Grace Cavalieri Releases New Podcast with Jeffrey Lamar Coleman
Coleman is a professor of English at St. Mary's College of Maryland. He is the editor of Words of Protest, Words of Freedom: Poetry of the American Civil Rights Movement and Era (Duke University Press) and author of Spirits Distilled: Poems (Red Hen Press).
Grace Cavalieri's new series on the poets of Maryland, for which she was recently funded by Maryland Humanities, is off to a strong and engaging start. This week's guest, professor of English, Jeffrey Lamar Coleman, is the editor of Words of Protest, Words of Freedom: Poetry of the American Civil Rights Movement and Era and an accomplished poet in his own regard (his latest collection Spirits Distilled: Poems, is available from Red Hen Press).
In this podcast, Coleman discusses and reads many poems from his own work and from black poets of the civil rights era. Grace and Coleman also talk about the erasure of black voices from the "classic rock" canon, especially the multi-talented Prince. Coleman impresses with his unique cadence, his breadth of historical knowledge, and his passion for social justice.
DID YOU KNOW...
Grace Cavalieri's Other Voices, Other Lives includes transcripts from some of her best interviews of US Poets Laureate on "The Poet and The Poem"?
Remembering W.S. Merwin: Grace Cavalieri’s Two Interviews with the Literary Giant
In 2000, the bicentennial of the Library of Congress, four Poets Laureate were appointed just for the occasion. The four dignitaries were W.S. Merwin, Robert Pinsky, Rita Dove, and Louise Gluck. I was to record one after the other for 4 hours. That first meeting with Merwin was unforgettable, as he arrived for an hour interview without so much as one poem in his hands. Fortunately, I had brought ten books for his signature and we puzzled our way through. He was delighted to recognize some of his first slim published volumes that were out of print, as well as a few collector’s items.
Fiddlin’ Around in Ireland
Nothing buoys the spirits like a walk along Grafton Street. Gray day or sunny, it’s bright with noise and laughter. Loud “hellos,” babies crying, neighborly gossip, rich brogues and lilting Irish airs float up onto the breeze. Our chosen course allowed for a stroll through St. Stephen’s Green. Sunlight dappled the leafy brakes. Inspired by the moment, Lawrence liberated his fiddle and sawed out a hornpipe. He was joined in his performance by a pair of amorous ducks.
On Grafton street we were immediately surrounded by music. A couple of 9 and 10-year-old boys, Donald Reagon and Paul O’Neill, were delighting passersby with smooth moves on the fiddle and concertina. College students with shaved heads played sitars. Old men played jazz. A guitarist somewhere was plucking out George Harrison tunes and singing, “Here comes the sun, little darlin’ here comes the sun.”
On that musical street there was only one poet—a threadbare character who, for a pound or a punt (Irish pound) or nothing at all, would recite a poem by a poet of one’s choosing. I selected Yeats and was honored with “The Fiddler of Dooney”:
“When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea . . .”
An Interview with Elizabeth Hazen, Baltimore Poet and Baker Award Finalist
Baltimore poet, Elizabeth Hazen’s first collection of poems is entitled Chaos Theories. Last week the young poet was announced as a finalists for the prestigious Baker Artist Award in literature. We sat down to talk with her about her experience in Baltimore as an artist and what programs like The Baker Awards mean to artists.