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Untitled: Daily News Record on 1994 Conference |
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| By CHRIS EDWARDS Daily News-Record Staff Writer |
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September 26, 1994 |
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| Some of the poems on display in the lobby of James Madison University's Carrier Library this week are about struggles for social justice. Others are about very personal issues. Most deal with both themes. They're samples from works by participants coming to one of the first conferences devoted to African-American poets, Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at JMU. JMU English Professor Joanne Gabbin, who has arranged to bring more than 30 of the nation's major black poets to campus, chose the conference title "Furious Flower" from a line in a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks. Gabbin calls social and political challenges "the furious part" of African-American poetry. She sees the focus on what is human and universal as "the flower part." Brooks -- who, in 1950, with "Annie Allen," became the first black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize -- will be on campus as the conference's honoree. She's now writer-in-residence at Chicago State University. Another major name at the conference will be Rita Dove, U.S. poet laureate. Dove is a professor at the University of Virginia. The list of luminaries includes Michael S. Harper, Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka (born LeRoi Jones), Eugene Redmond, Sonia Sanchez, Haki Madhubuti and Mari Evans. While these poets have started finding their way into anthologies, Gabbin says, "Most young people have gone through school without ever reading any of their works." Also attending will be about 25 black poets who are less well-known but whose works may be equally important, Gabbin says. Getting all these poets -- and their messages -- in the limelight was her reason for organizing the conference, which is being sponsored by Bell Atlantic, Choice Communications, Philip Morris USA, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy, JMU and WVPT Public Television in Harrisonburg. The three days will be filled with readings, panel discussions and signings. An estimated 300 people are coming from out of town for the events, which are open to the public. SO, ARE YOU wondering what you know or why you should care about these poets? To get an idea, you may want to browse through the display in the lobby of JMU's library, where you'll find representations of subjective and historic themes. There's Jerry W. Ward Jr's "Jazz to Jackson to John" (dedicated to John Reese), in which he recalls the spirit of ... blues people in the corn, in the vale of cotton tears ... waiting to steal away, steal away, steal away, soon as Miles runs down the voodoo avenue ... And of music "striking you like an eargasm,a baritone ax laid into soprano wood." History, in different rhythms, pervades a poem in which Samuel Allen notes that the Anglo tradition is not his own. He begins in lilting iambic pentameter: I did not climb the apple trees in Sussex Or wait upon the queen in London town ... But Allen soon shifts into a turbulent free verse to denote the brutality his slave ancestors endured "in sweltering Mississippi ... with birch and thong." Gerald Barrax focuses on now, describing a man's private reflections while his wife undergoes surgery: I always said `We' lost the baby, just as I said `We' Have a daughter, but I could say nothing About that pain ... Family is a theme in what Naomi Long Madgett calls an overdue tribute to her mother: You baked the bread for which we seldom thanked you, canned pears for winter and mended Depression-weary clothes ... At times these poets' language is formal; at other times it captures street vernacular. "Afta its all ovaeveryone can say whatshoulda been done," Sherley Anne Williams writes in her eulogy of Malcolm X, "Big Red and His Brothers." And the speaker in Sonia Sanchez's "I Have Walked a Long Time" asks whether anyone, after her death, will say, "i saw her applauden sunsfar from the grandiose audience?" CONFERENCE discussions will touch on political and literary issues. Gabbin insists these issues are not separate -- especially in African-American poetry. "Poetry has its aesthetic side and its social action side," she says -- adding that in the black community, "Art becomes an instrument of action because the society so much needs direction and so much needs change." Gabbin, author of a biography on the late poet Sterling A. Brown, does not accept the validity of pure "art for art's sake." As she sees it, "No matter how abstract the painting, no matter how oblique the poem, it has a message." The conference poets -- whose ages range from the 30s to 70s -- will reflect widely different views on issues. At times, Gabbin says, "There may be fireworks." But most of them are in some way veterans of the civil rights era, and, Gabbin says, share positive values that are needed today. She believes that in the black community, "We need to give the stage back to the poets." She fears they may be out-shouted by the voices of "negative rappers" who promote violence and sexism. Gabbin does not call rap itself the problem. She notes that form of urban music goes back several generations to before the Harlem Renaissance and Langston Hughes. In fact, one conference topic, for a session analyzing several poets' works, will be titled "Rapping the Rhythms." "I'm not against all rap. There are some rap artists putting out positive and necessary messages. But we also have that form co-opted by negative energies out there," Gabbin says. Here are a few things to watch for during and after the conference: Seven poets will receive lifetime achievement awards from JMU and the Furious Flower conference at a tribute banquet on Oct. 30: Brooks, Mari Evans, Allen, Raymond Patterson, Madgett, Pinkie Gordon Lane and (in absentia) Margaret Walker. The poets will not be the only stars on hand. John "Gunnar" Mossblad of JMU's music department will lead a jazz ensemble performance, accompanying readings, at 8 p.m. Thursday. The conference finale, at 8 p.m. Oct. 1, will feature a one-woman show, "My Soul is a Witness," by internationally-known theater personality Val Gray Ward and singing by Bernice Johnson Reagon -- founder and artistic director of Sweet Honey in the Rock (which performed at JMU in February). There also will be performances by JMU musician Mellasenah Morris and the campus' Community Gospel Singers. A "Masks of Africa" exhibit will open Thursday at JMU's Sawhill Gallery (in Duke Hall). The wooden masks -- once used for ceremonial purposes -- will be on display through Oct. 7. A limited-edition anthology of "signature poems" by 23 of the conference poets, published by JMU and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy, will make its debut, at a price of $25. It's expected to become a collector's item -- especially for those who meet the poets and have the books autographed. In a presentation titled "A Fisted Reading," a group of young poets from Cambridge, Mass., known as "The Dark Room Collective" will discuss problems such as drugs and AIDS. The conference is being videotaped by WVPT, which intends to produce a documentary for nationwide viewing. Also, students in a major black writers class taught by Gabbin will write reviews and critiques for a book on the conference poets' works. Gabbin says Maya Angelou (who will not be at this conference but drew a large crowd to JMU in March) is advising her students on publishing their book. |