Furious Flower

by Gabbin, Joanne V.

• ISBN13: 9780813922522
• ISBN10: 0813922526
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr

Summary

Furious Flower: African-American Poetry from the Black Arts Movement to the PresentEdited by Joanne V. GabbinThe Furious Flower Conference of 1994 represented the largest gathering of African American writers at one event in nearly thirty years. In that crucial span of time, African American poetry had evolved into an art less overtly political and more introspective; it had also shown dramatic growth -- both in the number of its readers and its practitioners.As a second Furious Flower Conference prepares to convene, Joanne Gabbin has assembled a remarkable selection of works by the Furious Flower participants. The forty-three poets cover three generations, ranging from such established voices as Michael Harper, Nikki Giovanni, and the late Gwendolyn Brooks, in whose honor the conference was organized, to a host of rising young writers who are reimagining America in the language of a hip-hop nation.Furious Flower provides a fascinating collective portrait of African American poetry at the close of the twentieth century -- as well as an indication of where it may be headed as we enter the twenty-first. The book includes biographies of the contributors and a dynamic collection of performance photographs by C. B. Claiborne featuring many of the Furious Flower participants as they appeared at the original 1994 conference.ContributorsGwendolyn Brooks * Samuel Allen * Adam David Miller * Pinkie Gordon Lane * Naomi Long Madgett * Dolores Kendrick * Garrett McDowell * Raymond R. Patterson * Alvin Aubert * Amiri Baraka * Sonia Sanchez * Lucille Clifton * Jayne Cortez * Eugene B. Redmond * Michael S. Harper * Askia M. Touré * Sterling D. Plumpp * Toi Derricotte * Everett Hoagland * Haki R. Madhubuti * Bernice Johnson Reagon * Nikki Giovanni * Jerry W. Ward Jr. * Lorenzo Thomas * Yusef Komunyakaa * Kalamu ya Salaam * Dorothy Marie Rice * Lamont B. Steptoe * Quo Vadis Gex-Breaux * E. Ethelbert Miller * Mona Lisa Saloy * Afaa Michael Weaver * Rita Dove * Opal Moore * Cornelius Eady * Carole B. Weatherford * Lenard D. Moore * Sharan Strange * Adisa Vera Beatty * Elizabeth Alexander * Jabari Asim * Joel Dias-Porter (DJ Renegade) * Thomas Sayers Ellis * John Keene * Natasha Trethewey * Major Jackson * Kevin Young * Garrett McDowellPublished in association with the Center for American Places

