Tag: Black women poets

Uncategorized

Book Review: Uses of My Body

[ By Lauren K. Alleyne ] Simone Savannah, 2017 graduate of KU and HBW alumnus, has recently published her poetry collection, “Uses of My Body”. The book deals with the intimacy of Black womanhood and emphasizes Black women’s experience of erasure, sexual and racial violence, as well as pleasure and healing. Lauren K. Alleyne, Assistant Director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center, has written a […]

GEMS

AN HBW GEM: Naomi Long Madgett

In 2017, HBW staff member Morgan McComb [2017-2019] spent extensive time with acclaimed poet, editor and educator Naomi Long-Madgett for our GEMS project. Created in 2013, GEMS is an initiative created to bring increased awareness to important but often lesser-known Black writers and their work. McComb traveled to Southfield, Michigan, to interview Madgett. That interview became the basis of a video tribute to Madgett, which is available here. […]

Conferences

Furious Flower 25th Anniversary Celebration: Day One

Furious Flower Poetry Center has been at the forefront of Black poetry for 25 years. As the nation’s first academic center for Black poetry, Furious Flower was founded on the campus of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and born out of a 1994 poetry festival titled “Furious Flower: A Revolution in African American Poetry,” organized by scholar Joanne Gabbin. The festival brought thirty presenters […]

Guest Blogger, Uncategorized

We Do Language: Nikki Giovanni A 2019 Legacy Seminar Encounter

[By: Shayna S. Israel]   The Furious Flower Poetry Center has held biennial summer legacy seminars since 2009 (with a hiatus in 2013 and 2015), a focused opportunity to study the work of a living poet.  Beginning with Lucille Clifton,  seminars have been held on Sonia Sanchez (2011) and Yusef Komunyakaa (2017). As the nation’s only center devoted to Black poetry, Furious Flower’s choice of […]