I
n 1994 Joanne Gabbin, an
English professor at James
Madison University (JMU),
organized a conference to cel-
ebrate Pulitzer Prize–winning
poet Gwendolyn Brooks and
African American poetics. Hundreds
of people came out to hear Brooks
and more than thirty writers and
scholars, including Amiri Baraka,
Toi Derricotte, E. Ethelbert Miller,
and Sonia Sanchez, read and discuss
poetry. It was a landmark event for
the community, “the seeding place
of what is happening today in Black
poetry,” says poet Lauren K. Alleyne.
The seed of that conference grew
into the Furious Flower Poetry Cen-
ter, the first academic center in the
United States devoted to Black poetry.
Located at JMU in Harrisonburg, Vir-
ginia, and led by Gabbin and Alleyne,
the center is dedicated to teaching, cel-
ebrating, and preserving Black poetry
as an important part of the legacy of
American literature. Furious Flower
takes its name from the Brooks poem
“The Second Sermon on the War-
pland,” which features the lines: “The
time / cracks into furious flower. Lifts
its face / all unashamed. And sways in
wicked grace.”
Since the first conference twenty-
five years ago, Furious Flower has
served as an example for other organi-
zations and initiatives that have grown
to support the community of Black
poets—most notably Cave Canem,
which hosted its first writing retreat
in 1996, and more recently, the Center
for African American Poetry and Po-
etics at the University of Pittsburgh.
Furious Flower’s influence extends to
the world of literary prizes as well,
Gabbin says: “Before the conference
there were very few Pulitzers or book
awards for Black poetry. Now you can
look around and see awards won by
Natasha Trethewey, Tracy K. Smith,
Gregory Pardlo. I’m really thrilled
that Furious Flower had a small part
in getting that ball rolling.”The center will celebrate its
twenty-fifth anniversary in Wash-
ington, D.C., with a benefit gala on
September 27. The following day Fu-
rious Flower will host a full schedule
of workshops, readings, and discus-
sions at the Smithsonian’s National
Museum of African American His-
tory and Culture. The day’s events
include the launch of the center’s
third print anthology; an interac-
tive discussion on voice in African
American poetry, led by Pardlo and
Erica Hunt; a reading by poets from
Eswatini (formerly Swaziland); and
a chance to watch digitized archival
footage from the first conference.
The celebration will conclude with
twenty-five Black poets taking the
stage to read their work, a lineup that
includes Jericho Brown, Mahogany
L. Browne, Toi Derricotte, Camille
T. Dungy, Cornelius Eady, Tyehimba
Jess, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Danez
Smith.
Furious Flower focuses on not only
bringing poets together, but also pre-
serving and recording their work.
Gabbin had the foresight to record
the 1994 conference, which extended
the center’s reach by providing a
video library of Black poets reading
and discussing their work. This edu-
cational tool continues to be shared
with libraries and students around the
world. The center has a large collec-
tion of media related to Black poetry,
including its own anthologies and a
quarterly online journal, The Fight &
the Fiddle, which highlights one con-
temporary poet in each issue.
In addition to its signature confer-
ence held every ten years, Furious
Flower offers programming to poetry
students of all ages: an annual chil-
dren’s creative camp, a campus poetry
reading series, and a summit for col-
lege creative writers with renowned
poets; last year the organization
hosted its first spoken-word academy
for high school students. It continues
to honor poetry elders with its LegacyTRENDSSEPT OCT 2019 16Furious Flower Grows in Virginia