Black Writers Read Retrospective: On Poetry

Today, August 2, 2024, is African American essayist, novelist, poet, cultural critic, orator and activist James Baldwin’s (1924-1987) centennial birthday. In this retrospective, we take a look back at conversations with poets whose work performs the task of "bearing witness",  like that of Baldwin's writing.

Baldwin's canon of work explored fundamental questions about the experiences of African Americans, particularly issues pertaining to class, race, religion, masculinities, sexuality and social acceptance. Documenting the world and society as it was manifesting around him, Baldwin delivered the news to his readers as a way to advocate for change. Nicole highly recommends folx to read Baldwin's essay, Letter for My Nephew, which first appeared in The Progressive magazine in 1962.

Included on this bonus episode are:

Jason Montgomery's, or "JRM" (Writers Across the Margins, S4 E4) work engages the cross-section of Chicano/Indigenous identity, cultural hybridization, post-colonial reconstruction, and political agency. They served as one of the  2021-2023 Poets Laureate for Easthampton, Massachusetts, serving with their partner, Alexandra Woolner.

Nandi Comer (S4 E14) is the Poet Laureate of Michigan. She is the author of American Family: A Syndrome  (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Tapping Out (Triquarterly, 2020), which was awarded the 2020 Society of Midland Authors Award and the 2020 Julie Suk Award. 

Lynne Thompson (S4 E15) served as the 4th Poet Laureate of the City of Los Angeles. Her most recent poetry collection, Blue on a Blue Palette (BOA Editions, 2024), reflects on the condition of women—their joys despite their histories, and their insistence on survival as issues of race, culture, pandemic, and climate threaten their livelihoods.

M. Nzadi Keita (S4 E16) Migration Letters (Beacon Press, 2024), reflects on Black working-class identity and culture in Philadelphia, taking a closer look at what it means to be Black in America just after the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.

Aaron Dworkin (S4 E2), a 2005 MacArthur Fellow and Emmy-award winning filmmaker, originated the terminology “poetjournalism”, which he defines as “journalism in which a news story or other event is presented in poetic form incorporating elements of emotion, opinion and creative illustration.”

In Protection from Erasure (Jaded Ibis Press, 2023), Samuel "Sami" Miranda (S4 E1)  aims to capture and celebrate a life lived and lives encountered. Through observations and conversations, we're reminded that mundane events and minute moments in our everyday lives can and should be memoriali