Sharyn Skeeter's Blog
Posted by Sharyn Skeeter
June 2
“Power comes not from the barrel of a gun, but from one’s own awareness of his or her own cultural strength and the unlimited capacity to emphasize with, feel for, care, and love one’s brothers and sisters.”
Addison Gayle (1932-1991), literary critic
June 3
“I was learning the importance of names—having them, making them—but at the same time I sensed the dangers. Recognition was followed by oblivion, a yawning maw whose victims disappeared without a trace.”
Josephine Baker (1906-1975), jazz singer and dancer
June 7
“Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.”
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000), poet, novelist
June 17
“The stubbornness I had as a child has been transmitted into perseverance. I can let go but I don’t give up. I don’t beat myself up about negative things.”
Phylicia Rashad, actress
June 20
“I think I must write a book. It has been my cherished dream and I feel an influence that I cannot resist calling me to the task.”
Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932), novelist, short story writer
June 22
“Go within every day and find the inner strength so that the world will not blow your candle out.”
Katherine Dunham (1910-2006), dancer, author, anthropologist
June 27
“I hope there is something worthy in my writings and not merely the novelty of a black face associated with the power of rhyme that has attracted attention.”
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), poet, novelist, short story writer
June 30
“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”
Lena Horne, singer, actress
Posted by Sharyn Skeeter
Lucille Clifton is this year’s winner of the very prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. This is a prize with a $100,000 award, one of the largest literary prizes in the country. Lucille Clifton is a writer who certainly deserves it for her lifetime achievement as a poet and author.
Her first book of poetry, Good Times, was published in 1969 and declared by the New York Times as one of the year’s best books. Since then she has published at least a dozen poetry collections, numerous children’s books (including the Everett Anderson series), and a memoir. She has been a professor and poet-in-residence at many U.S. universities and colleges.
Clifton’s poetry reflects her love and respect for her African-American heritage, family, and the broader community. Her topics include African-American history, current events, women’s issues, indeed the whole spectrum of life’s experiences. Feelings of compassion and a sense of justice permeate her work.
Two of her poetry collections were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize--Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 (1987) and Two-Headed Woman (1980). In 2000, she was honored with the National Book Award for her poetry collection Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 (2000). Clifton has won numerous other awards--including an Emmy--and was Poet Laureate of Maryland (1979-1981).
In an interview with Hilary Holladay in 1998, Lucille Clifton said, “I have a poem that says something like, ‘the future is possible.’ I do believe that.”
Posted by Sharyn Skeeter
Congratulations to Natasha Trethewey on winning the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry collection, Native Guard (2006).
She was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, the geographic base of this collection. Some of the poems are tributes to her mother who died when Trethewey was a teen. Many of the poems are written as letters and diary entries by African-American Union soldiers stationed on Ship Island near Gulfport during the Civil War. The narrator is ironically an ex-slave who guards captured white Confederate soldiers.
Natasha Trethewey’s own background—growing up in Mississippi as the biracial child of an African-American mother and white father—is a factor in some of the poems in her three collections. Also, her father, Eric Trethewey, is the author of five collections of poetry and the 1990 winner of the Virginia Prize for Poetry.
She is no stranger to honors for her poetry. Her first collection, Domestic Work (2000), was selected by Rita Dove (former U.S. Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995) to be the first winner of Cave Canem’s poetry prize in 1999. Among the many awards that followed are the Margaret Walker Award for poetry, the Grolier Prize, the Jessica Nobel-Maxwell Memorial Award for poetry, the Julia Peterkin Award at Converse College, the Bunting and Guggenheim fellowships, and the Distinguished Young Alumna Award at the University of Massachusetts.
Her second poetry collection is Bellocq's Ophelia (2002). She is an associate professor of English and creative writing at Emory University.
Posted by Sharyn Skeeter
May 1: Sterling Brown (1901-1989) was a poet and literary critic who was also interested in African-American folklore. Among his books are Southern Road, Negro Poetry, Drama and the Negro in American Fiction, and The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown (edited by Michael Harper).
May 10: Jayne Cortez has published ten books of poetry. She has recorded nine CDs of her poetry with her band The Firespitters. She has received several awards including the International African Festival Award, the Langston Hughes Award, and the American Book Award.
May 11: Edward Kamau Brathwaite is a Barbadian poet, historian, playwright, and essayist. He is a prolific writer who has published many books. A few of his poetry collections are Masks, Roots, Soweto, and Third World Poems.
May 19: Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), playwright, in 1959, was the first African-American woman to have a drama (Raisin in the Sun) produced on Broadway. She also wrote The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window and Les Blancs, as well as scripts for public television before she died from cancer at 34. To Be Young, Gifted and Black was adapted from her writings posthumously.
May 25: Jamaica Kincaid, Antigua-born, is a novelist and short story writer. Her books include Lucy, My Garden, Talk Story, Seed Gathering Atop the World, and others. She has received the Anifield-Wolf Book Award and The Lila-Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund Award.
May 30: Countee Cullen (1903-1946) was a Harlem Renaissance writer who published four collections of poetry, translations, plays, and one novel. The poetry included The Ballad of the Brown Girl, Copper Sun, The Black Christ and Other Poems, and Color. His most well-known poem is “Yet Do I Marvel.”
May 31: Al Young is a poet, novelist, and college professor who has won numerous awards for his writing. Among his many books are Dancing, Sitting Pretty, Who Is Angelina?, Kinds of Blue, and Mingus, Mingus. He has also written screenplays and edited African American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology.
Posted by Sharyn Skeeter
Cave Canem was founded in 1996 by poets Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady. For over a decade it has been an exceptional resource for African-American poets. Its programs include a week-long summer retreat, a first book prize, a Legacy Conversation series, writing workshops, other publications, and readings.
Among Cave Canem’s faculty and judges have been such renowned poets as Lucille Clifton, Yusef Komunyakaa, Elizabeth Alexander, Sonia Sanchez, and Carl Phillips.
The two collections of poetry that have come from Cave Canem are Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade (University of Michigan Press) and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (The University of Georgia Press).
The Lannan Foundation grant will support Cave Canem’s support staff positions, professional services, and marketing efforts.
