Natasha Trethewey Interviews Elizabeth Alexander
Interview with Natasha Trethewey Part 2: Alexander discusses growing up in NYC and Washington DC, DC as Upsouth, identifications with Blackness and southernness Part 3: Alexander discusses southernness and urban space, and reads from “Letter: Blues,” “Frank Willis,” “Talk Radio, DC” Part 4: Alexander reads “Race” and comments on the pale-skinned body; Trethewey compares “Race” and Phillip Levine’s […]
Mourning Medgar: Justice, Aesthetics, and the Local
Presentation Part 2: Gwin explores temporal and spatial dimensions of mourning, posing questions of how to mourn and celebrate Evers Part 3: Gwin situates aesthetic and ethical responses from Baldwin, Moody, Welty, and Walker, highlighting attention to the local Part 4: Gwin recounts how Evers’s death spurred Baldwin, as emissary to Mississippi and as reporter, […]
American and British Slave Trade Abolition in Perspective
American and British Slave Trade Abolition in Perspective Part 2: Davis discusses connections between enslaved African labor, trans-Atlantic trade, and emerging anti-slavery movements Part 3: Davis discusses three major factors leading to US and British decisions to abolish the trade of enslaved Africans Part 4: Davis explores decreasing support for the trade of enslaved Africans […]
The Morning with Many Tongues
Readings Sean Hill reads the poem “Just as Sure.” Poem text. Sean Hill reads the poem “Nigger Street 1937.” Poem text. Sean Hill reads the poem “The State House Aflame 1833.” Poem text. Sean Hill reads the poem “In Memory Hill Cemetery.” Poem text. About Sean Hill Born and raised in Milledgeville, Georgia, Sean Hill has an M.F.A. from […]
Insistent Traces
Readings About Claudia Emerson Claudia Emerson won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for Late Wife. Her books include Figure Studies, Pinion, and Pharoah, Pharoah. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The New England Review, The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, TriQuarterly, and Crazyhorse. In 2008 Emerson was named Poet Laureate of Virginia. Her other […]
An Absence I Know I Won’t Reclaim
Readings Rodney Jones reads the poem “Failed Memory Exercise.” Poem text. Rodney Jones reads the poem “I Find Joy In the Cemetery Trees.” Poem text. Rodney Jones reads the poem “Homage To Mississippi John Hurt.” Poem text. Rodney Jones reads the poem “Sweep.” Poem text. In this interview at the 2009 Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) […]
Southern Memory, Southern Monuments, and the Subversive Black Mammy
Southern Memory, Southern Monuments, and the Subversive Black Mammy Question and Answer Wallace-Sanders responds to questions about the photographs she uses, the proposed Mammy Memorial Institute, the political responses to the proposed mammy memorial in Washington DC, and the mammy figure within Lost Cause discourse. About Kimberly Wallace-Sanders Kimberly Wallace-Sanders is Associate Professor of […]
Unearthing the Weeping Time: Savannah’s Ten Broeck Race Course and 1859 Slave Sale
Introduction The blades of grass on all the Butler estates are outnumbered by the tears that are poured out in agony at the wreck that has been wrought in happy homes, and the crushing grief that has been laid on loving hearts. —Mortimer Thomson (Philander Doesticks)1Q. K. Philander Doesticks, “Great Auction Sale of Slaves at […]
Naming Each Place
Readings Jericho Brown reads the poem “Like Father.” Poem text Jericho Brown reads “Prayer of the Backhanded.” Poem text Jericho Brown reads the poem “Scarecrow.” Poem text Jericho Brown reads the poem “Runaway.” Poem text. Interview with Natasha Trethewey In this interview, conducted on September 5, 2009, during the Decatur (Georgia) Book Festival, Jericho Brown […]
Elegy for the Native Guards
Poem Elegy for the Native Guards Now that the salt of their blood Stiffens the saltier oblivion of the sea . . . —Allen Tate We leave Gulfport at noon; gulls overhead trailing the boat—streamers, noisy fanfare— all the way to Ship Island. What we see first is the fort, its roof of grass a […]