The Furious Flower Broadside Collection holds over 300 new and vintage broadsides featuring poems by Black poets. Broadsides are prints of poems often intended to be plastered onto walls or framed. They can be digitally or hand-printed, and may also feature graphic or fine art in conversation with the poem. Often, broadsides are printed in limited editions, which are numbered and signed by the poet and/or artist.
At the Center's former location at JMU's Cardinal House, the collection was showcased as the Furious Flower Broadside Gallery (2023 - 2026) and as a part of the Arts Council of the Valley's First Fridays. Now that the Center has moved to Carrier Library, a rotating selection of broadsides from our collection is displayed in the Gwendolyn Brooks Reading Room and the hallway adjacent to the Furious Flower suite.
Visitors may view the featured selection whenever Carrier Library is open. For a private, customized viewing of our broadside collection for your class or organization, please email Program Manager, Jazmin Witherspoon, at l6xsxd@jmu.edu. To donate a broadside to the collection, please email Executive Director Lauren K. Alleyne at alleynlx@jmu.edu.
