For Immediate
Release
For program
information contact Joanna Howard asplendidwakeATgmail.com
For
wiki and venue information, contact Jennifer King jenkingATgwu.edu
A Splendid Wake
3
3rd
Annual Public Program
Celebrating Poetry in the Nation’s Capital from 1900 to
the Present
Friday,
March 20th, 2015 from 6:30-8:30 P.M. at George Washington University
Gelman Library, Suite 702, 2130 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. (near Foggy
Bottom Metro stop). Free and Open to the Public!
Join us for our
3rd incarnation of A Splendid Wake as we continue our work of
documenting poets and poetry movements in the Nation’s Capital from 1900 to the
present. Our focus this vernal equinox is on Georgia Douglas Johnson and the
“Saturday Nighters,” poet May Miller, the Federal Poets, Poetry Workshops born
during “Poetry and the National Conscience” conferences, and the Modern Urban
Griots.
Our
stars this time around will include: Regie Cabico, Host; Kim Roberts and Michon Boston on
Georgia Douglas Johnson and the Saturday Nighters; Miller Newman on May Miller; Judith
McCombs on the Federal Poets with Donald
Illich and Dorrit Carroll; Linda
Pastan and Rod Jellema on poetry workshops with Siv Cedering, Primus St.
John, Roland Flint, and others; Toni
Asanti Lightfoot on Modern Urban Griots with Brandon D. Johnson, Holly Bass and Twain Dooley; and Sunil Freeman, in the important role of
Timekeeper!
Co-editor
of Flicker and Spark: A Contemporary
Queer Anthology of Spoken Word and Poetry and Poetry Nation: The North
American Anthology of Fusion Poetry, Regie
Cabico, our host, has received awards in National Slam competitions
and for his work as slam coach for individual and team competitors in the U.S.
and Canada. He is co-director of La-Ti-Do, a weekly spoken word and cabaret
series in D.C.
Georgia Douglas
Johnson—poet,
playwright, and composer--brought together Kelly Miller and his daughter May
Miller, Alain Locke, Carter G. Woodson, Angelina Weld Grimke, Langston Hughes,
Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston and many others at weekly salons at her home on
S Street in D.C. Her life and works will be presented by Kim Roberts, a true D.C. force for poetry and the author of four
collections of poetry, the editor of Beltway
Poetry Quarterly, the anthology Full
Moon on K Street, and by Michon Boston,
a writer/producer and author of “Iola’s Letter,” a play based on the events
that transformed Ida B. Wells from a journalist to a staunch anti-lynching
activist. Boston’s plays have been produced at the Source Theatre, the National
Black Theater Festival in North Carolina, and the Kennedy Center.
May Miller was a
Washington poet, playwright and educator whose literary career began in the
Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Her father, Kelly Miller, was a nationally
known author and philosopher, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a
professor of sociology at Howard University. He was the first African American
to attend Johns Hopkins University where he studied astronomy. W.E.B. DuBois
and Booker T. Washington visited their home. May spoke of having to give up her
room for Paul Laurence Dunbar. An award May Miller received for a play was
presented at a dinner attended by Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, James Weldon
Johnson and Jean Toomer. She served as chair of the Literature Panel of the
D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Her niece, Miller Newman, will provide a picture of May Miller’s life. Miller
Newman is a senior faculty member in the Department of English Composition and Reading
at Montgomery College. She is a poet, essayist and aspiring novelist with a
doctorate in Higher Education Administration.
