The Black Matter Is Life: Poetry for Engagement and Overcoming
A Hybrid Poetry Reading & Discussion Program
The Black Matter Is Life: Poetry for Engagement and Overcoming
This special program was created as a limited engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic to offer connection, reflection, and dialogue through poetry during an unprecedented time. While the series is no longer being offered, we are grateful for the meaningful conversations it inspired and the community it brought together.
We invite you to explore our current programs and events, which continue to honor Black history, creativity, and resilience.
Additional Information
The Black Matter is Life: Poetry for Engagement and Overcoming was a series that examined the work of well-known and little-known Black poets to explore and discuss the rich tradition and innovation found in African American poetry.
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 was 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 asked the audience to consider how African American poetry provides tools for healing our nation’s deep racial wounds.