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"?
Reuben Jackson Narrating Graphic Novel “March” for MLK inspired Concert
In-house ASP wordsmith and noted Jazz Scholar, Reuben Jackson, will be narrating March: Book One, written in part by sitting Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, for the Vermont Youth Orchestra’s celebratory performance of Duke Ellington’s Three Black Kings (which includes an ode to MLK) and Antonin Dvorak’s New World Symphony (which takes inspiration from African American spirituals).
Featured Poetry: “Winter Funeral” by Elizabeth Hazen
Fully embracing what the lyric mode does best, Hazen provides the readers with brief, intense poems that preserve a suspended moment in time, attempting to record the thought processes and emotions of the speaker much like tree rings reveal drought, heat, and age. With astonishing clarity and concision, Hazen explores the mysteries of our realities—which are ultimately beholden to entropy.
Grace Cavalieri on the Kojo Nnamdi Show Jan 23rd
Recently Governor Larry Hogan announced that Grace Cavlieri, poet, playwright, and long time host of NPR’s The Poet and The Poem, would become Maryland’s next Poet Laureate, succeeding the great Stanley Plumly. Now that she has been inaugurated, one of her first stops is The Kojo Nnamdi show. Kojo Nnamdi has been hosting his show on WAMU for 20 years, so he and Grace are kindred spirits in that regard–Grace has hosted The Poet and The Poem for over 40 years.