Reading Contemporary Black Poetry: Lessons from UNC Charlotte Graduate Student

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Discussion

Abstract

In this round table, graduate students from a UNC Charlotte seminar on contemporary black poetry each will share their reading of an individual poem by a major African American poet today, focusing on selected poems by Yusef Komunyakaa, Patricia Smith, and Claudine Rankine. A central question will be one asked by multiple poets across the African American poetic tradition: How am I both black and a poet? The readings will consider the nexus of race, identity and aesthetics in the poems.

Sub Unit

• Literature/Linguistics

Chair

• Malin Pereira, UNC Charlotte

Discussant

• Kristen Reynolds, University of North Carolina-Charlotte