GBN’s Daily Drop: Poet and Pulitzer Prize Nominee Vivian Ayers Allen (LISTEN)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Vivian Ayers Allen not only infused the world with her art (her poem “On Status” was recently sampled by Solange on her 2019 When I Get Home album) but also with artists.

This includes famous daughters Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen as well as the children she’s inspired on the site of her former alma mater, the historic Brainerd Institute in Chester, South Carolina, via her “Workshops in Open Fields” program to educate preschool children in the arts.

To read about her, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:

(You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website.) Full transcript below:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, April 8th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

The words of Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Vivian Ayers Allen have stood the test of time – and space. Her poem “Hawk,” an allegory of freedom made analogous to space flight, was published in 1957 just before the launch of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite sent from Earth into orbit.

Enlarged reproductions of select lines were exhibited at NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. In 1997 Allen’s family purchased her alma mater, the historic Brainerd Institute in Chester, South Carolina, and soon began offering “Workshops in Open Fields” to educate preschool children in the arts.

And in 2019, fellow Houstonian Solange Knowles used a sample of Allen’s poem “On Status” as read by her two famous daughters – Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen – on Knowles’ acclaimed When I Get Home album.

To learn more about Vivian Ayers Allen, check out Spice of Dawns, her 1952 poetry collection, the Brainerd Institute Heritage website, and links to more sources provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

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Sources:

• https://www.bustle.com/p/solanges-when-i-get-home-is-ode-to-womens-history-month-thanks-to-its-iconic-cameos-16439935
• http://brainerdinstituteheritage.com
• https://ganttcenter.org/carolina-trailblazers/vivian-ayers-allen/
• https://scafricanamerican.com/vivian-ayers-allen/
• https://www.worldcat.org/title/spice-of-dawns-a-book-of-verse/oclc/2684559?referer=di&ht=edition#borrow
• https://youtu.be/8TbMI5vr9BM
• https://www.facebook.com/lewisvillehigh.richburg/posts/dr-vivian-ayers-celebrated-poet-for-work-such-as-the-hawk-visited-lhs-and-spoke-/706879326151867/
• https://twitter.com/phyliciarashadf/status/1101497318203895808?lang=en
• https://youtu.be/N_TawLzLhkw