2014 Phillis Wheatley Poetry Reading

Overview

An evening event of the 2014 Callaloo Conference held at Emory University, the annual Phillis Wheatley Poetry Reading featured Jericho Brown and Kevin Young reading their own work. Former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey greets conference attendees and welcomes Vievee Frances, poet and Callaloo associate editor, who introduces Brown and Young.

Callaloo, a journal of African diaspora arts and letters, held its 2014 conference at Emory University from October 15–18. This event brought together creative and critical voices from in and outside the US to present and discuss artistic expressions ranging from poetry, the visual arts, fiction, and music to archiving and cultural preservation. Southern Spaces video-recorded this remarkable conference and, in collaboration with Callaloo, presents a series of highlights, beginning with the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Reading. Southern Spaces thanks Callaloo founder and editor Charles Henry Rowell, managing editor Jackson Brown, and Emory provost Claire Sterk for their support of this conference and series.

Greetings by Natasha Trethewey

Natasha Trethewey introduces the 2014 Callaloo Conference.

I am Natasha Trethewey, the Director of the Creative Writing Program and I’m pleased to welcome you to this year’s Phillis Wheatley Reading, an annual event co-sponsored by the Creative Writing Program and the Department of African-American Studies at Emory University. We’re pleased tonight to present this reading as a part of the Callaloo Conference, which we are hosting this year at Emory, an event that would not be possible without our many generous sponsors across campus, the work of Paula Vitaris in the Creative Writing Program, and especially the planning and organization carried out singlehandedly by the remarkable Sarita Alami to whom I owe the greatest of debts. On behalf of all of us here at Emory I’d like to thank the Callaloo Conference participants, staff, volunteers, and editor Charles Rowell. We are especially delighted that tonight’s event is one of the highlights of the conference, showcasing the work of two of Emory’s own poets, Jericho Brown and Kevin Young, both of whom have new books out this year that we are celebrating.

Jericho Brown

Part 2: Jericho Brown reads “Labor”

Part 3: Jericho Brown reads “Again”

Part 4: Jericho Brown reads “N’em”

Part 5: Jericho Brown reads “Langston’s Blues”

Part 6: Jericho Brown reads “Track Five: Summertime”

Part 7: Jericho Brown reads “Heart Condition”

About Jericho Brown

Jericho Brown is the recipient of the Whiting Writers' Award and fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the National Endowment for the Arts. His poems have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Best American Poetry, and in Nikki Giovanni's 100 Best African American Poems. Brown holds a PhD from the University of Houston, an MFA from the University of New Orleans, and a BA from Dillard University. His first book, Please (New Issues in Poetry & Prose, 2008) won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2014. Brown is an assistant professor in the Creative Writing Program at Emory University.

Kevin Young

Part 2: Kevin Young reads “Ode to Old Dirty Bastard”

Part 3: Kevin Young reads “Ode to the Harlem Globetrotters”

Part 4: Kevin Young reads “Ode to Chitlins”

Part 5: Kevin Young reads “Bereavement”

Part 6: Kevin Young reads “Charity”

Part 7: Kevin Young reads “Codicil”

Part 8: Kevin Young reads “Expecting”

Part 9: Kevin Young reads “Greening”

Part 10: Kevin Young reads “To Mr. and Mrs. ______ on the Death of their Infant Son”

Part 11: Kevin Young reads “Money Road”

About Kevin Young

Kevin Young is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Book of Hours, which was featured on NPR's "Fresh Air," and editor of eight others. His previous book Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels won a 2012 American Book Award and Jelly Roll: A Blues was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize. His book The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness won the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2012, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and winner of the PEN Open Award. The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton (edited with Michael S. Glaser) won a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in poetry. Young is currently Atticus Haygood Professor of Creative Writing and English and curator of Literary Collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.

Question and Answer Session

Part 2: Both poets answer a question about genealogy in African American poetry and in their own work

Part 3: Both poets discuss the role of music in their poetry

Part 4: Both poets discuss “place” in their work

Interested in submitting your work to Southern Spaces?

Recommended Resources

Text

Brown, Jericho. The New Testament. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2014.

———. Please. Kalamazoo, MI: New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2008.

Finney, Nikky, ed.The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. A Cave Canem Anthology. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008.

Hinzen, Parul Kapur. "The Everyday Extraordinary: Parul Kapur Hinzen interviews Kevin Young," Guernica, December 1, 2014. https://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/the-everyday-extraordinary.

McEwen, Missy. "IAI Discusses Poetry with Jericho Brown," Immunization against Invisibility, January 18, 2009. http://immunizationagainstinvisibility.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-i-discusses-poetry-with-jericho-brown.html.

Young, Kevin. Book of Hours. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.

———. The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2012.