Hi friends,
Just about ten years ago in the early autumn of 2014 I was all over the damn place. Looking back at my calendar from that September/October I spent time in Chicago, Ann Arbor, NYC, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Nashville, Philadelphia, Providence, Washington D.C., and Virginia. Praise Southwest Airlines and the Megabus and the Peter Pan bus and the Chinatown bus for holding a young dude down back then. My memories from that period are a bit of a haze but I remember a few choice moments. Snatches of times with friends in various cities, drinks that I had with strangers, emails I meant to respond to and didn’t (sorry).
One moment I remember was on the bus heading from New Haven, Connecticut to Manchester, New Hampshire for a feature at a local poetry slam. This was one of those… sleepy sort of bus rides that you have in between gigs and crashing on couches and drinking a touch too much with friends. At that time in my life New England was still new to me. I’d spent little time in that region of the country and the touring to sling my then-brand new chapbook was a welcome excursion to explore unfamiliar environs. On that bus ride I remember there was a stop at the campus of Dartmouth College and I woke only for a moment to catch a glimpse of the idyllic ivy green before our low-rent chariot rode away. That bus ride, from small state to small state, had terrible cell reception, with long stretches of road with no service at all. We stopped at a truck stop in White River Junction and I got off the bus to stretch my legs and use the bathroom and I glanced at my phone and saw a missed call and voicemail.
I checked my voicemail and there was a call from Ed Ochester, then the editor of University of Pittsburgh Press. Ed told me on the voicemail that I was the winner of their first book prize, which I had mailed my manuscript to months later in a flurry of mailed prayers for a future writing. (This is the kind of detail that my current students would read and think me old because I had to actually print out and mail manuscripts instead of submit them digitally.)
That moment is one I’ve thought about for years. But in the immediate aftermath I most remember being in Virginia a week later for Furious Flower. Furious Flower was a space that I could only describe as a kind of Black poetry homecoming. It was also an important moment for me personally because I was able to share with dear friends and mentors the news that my first book was going to be published. That weekend will always be colored for me with that delirious bit of happiness. I remember watching an evening conversation with the poet Nikki Giovanni and feeling so grateful to be in the number I could cry. I remember Frank X. Walker, Kentucky’s poet laureate, bringing cases of bourbon in his trunk, and seeing Tyehimba Jess who would soon after win the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry play the harmonica while the former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove sang a song. I played the back of the room and watched, which is how I most prefer to see any show worth seeing. I could say it was a magical weekend but to call it magic would be to undersell the real sweat and work and faith that made that time possible.
So anyway now we’re 10 years later. The Furious Flower Conference is one that only happens every ten years and that means this fall many of us will descend on that valley in Virginia again. This time I’m honored to serve as a member of the Furious Flower Advisory Board. Thursday February 22nd is James Madison University’s Giving Day. JMU is the host institution of the Furious Flower Poetry Center and Conference. For that 24-hour span JMU is raising money for all manner of programming and I’d humbly ask you, if you have the means, to support Furious Flower. It is a beautiful space where Black poetry and its supporters gather to honor our elders, dream together, and inspire our young lions. Surely this fall there will be some young writer who manages to Megabus or hitch or ride or borrow a car to get to that special corner of Earth and your support can help make a difference for them.
If you are able to donate to Furious Flower you will have my undying gratitude and if you send me a message with proof of your donation I will offer you either feedback on a poem of yours or a recommendation of a poem for you to read (tell me what you’re into and I got you). Let’s make this conference happen together y’all. Thank you.
Peace,
Nate
PS. Today’s song from my long ass playlist from my youth is Queens by Pharoahe Monch.
Damn Pharoahe might be the most skilled rapper I’ve ever heard. His first album Internal Affairs remains truly one of the most stunning technical displays of the form I’ve ever heard, despite some of the content aging…very poorly. But this song holds the hell up. Damn. Monch is also a great singer and you hear that vocal ability in this record. I remain astonished by the genius of his phrasing at the level of the syllable. He has a way of stretching or squishing a word in a way you’d never expect but that is indelible once you hear it. This song is also a great piece of storytelling. It reminds me more like… a Raymond Carver New Yorker short story than one of the trite ass rap songs that sometimes dominates our consciousness. This song is a one verse masterpiece of telling a brief bit of Shakespearean tragedy. You have to listen to it if you’ve never heard.