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Posts published in “Poetry”

Student Finds Lost Poem of Jupiter Hammon, the 1st Known African-American Writer

By goodblacknews on February 18, 2013
One of the earliest writings of Jupiter Hammon, the first African-American poet to be published, has been found. Born into slavery in Long Island, New York, he was allowed to explore his master’s library. Hammon went on to publish his first work, “An Evening Thought,” in 1760. 
Julie McCown, a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Arlington, was researching several libraries for a particular poem and found success at Manuscripts and Archives at Yale University Library in Connecticut. The poem, published in 1786, is telling of Hammon’s evolved thoughts on slavery in America, according to Cedrick May, a UTA professor.

Institute For Teaching African-American Poetry Awarded National Grant

By goodblacknews on September 30, 2012

LAWRENCE – A grant awarded to a University of Kansas researcher from the National Endowment for the Humanities will spur the creation of an institute on reading and teaching African-American poetry.

The project is led by Maryemma Graham (pictured), a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of English in the KU College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. The institute, “Don’t Deny My Voice: Reading and Teaching African-American Poetry,” will be open to college and university teachers from across the country. NEH awarded $189,000 to support the program.
The institute will be guided by experts in the field and supported by the archival resources of KU’s Project on the History of Black Writing and the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University.
Graham founded and continues to direct the Project on the History of Black Writing, located within KU’s Department of English, which is the only archive of its kind and has been in the forefront of black literary studies and inclusion efforts in higher education for 29 years. This grant marks HBW’s seventh from NEH and the fifth national institute in its 14-year history at KU. The institute will be coordinated by Sarah Arbuthnot Lendt, Project on the History of Black Writing grant specialist and KU English instructor.

GBN Quote Of The Day

By goodblacknews on July 25, 2012

“In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.”
— Audre Lorde, poet, writer and literary activist