Table of Contents

Preface	xv
Introduction	xvii
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
The Second Sermon on the Warpland	3	(1)
Winnie	4	(1)
A Bronzeville Mother Loiters In Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon.	5	(4)
We Real Cool	9	(1)
The Near Johannesburg Boy	10	(1)
Uncle Seagram	11	(3)
Samuel Allen (b. 1917)
The Apple Trees In Sussex	14	(1)
A Moment, Please	15	(1)
The Lingering Doubt	16	(1)
To Satch	17	(2)
Adam David Miller (b. 1922)
My Trip	19	(3)
Forever Afternoon	22	(1)
Song of the Wheel	23	(2)
Pinkie Gordon Lane (b. 1923)
Girl at the Window	25	(1)
Lyric: I Am Looking at Music	25	(1)
Children	26	(3)
Naomi Long Madgett (b. 1923)
Reluctant Light	29	(1)
The Last Happy Day	30	(3)
Packrat	33	(2)
Dolores Kendrick (b. 1927)
For Gwendolyn Brooks: As I Civilize a Space	35	(1)
Where the Grieved Ones Sat	36	(2)
The Drowned River	38	(3)
Raymond R. Patterson (1929-2001)
Harlem Suite	41	(2)
Forerunner	43	(1)
Baobab	44	(2)
Alvin Aubert (b. 1930)
Nat Turner in the Clearing	46	(1)
James Baldwin, 1924-1987	46	(1)
December 1982/Detroit	47	(3)
Amiri Baraka (b. 1934)
I Am	50	(5)
In the Funk World	55	(1)
John Coltrane (1926-1967)	55	(4)
Sonia Sanchez (b. 1934)
Ballad	59	(1)
Letter to Ezekiel Mphahlele	59	(2)
Under a Soprano Sky	61	(1)
For Sweet Honey in the Rock	62	(2)
Philadelphia: Spring, 1985	64	(1)
For Sister Gwen Brooks	65	(3)
Lucille Clifton (b. 1936)
dialysis	68	(1)
donor	68	(1)
1994	69	(3)
Jayne Cortez (b. 1936)
There It Is	72	(1)
The Guitars I Used to Know	73	(3)
The Heavy Headed Dance	76	(3)
Eugene B. Redmond (b. 1937)
New York Seizures	79	(2)
11-haiku-poem for a magnificent million	81	(3)
Michael S. Harper (b. 1938)
Dear John, Dear Coltrane	84	(1)
Last Affair: Bessie's Blues Song	85	(1)
High Modes: Vision as Ritual: Confirmation	86	(3)
Askia M. Toure (b. 1938)
Summer Worlds: A Mythic Landscape	89	(2)
Aboriginal Elegy: The Once and Future Queen	91	(2)
O Lord of Light! A Mystic Sage Returns to Realms of Eternity	93	(5)
Sterling D. Plumpe (b. 1940)
Be-Bop	98	(1)
History, Hollers, and Horn	98	(2)
Ornate with Smoke	100	(6)
from Mary	106	(5)
Toi Derricotte (b. 1941)
The Minks	111	(1)
After a Reading at a Black College	112	(1)
For Black Women Who Are Afraid	112	(3)
Everett Hoagland (b. 1942)
From Ground Zero	115	(2)
How Could All That Have Happened Here?	117	(3)
Time Break	120	(6)
Haki R. Madhubuti (b. 1942)
Books as Answer	126	(1)
The B Network	127	(1)
Mothers	128	(4)
Bernice Johnson Reagon (b. 1942)
Greed	132	(4)
They Are All Falling around Me	136	(3)
Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943)
The Wrong Kitchen	139	(1)
Legacies	139	(1)
Nikki-Rosa	140	(3)
Jerry W Ward Jr. (b. 1943)
I Have Felt the Gulf: Mississippi	143	(1)
Journey 55	143	(1)
After the Report from Iron Mountain	144	(4)
Lorenzo Thomas (b. 1944)
Dangerous Doubts	148	(1)
L'Argent	148	(1)
Back in the Day	149	(3)
Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947)
Songs for My Father	152	(7)
Kalamu ya Salaam (b. 1947)
Sharing is hereditary	159	(1)
The Call of the Wild	159	(3)
Directions for Understanding Modern Jazz Criticism	162	(2)
Dorothy Marie Rice (b. 1948)
Taproots	164	(1)
Ambrosia	164	(1)
Remains	165	(2)
Lamont B. Steptoe (b. 1949)
Spookism	167	(1)
Contraband	167	(1)
Coming Ashore	168	(2)
Qui Vadis Gex-Breaux (b. 1950)
Jazz Rain	170	(1)
Padded Steps/Sister Song (a litany)	171	(3)
Wisdom Is	174	(1)
Memory Waves	175	(3)
E. Ethelbert Miller (b. 1950)
Roy Campanella: January, 1958	178	(1)
Bringing Back the Draft	178	(1)
Whispers, Secrets, and Promises	178	(2)
Mona Lisa Saloy (b. 1950)
The "N" Word	180	(3)
This Poem Is for You, My Sister	183	(3)
We've Come This Far	186	(3)
Afaa Michael Weaver (b. 1951)
Thelonius	189	(1)
The Poets	190	(3)
Rita Dove (b. 1952)
Freedom Ride	193	(1)
Claudette Colvin Goes to Work	193	(2)
Rosa	195	(1)
The Enactment	195	(3)
Opal Moore (b. 1953)
Eulogy for Sister	198	(1)
The Taste of Life Going On	199	(2)
Cornelius Eady (b. 1954)
How I Got Born	201	(1)
Composite	201	(1)
Birthing	202	(5)
Carole B. Weatherford (b. 1956)
The Tan Chanteuse	207	(1)
From Birmingham to Bristol in a Boxcar	207	(1)
Queen Ijo's Blues	208	(3)
Lenard D. Moore (b. 1958)
Airport	211	(1)
Black Girl Tap Dancing	211	(3)
Sharan Strange (b. 1959)
Offering	214	(1)
Night Work	214	(2)
Hunger	216	(3)
Adisa Vera Beatty (b. 1960)
Distance	219	(1)
Memorization	219	(1)
Geography	220	(2)
Elizabeth Alexander (b. 1962)
The Josephine Baker Museum	222	(2)
At the Beach	224	(1)
Passage	225	(3)
Jabari Asim (b. 1962)
1st Lt. Vernon J. Baker: Hero on the Hill (Company C, 370th Infantry Regiment, 92nd Division)	228	(2)
Let's Just Tell It	230	(4)
Baby's Breath	234	(3)
Joel Dias-Porter (DJ Renegade) (b. 1962)
Fireflies in a Jar	237	(2)
Thursday Poem	239	(1)
Subterranean Night-Colored Magus	240	(4)
Thomas Sayers Ellis (b. 1963)
Sir Nose D'Void of Funk	244	(2)
View of the Library of Congress from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School	246	(3)
John Keene (b. 1965)
After C (3): Tayloriana	249	(1)
The Haymarket	249	(3)
Natasha Trethewey (b. 1966)
Limen	252	(1)
Bellocq's Ophelia	252	(1)
Drapery Factory, Gulfport, Mississippi, 1956	253	(3)
Major Jackson (b. 1968)
Indian Song	256	(1)
Block Party	256	(1)
To Afaa Michael S. Weaver	257	(1)
Some Kind of Crazy	257	(3)
Kevin Young (b. 1970)
Quivira City Limits	260	(1)
Everywhere Is out of Town	261	(1)
East Jesus	262	(1)
Poetic Retrospective: A Blooming in the Valley Garrett McDowell	263	(4)
Notes on the Poets	267	(16)
Acknowledgments	283