poetry EVENT - Chicago

POETRY FOUNDATION, CHICAGO HUMANITIES FESTIVAL & MCA CHICAGO

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: Poetry in Performance

Saturday, October 31, 7:30PM
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Edlis Neeson Theater
220 East Chicago Avenue
Tickets available at
tic

POETRY FOUNDATION, CHICAGO HUMANITIES FESTIVAL, NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES, ILLINOIS HUMANITIES & MCA CHICAGO

Claudia Rankine: "An American Lyric"

Saturday, October 31, 2:00PM
Northwestern University School of Law
Thorne Auditorium
375 East Chicago Avenue
Tickets available at
tickets.chicagohumanities.org

POETRY FOUNDATION, CHICAGO HUMANITIES FESTIVAL, AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION & THE LOHENGRIN FOUNDATION

Jacqueline Woodson: Brown Girl Dreaming

Sunday, November 1, 2:00 PM
First United Methodist Church
77 West Washington Street
Free tickets available at
tickets.chicagohumanities.org

celebrate BLACK POETRY

Today we celebrate Black Poetry Day in honor of Jupiter Hammon, who is believed to be the first African American to publish poetry in the United States. He was born into slavery in Long Island, New York on October 17, 1711.

His poem “An Evening Thought” was first published on Christmas Day at the age of 49. Hammon is considered one of the founders of African-American literature.

In honor of Hammon’s birth, we celebrate the contributions of all African Americans to the world of poetry. Some of the most notable are Langston Hughes, Phyllis Wheatley, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Maya Angelou.

It’s no surprise that many of the early poems by African Americans spoke of overcoming struggles and hardship, often with encouragement and a look to a brighter future.

One of my favorites is by Langston Hughes, “I Too Am America.” 

I, Too

by Langston Hughes
written in 1932

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

How will you celebrate this day?

1. Look up and reflect on the meaning of poems written by African Americans. See a list of a few athttp://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets_african_american.html and at http://www.ehow.com/list_5842906_famous-black-poets-authors.html

2. You don’t have to be an African American to write a poem of encouragement, telling how you overcame something in your life or celebrating freedom. Try your hand at a poem now. 

3. Learn about the Harlem Renaissance, a period after World War I when many Blacks migrated North. During this period,  Black poet and writers openly celebrated their history and contributions and opened the doors for many other Black writers to share and be recognized for their work.      

-By FLORA-

                                                      JUPITER HAMMON

challenge thirty

Write a poem to describe a situation in which something was broken...

poetry NEWS

BLACK POETRY DAY

Black Poetry Day is celebrated annually on October 17.

CELEBRATE

Pick up some poetry written by black poets and use #BlackPoetryDay to post on social media.

poetry NEWS

Dawn Lundy Martin to Guest Edit PEN Poetry Series!

BY HARRIET STAFF

This just in: Dawn Lundy Martin will be guest editing PEN Poetry Series, starting in October. Yesterday, they posted a new poem by Martin, from “Good Stock”–check it out here. Martin’s newest book,Life in a Box Is a Pretty Life (Nightboat Books 2015) was recently reviewed at Emerson’s Ploughshares. An excerpt:

The book as a whole engages artist Carrie Mae Weems’s “Framed by Modernism,” a series of photographs that critiques the relationship of male artist and female model while at the same time reproducing it: a critique that acknowledges its weird complicity in what it analyzes. Once we realize that we are marching our bodies through socially scripted performances, do we then have a chance of freeing ourselves? Lundy does not take it for granted that we do. When she declares that “A boy is not a body. A boy is a walk”—that “boyness” is not an essence, not an inalterable natural fact, but a performance—a liberating possibility opens. But realizing the possibility can be elusive…

We’re looking forward to the possibilities at PEN!

challenge twenty-nine

Write a poem in which your current self meets your future self.  What advice or warnings would you feel compelled to offer yourself.?

poetic BIRTHDAY

AMIRI BARAKA was born Everett LeRoi Jones on this day in Newark, New Jersey. He was a poet, writer, teacher, and political activist.


His first book of poems "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note,"  was published in 1961.


He was the author of numerous books of poetry during his writing career which spanned nearly 50 years. His themes ranged form Black liberation to White racism.


Baraka's poetry and writing has attracted both extreme praise and condemnation.

In July 2002, Baraka was named Poet Laureate of New Jersey.

Amiri Baraka died in 2014. He is recognized as one of the most respected and widely published Black writers of his generation.


To read his life and times, and sample his poetry and writings GOOGLE his name.