WHAT LANGSTON HEARD
Contemporary Poets Read and Respond to Langston Hughes’s Contemporaries

Sponsored by The Seacoast African American Cultural Center

Thursday, April 24, 2014, 7-9 pm
Kittery Community Center, Community Room
120 Rogers Road, Kittery ME 03904

refreshments will be served

[please note the changes in venue and instructions to readers]

 The Seacoast African American Cultural Center has adopted the theme “The Harlem Renaissance” for this year’s activities. In recognition of National Poetry Month, they have asked me to curate a poetry reading on Thursday evening, April 24, 2014 and suggested that it focus on Harlem Renaissance poets other than Langston Hughes. I have also chosen to exempt three other famous poets from the era, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, and Claude McKay. When these famous men went to a poetry reading, who did they hear?

I have invited contemporary poets to select a Harlem Renaissance poet to introduce with a short bio, to read a poem by that poet, and to write an original poem in response—a sort of poetic dialogue. The following, in chronological order, are the HARLEM RENAISSANCE POETS that have been selected by the following (contemporary poets):

ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON (1875-1935)
(Tammi Truax, journalist, seacoastonline.com/Portsmouth Herald)

GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON (1877-1966)
(Pat Frisella, immediate past president of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire)

ANGELINA WELD GRIMKÉ (1880-1958)
(Alison Harville, Business Systems Analyst, Liberty Mutual)

EFFIE LEE NEWSOME (1885-1979)
(Royaline Edwards, Author, Playwright, and Educator, Retired)

FENTON JOHNSON ((1888-1958)
(Bruce Pingree, Manager, The Press Room; Heart of Portsmouth Award 2013)

STERLING BROWN (1890-1960)
(James Rioux, Lecturer in English, University of New Hampshire Durham)

ANITA SCOTT COLEMAN (1890-1960)
(Jessica Purdy, Adjunct Professor, Southern New Hampshire University)

ARNA BONTEMPS (1902-1973)
(Gordon Lang, 2011 New England Association of Teachers of English, Poet of the Year; teacher, English and Journalism, Kingswood High School Wolfeboro)

LANGSTON HUGHES (1902-1967)
(John Perrault, 4th Portsmouth Poet Laureate, lawyer and balladeer)

HELENA JOHNSON (1907-1995)
(Kathleen Knox, student of S Stephanie, New Hampshire Institute of Art Manchester)

MAE COWDERY (1909-1953)
(S Stephanie, teacher and mentor, New Hampshire Institute of Art Manchester and Peterborough)

I am very excited by the array of poets who have responded to my invitation, and by the array of poets they’ve chosen to represent at the event. When the evening is over, you’ll have no doubt about the rich poetic community Hughes, Cullen, Johnson and McKay thrived in. And you may have discovered a new favorite poet from the period as well.