The
Federal Poets Workshop,
founded in 1944, is the D.C. Metro area’s longest running workshop for poets. Members
meet monthly at Tenley Public Library to critique poems and produce a biannual
journal. Craig Reynolds, Frank Goodwyn, and Nancy Allinson have served as
presidents. Don Illich is the
current president. At least five workshops and two readings series have emerged
from Federal Poets. Judith McCombs,
Vice-President of Federal Poets since 2005, is a poet and literary scholar. Her
poetry has appeared in many publications. The
Habit of Fire: Poems Selected &
New appeared in 2005. She directs the Kensington Row Bookshop Poetry
Readings, edits for Word Works DC, and is on the Splendid Wake board. Don Illich, current head of
Federal Poets, has published poems in The
Iowa Review, Nimrod, and Rattle. His poetry has been nominated four
times for the Pushcart Prize. His chapbook, Rocket
Children, appeared in 2012. Doritt Carroll received her
undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University. In Caves and GLTTL STP
were published by Brickhouse Books and her poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Plainsongs and Journal of Formal Poetry.
Rod Jellema ran a series of
conferences at the University of Maryland beginning in 1968, “Poetry and the
National Conscience,” and sent letters out inviting folks to join a fortnightly
writer’s workshop already in progress. Those who joined the existing group--Siv
Cedering, Eddie Gold, Primus St. John and Bill Holland-- were Linda Pastan, Ann Darr, Roland Flint,
Gary Sange, and Myra Sklarew. Other who joined occasionally were Elisavietta
Ritchie, John Pauker, Henry Taylor.
“Notable sit-ins or drop-ins were Gene McCarthy, Bill Stafford, and
Stanley Kunitz,” says Rod Jellema, who adds, “Ann Darr estimated that the
members of the workshop published more than sixty books.” Linda
Pastan and Rod Jellema will reminisce
about this workshop. Jellema,
professor emeriti, University of Maryland founded the Creative Writing Program,
and is the author of five collections of poems, the most recent, Incarnality: The Collected Poems. He is currently working on a history of early
New Orleans jazz, Really Hot: A New Hearing for Old New Orleans Jazz. Linda
Pastan has published thirteen volumes of poetry, most recently Traveling Light. Two collections have
been finalists for the National Book Award. A new collection, Insomnia, is due out from Norton in Fall
2015. In 2003, she received the Ruth
Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.
The
way Toni Asanti Lightfoot tells it, The
Modern Urban Griots got their start
on a cold February night in 1994 at a place called “It’s Your Mug Cafe” at 2601
P Street, N.W. in Georgetown. She says that this series “had a broad impact. It
influenced the establishment of numerous poetry events on U Street, N.W. as well as Blackman’s Freestyle Union hip-hop
workshops and created a commitment to community and education.” Those who
participated included Brandon D.
Johnson, Holly Bass, Twain Dooley, and Lori Tsang, among others.
Beloved hecklers were The Brock Crew, Kenny Carroll, Brian Gilmore and Joel
Dias Porter (DJ Renegade). The group performed at the Whitney Museum in NY, the
Nuyorican, and smaller venues around the city. In recent times the group
reunited at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Toni Asanti Lightfoot, is a poet, educator, activist, and has an MS
in Traditional Oriental Medicine. Her work has been anthologized and can be
seen on YouTube. She is editor of Dream
of a Word: A Tia Chucha Press Anthology. Holly Bass, a Cave Canem fellow, writer
and performer, studied modern dance and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence
College and earned a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University. In
2011, The Root and 2012 Best Performance Artist in Washington City Paper named
her one of the Top 30 Black Performance Poets internationally. Brandon D. Johnson, founding member of
Modern Urban Griots and The Black Rooster Collective, received a BA from Wabash
College and a JD from Antioch School of Law. He is a Cave Canem Graduate
Fellow, the author of Love’s Skin, Man
Burns Ant, the Strangers Between,
and has work published in numerous anthologies. Twain Dooley, born in D.C., served on active duty during
Desert Storm, and after a 2-year stay in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (as a civilian),
returned to Washington and began to perform for a variety of audiences. Author
of several books, he has opened for Amiri Baraka and Jimmy “JJ” Walker, won top
honors on the DC/Baltimore Slam Team, and is currently working on the story of
his life, “None of This Makes Sense.”
Splendid Wake Wiki: http://wikis.library.gwu/dcpoetry/index.php/Main_Page
Splendid Wake-up Blog: http://splendidwake.blogspot.com
