Cultural Front

Saturday, December 31, 2011

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

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.

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

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.

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 Coverage of Rita Dove's Anthology

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 Helen 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.

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

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."

Blogging & Linking to Poetry Foundation Site in 2011

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.

The Poetry Foundation Site as a Vital Resource

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.

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

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:
• Elizabeth Alexander
• Amiri Baraka
• Tara Betts
• Gwendolyn Brooks
• Jericho Brown
• Octavia Butler
• Tiana Clark
• Lucille Clifton
• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Jayne Cortez
• Nicole Dixon