Let’s just say it: these are tough times. What are we supposed to do with all these hard and complicated feelings? Turn to poetry, of course.
Virginia Humanities’ With Good Reason radio and the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University have partnered to bring 10 of this year’s Furious Flower Lifetime Achievement Award honorees in conversation with a new generation of Black poets. Listen as they talk about life, death, love, and baseball—and so much more in between.
I. “Staggered by the fact of you”
Our first episode brings Tim Seibles and Ariana Benson on alien life, Stevie Wonder, and the dreams of Langston Hughes.
II. “You will find yourself here”
Patricia Smith and Amy Alvarez on feeling smart, writing a way out of hate, and the poetry slam.
III. “I hadn’t planned on letting it sing”
Lorna Goodison and Shauna Morgan on time travel, Band-Aids, and how human beings are always capable of surprise.
IV. “What’s your story in the time that you’re here?”
Cornelius Eady with Clemonce Heard on jazz solos, memorializing Black deaths, and the whispers that filled his high school hallways after the first poem he ever wrote.
V. “Make sure the tree talks back”
Niyi Osundare and Gbenga Adesina on talking to trees, the poetics of Yoruba, and carrying the weight of our fathers.
VI. “The truth is the truth is the truth”
Elizabeth Alexander and Nicole Sealey on the treasures of archives, the work of a generation, and the resonant truth you feel in your bones.
VII. “You’re gonna have to grow some wings”
Nikky Finney and Danez Smith on “Negroes with guns,” underwater cameras, and getting out of our lanes as the temperatures rise.
VIII. “If that’s not cool, I don’t know what is”
Kwame Dawes and Ama Codjoe on young African poets finding their voices, the mistakes of English classes, and what Lionel Messi has to do with writing poetry.
IX. “You didn’t know you would need this poem”
Harryette Mullen and Chet’la Sebree on hidden histories, the plagues we live through, and (ahem) “dick’s tight hat band.”
X. “A poet of two centuries”
E. Ethelbert Miller and Fred Joiner on who gets to be a Black writer, giving birth to a new generation of critics, and baseball.
About the Furious Flower Poetry Conference
The first Furious Flower Poetry Conference was a historic gathering. Convened by Dr. Joanne Gabbin in September 1994 to celebrate the eminent poet Gwendolyn Brooks, the conference brought together Black poets, as well as scholars and lovers of Black poetry. Again in 2004 and then 2014, the Furious Flower community convened to celebrate and nurture the rich and ongoing legacy of Black poets.
The fourth decennial Furious Flower Poetry Conference (September 18–21, 2024) celebrates The Worlds of Black Poetry, with an intergenerational, international, and intentional focus on the expansiveness of the Black poetic tradition.
