Poets & Writers – September 2019

IN MEMORIAM

Patricia Battin

Jim Bouton

Alan Brinkley

Steve Cannon

Sophie Christopher

Ray Hillenbrand

George Hodgman

Louie Howland

Susannah Hunnewell

Kevin Killian

Judith Krantz

Paul Krassner

Brigitte Kronauer

Lucette Lagnado

Mitchel Levitas

Sven Lindqvist

William Loverd

Brenda Maddox

Bryan Magee

Ifeanyi Menkiti

Molly O’Neill

Paul Otremba

Murray Polner

Marie Ponsot

Holly Prado

Anthony Price

Michael Rumaker

David Sansing

Michael Seidenberg

Malaika Rose Stanley

Bill Wittliff

question, What do Black poets need

now? “When Joanne created the first

conference, what was needed was to

be seen, to be heard, to be recognized

and validated,” Alleyne says. “Right

now we need scholarly and digital

work to make sure that Black poets

are also considered in the landscape

of American poetry—through digital

archiving and preservation, we need

to make sure we are in the future as

well.” –LATOYA JORDAN

C

an James Daunt save

Barnes & Noble? This

is the question on the

minds of publishing

insiders in the wake of

news earlier this sum-

mer that a hedge fund had bought

Barnes & Noble for $683 million

and installed Daunt, who oversaw the

successful turnaround of the British

book chain Waterstones, as the new

CEO of the largest surviving book-

store chain in the United States.

Daunt will certainly have his work

cut out for him. Facing withering

competition from the online retailer

Amazon as well as from newly resur-

gent independent bookstores, Barnes

& Noble has shuttered 150 stores

over the past decade—at its peak, in

The Future of Barnes & Noble

TRENDS

Seminars, which bring distinguished

Black poets to campus for in-depth

explorations of their work to help

professors and educators teach the

next generation of poets and scholars.

Sem i nars have been held w it h Lucille

Clifton, Sonia Sanchez, Yusef Ko-

munyakaa, and, most recently, Nikki

Giovanni, in June.

In thinking about the center’s fu-

ture, Alleyne says it is important

to continue to ask and answer the

Gwendolyn Brooks at the first Furious Flower Poetry Conference in 1994.

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17 POETS & WRITERS