Finney in March 1998. I was still a student at Tougaloo College, and that semester I was on exchange at New York University. I visited my sister in Lexington, Kentucky, and she said that someone she knew there was organizing a poetry reading.

My sister, Phillis, was attending graduate school at the University of Kentucky. She had graduated from Spelman, and one of her professors, Gloria Wade-Gayles had instructed her to make it a priority to meet Finney as soon as she got to Lexington. So she did.

When I visited my sister, she told me about the poetry reading. A range of poets read, and Finney hosted. She may have read one of her poems, but maybe not. It's hard to remember all the details.

At the end of the reading, I do recall that my sister gave me one of Finney's books, Rice (1995), and Finney signed it for me. It was the first autographed volume of poetry I ever had. If I was blogging back then, there's no doubt I would written about the experience and the book. 

Whatever the case, my first encounter with Finney was about her as an artist-organizer. I'd hear about her doing things for people -- editing writings and organizing events. I was witnessing her as a host for a reading for emergent writers. It was later, after that when I began thinking of her as a poet as well.

Related:
• A notebook on Nikky Finney for Spring 2020

A notebook on Nikky Finney for Spring 2020

In the leadup to Nikky Finney's newest volume of poetry, Christiana McClain and I are producing a series of blog entries based on Finney's work.

Entries
• On “Girlfriend’s Train” & Writing Like a Black Woman That’s Never Been Hit Befor -- Christiana McClain
• Nikky Finney and black poetry in 2011 -- Howard Rambsy II
• Reflections on my Independent Study with Nikky Finney -- Christiana McClain
• Nikky Finney's generational cohort -- Howard Rambsy II
• "Shaker: Wilma Rudolph Appears While Riding the Althea Gibson Highway Home" -- Christiana McClain
• Still thinking about to Nikky Finney's "Plunder" -- Howard Rambsy II
• "Shark Bite" from The World Is Round -- Christiana McClain
• On first meeting Nikky Finney -- Howard Rambsy II
• Nikky Finney’s “Cotton Tea” from Rice -- Christiana McClain
• Returning to Nikky Finney -- Howard Rambsy II
• The Ghost of Black Women in Nikky Finney’s Poetry -- Christiana McClain

Related:
• A Notebook on the work of Nikky Finney

Nikky Finney’s “Cotton Tea” from Rice

By Christiana McClain

In the poem “Cotton Tea” from her second book Rice, Nikky Finney narrates the resistance of enslaved black women who used cotton root for abortions.

The speaker starts off with a litany of names that the cotton tea has been passed between. By the eleventh line, the cotton root has shifted from eight different hands and dispersed into many more.

The speaker describes how the enslaved black women “chaw” on the root until their teeth are yellow in preparation for rape. The women watch how even the youngest ones are made to drink the tea. In the final line of the poem, the women assert that they use blue jars and cans for the cotton root “for the forcing there will surely be” because they understand that “cotton tea cain’t stop no baby from being made/but can make they babies go ‘way.”

This poem does the work of illuminating the resistance of enslaved black women not just through the dispersal of the tea, but through Finney’s intentional use of active words. In this free verse poem of 40 lines, Finney uses 23 different active verbs to chronicle the diligent work of those women.

It isn’t enough for the speaker to tell us that enslaved black women induced their own abortions, Finney has to show us how through words like “pluck,” “blooming,” “snatching,” “forcing,” “rolled,” “washed,” “birthing,” and “picking.” In that community, the women refused for their bodies to become objects that violence merely happened to. They used their bodies to communicate a quiet message of autonomy.


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Christiana McClain is a graduate of Spelman College and an MFA in creative writing at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She is a contributing writer for Cultural Front.

Related:
• A notebook on Nikky Finney for Spring 2020

Returning to Nikky Finney

In a few months, Nikky Finney will release her next volume of poetry, Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry: Poems Artifacts (April 2020). I'm excited to engage her work since it was way back in 2011, when I was last frequently blogging about her volume Head Off & Split.

Finney's book appeared in the year that I began actively blogging about poetry. So I view her as  a central, even foundational, figure in my development in this medium.

One of our graduate students, Christiana McClain, and I are writing a series of pieces about Finney over the coming weeks. In April, or just before, we'll then turn our attention to the new volume.

It's great for me returning to blogging about Finney's work at this point, as so much has gone on with black poetry since 2011, as well as with my approaches to thinking and blogging about the work. So what I'm doing here is inevitably going to be about Finney and black poetry.

Where does Finney fit within generations of poets? To what extent does her work depart from others? There's so much to consider. That's why returning to Finney is also an important moment for thinking about the futures of poetry and writing about poetry.

Related:
• A notebook on Nikky Finney for Spring 2020

Blogging about poetry in January 2020

[Related content: Blogging about Poetry]

• January 18: A checklist of poetry volumes on black historical figures
• January 1: Blogging about poetry in December 2019