Ms. Lauren Alleyne and the Furious Flower Poetry Center receive funding for "Facing It: The Poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa" Teachers' Seminar

Ms. Lauren Alleyne, Assistant Director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center, has been awarded $7,000 from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities to fund “Facing It: The Poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa.” According to the proposal, the seminar “will be a weeklong series of lectures, panels, roundtable discussions, and readings focused on critical conversations surrounding the work of this renowned American poet. Open to a general audience, the seminar is designed primarily for college and high school educators, who will be encouraged to engage the material and consider how they might take it back to their classrooms. ‘Facing It’ will be anchored by five prominent scholars of Komunyakaa’s work. The poet himself will also be present throughout the event, and he will give a reading at the conclusion of the week.” The seminar will take place this summer from June 18 to June 24.

“Facing It” will be Furious Flower’s third seminar featuring a single poet at JMU. The previous seminars have had a diverse range of attendees and have received extremely positive feedback from participants regarding the seminar content. These seminars are intended to highlight a living Black writer’s literary contributions, spark critical conversations about the writer’s work, and inspire new teaching methods to integrate into the classroom. Click here to see photos from 2011's seminar featuring Sonia Sanchez.

Best of luck to Ms. Alleyne and the Furious Flower Poetry Center on their seminar!