Her thoughts on family, land and living in a close-knit fashion were as much of a political statement for African-Americans as it was her personal experience. It occurred on day 1, as Professor Giovanni-who likes to go by just Nikki-spoke during the Guided Reading Discussion. I can share one experience that set the tone for the week as a whole. What each of the seminar participants took away from the experience is not easily translated into words, and like them, I am still processing.

It challenged presenters to perform their fidelity to the discipline in not holding back pointed critique-essentially, an academic version of “telling it like it is,” right before the person. Now and again her long-time friends would drop in, like Val Gray Ward arts activist, playwright, and producer.Įmbedded in the seminar was a structural challenge to a Western notion of editorial remove by having the subject present for her “objective” and pre-scheduled critique. Scholars of Nikki Giovanni’s work and teachers looking for professional development, and graduate students like me could expect the guest of honor throughout the entire event, the living legend herself: Nikki. The structure of the seminar-event was like none other I have seen. Val Gray Ward with JMU students Photo Credit: Geoffrey Forrest Hicks just another academic conference, dominated by the presentation of papers and trade gossip,” but has always infused “bongos,” “an ancestral praise chant” and “heavyweight academic sessions with cerebral titles like ‘African American Poetry and the Vernacular Matrix.

As noted by the Washington Postas far back at 1994, Furious Flower, the vision of founder Joanne Gabbin, is not interested in giving us “. As the nation’s only center devoted to Black poetry, Furious Flower’s choice of Nikki Giovanni for the June 2019 seminar gave many a chance to witness the legacy of performing and presenting against well-worn academic notions of conference-going rhetorical practice.

Beginning with Lucille Clifton, seminars have been held on Sonia Sanchez (2011) and Yusef Komunyakaa (2017). The Furious Flower Poetry Center has held biennial summer legacy seminars since 2009 (with a hiatus in 20), a focused opportunity to study the work of a living poet. 2019 Legacy SeminarPhoto Credit: Furious Flower Poetry Center 2019

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