Program Description
The Black Matter Is Life event is a three-part program hosted by UNH professor Reginald Wilburn and Phillips Exeter Academy professor Courtney Marshall in conversation with a featured guest poet. The three events explore the vast diversity within African American poetic tradition. Each discussion deconstructs four poems grouped by themes. Conversations center these poems within the context of the African American literary tradition, their cultural heritage, the traditions they encompassed, and the relevance this tradition has to us today. The series will also explore the question, “Why does African American Poetry matter?”
The Black Matter Is Life: Poetry for Engagement and Overcoming
A Hybrid Poetry Reading & Discussion
BHTNH is proud to partner with 3S Artspace in Portsmouth to present this hybrid in-person and virtual poetry series of public conversations entitled, The Black Matter is Life: Poetry for Engagement and Overcoming. This series examines the work of well-known and little-known Black poets to explore and discuss the rich tradition and innovation found in African American poetry.
Conversations will be held in person at 3S Artspace and streamed live virtually.
Poetry is a powerful art form, one that offers profound insights into what it means to be human. Through the creative, succinct, and melodious use of language, poets render into words their joys, their challenges, their vulnerabilities, and their discoveries, thus providing shape and meaning to the human connection and shared emotional experience.
This program is designed to build bridges across the racial divide by introducing the audience to the writings of a number of African American poets whose work has shone a light on a rich cultural heritage that has often gone unexplored. We ask the audience to consider how African American poetry provides tools for healing our nation’s deep racial wounds.
Space is limited for the in-person event.
Click here to learn about 3S Artspace's Health & Safety policies and measures.
Additional Info:
ABOUT THE POETS
STATEMENT OF INTENT
STUDY GUIDE
POETRY EVENT FLYER (PDF)
Event Schedule
November 18 | 7:00 PM
"In a Sentimental Mood," With Guest Poet: Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Student Poet: Treyvon Cannon Bennitt from Park Side Middle School, Manchester, NH
Featuring Poems by:
William Stanley Braithwaite - "Turn Me to My Yellow Leaves"
Claude McKay - “Spring in New Hampshire”
Robert Hayden - “Those Winter Sundays”
Ntozake Shange - “Mood Indigo”
View Program Here
December 15 | 7:00 PM
"The Race for STEM," With Guest Poet: Kyle Flemings
** Please note: Due to current COVID transmission levels, the BHTNH team has decided to cancel the in-person option for this event and move to a fully virtual format. We look forward to seeing you all from the safety of your homes on Wednesday.
Student Poet: Hannah Rubin from Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH
Featuring Poems by:
Marilyn Nelson - "Arachis Hypogaea"
Eve Ewing - “Horror Movie Pitch”
Gil-Scott Heron - “Whitey on the Moon”
James Monroe Whitfield - “Yes! Strike Again That Sounding String”
View Program Here
January 20 | 7:00 PM
"Emphatic Affirmations," With Guest Poet
Hoke S. Glover (Bro. Yao)
** Please note: Due to current COVID transmission levels, the BHTNH team has decided to cancel the in-person option for this event and move to a fully virtual format.
Student Poet:
Kaylee Chen, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH
Featuring Poems By:
Cordelia Ray - “Self-Mastery”
Al Young - “A Dance for Ma Rainey”
Tracy K. Smith - “Declaration”
Effie Lee Newsome - “The Bronze Legacy”
View Program Here
Guest Poets
Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. Bamuthi’s opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of 2017’s “Best Classical Music Performances” by The New York Times. His evening-length work created in collaboration with composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, “The Just and The Blind,” was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and premiered to a sold-out house at Carnegie in March 2019. His upcoming opera “Watch Night” is inspired by the forgiveness exhibited by the congregation of Emanuel AME church in Charleston, and will premiere at The Perelman Center in New York in 2023.
Kyle Flemings is an Educator at Dayton Early College Academy who specializes in Creative Writing and Creative Writing Pedagogy. Flemings started a spoken word collective called “Underdog Academy” that performs spoken word examining political and racially charged issues across the United States. Additionally, he manages a 13 artist collective in Dayton called "Warriors of Rhetorical Discourse" or "the W.O.R.D."
Sonia Sanchez is an American poet, writer, and professor. She was a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement and has written over a dozen books of poetry, as well as short stories, critical essays, plays, and children's books.
Program Facilitators
Courtney Marshal teaches English at Phillips Exeter Academy and teaches Black feminist exercise classes under the title “Jump at the Sun Fitness.” Her classes are rooted in Black feminist teachers and she brings Black feminism to many spaces in New Hampshire.
Dr. Reginald A. Wilburn is an associate professor of English specializing in African American literature and culture, Milton, and intertextuality studies at the University of New Hampshire, Durham. His monograph, Preaching the Gospel of Black Revolt: Appropriating Milton in Early African American Literature is the first work of literary criticism to theorize African Americans’ subversive reception of John Milton, England’s epic poet of liberty. A former U.S. Marine, Dr. Wilburn is an alumnus of the Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers (Phillips Academy) where he serves as faculty and curriculum coordinator. Dr. Wilburn has received two UNH teaching awards and mentors students in the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs.
Series Sponsors
