Jamaal Crowder has no fear of facing the microphone this week.

Even to read his own poetry.

It could be practice for a poetry conference planned at James Madison University next year.

Crowder will be among JMU students who read their work Thursday at Barnes & Noble to promote Furious Flower: Regenerating the Black Poetic Tradition, a conference to be on campus September 22-25, 2004.

The event Thursday is one of several poetry readings and other promotions of the conference at the bookstore between now and next September.

Barnes & Noble will give a percentage of sales on Nov. 29 to the conference.

Crowder, a senior from Maryland, has read his poems publicly at JMU and looks forward to reading at a new place.

For him, the cause is good.

The Furious Flower conference will let him "pretty much see and get some energy from other poets I haven't had a chance to meet yet" and hear other perspectives, Crowder says.

Furious Flower In 2004

The first Furious Flower conference, at JMU in 1994, featured about 50 poets and reportedly was the largest such gathering in the country.

"People call it a watershed event," says Joanne Gabbin, who coordinated the first conference and is organizing the next one.

The conference in 1994 included the late Pulitzer-Prize winning Gwendolyn Brooks. "Furious Flower" comes from a poem she wrote.

An anthology Gabbin edited of work by poets at the first conference will be published in January by the University of Virginia Press. The book is "Furious Flower: African American Poetry from the Black Arts Movement to the Present."

Furious Flower next year will feature poets from around the world, including Virginia's Rita Dove, former U.S. poet laureate who teaches at the University of Virginia; and Nikki Giovanni, who teaches at Virginia Tech.

Sonia Sanchez of Philadelphia and Lucille Clifton of Maryland's Eastern Shore will participate.

Derek Walcott, a Nobel laureate from the West Indies, may attend.

Organizers must raise about $80,000. JMU has given money and other aid, says Gabbin, who teaches English and directs the Furious Flower Poetry Center on campus.

The conference will include readings, discussions by critics and theatrical productions. Most events are free and open to the public.

Poetry's Re-emergence

Poetry "is a literature that helps us to be more humane. People raise issues, raise concerns that help us to think about our humanity in ways that we might not otherwise," Gabbin says.

To her, the conference underscores the reemergence of black poetry and poetry in general.

"People are standing up, and instead of doing karaoke they're doing the spoken word, they're doing performance poetry," Gabbin says.

That includes Crowder.

For him, poetry is inclusive.

"I don't think there's a color line when it comes to poetry," Crowder says. "Whoever writes poetry, regardless of their color, I can appreciate it."

Contact Jessica Clarke at 574-6277 or jsclarke@dnronline.com

Copyright (c) 2003, Byrd Newspapers, All Rights Reserved.