Joanne Gabbin is thrilled at getting a generous grant for the Furious Flower Poetry Conference to be held in September at James Madison University.

"This is a big deal," says Gabbin, a JMU English professor and director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center. "It came just in time."

The Virginia Commission for the Arts awarded the conference $8,000, announced last week.

The VCA received a slight increase from the Virginia legislature and Gov. Mark Warner for its 2004-2005 grant budget, which had been slashed by 45 percent the previous year, says Foster Billingsley, VCA's deputy director.

"At least we're headed in the right direction," he says.

The Shenandoah Preparatory Music Program received a grant for the first time this year in order to expand its string music instruction, says Sharon Miller, program director. The $2,500 will help the program, based at Eastern Mennonite University, offer lessons to low-income students at Waterman Elementary School, in addition to its program at Stone Spring Elementary School.

Also at EMU, the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival received $3,000 to perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at next year's event. The money will help to pay the orchestra, choir and vocalists for their work.

Though the Bach Festival has gotten VCA grants for the past several years, organizers don't take the money for granted.

"It's income we are honored to have," says Beth Aracena, festival coordinator.

The Virginia Quilt Museum is "always grateful" for monies from the VCA that go into its general operating budget. This year, the museum received $2,900.

The four-day poetry conference, "Furious Flower: Regenerating the Black Poetic Tradition," will be held Sept. 22-25 and is a follow-up to the first such conference held 10 years ago.

The 1994 conference, which drew poets and scholars from all across the United States, was a "watershed event," says Gabbin.

"It helped define African American poetry in the 20th century," she says.

"The conference and center that came out of Furious Flower gained national and international recognition."

A four-volume video anthology, containing interviews with poets interspersed with readings from the conference, has been used in 700 colleges and universities, says Gabbin.

She also edited a book of poetry, "Furious Flower: African American Poetry from the Black Arts Movement to the Present," and essays, "The Furious Flowering of African American Poets."

Contact Luanne Austin at 574-6292 or laustin@dnronline.com.

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