Furious Flower III (series) Seeding the Future of African American Poetry (series 3 of 3)

Furious Flower III is also available as part of the 3 series compilation Furious Flower: The Complete Edition

Furious Flower III: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry (2015) offers the unprecedented opportunity to watch thirty-two of today’s leading African American poets reading from their work and discussing the critical issues shaping this vibrant poetic tradition. Its four video volumes compile close to five hours of highlights from the landmark national poetry summit sponsored once a decade by the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University, the country’s only academic venue devoted to the study of African American poetry. Together with Furious Flower I (1998) and Furious Flower II (2005) - now newly available - this third title constitutes a video anthology of some of the most exciting poetry and perceptive critical insights of the past decade. Any teacher, poet, student or reader who has followed the current flowering of African American verse would want to have attended this seminal event - and now on video they can.

Like Furious Flower I (1998) and Furious Flower II, the 2014 festival focused on four trends shaping African American poetry today: creating a Black aesthetic; poetry as an agent of social change; cross-pollination within the African Diaspora; and directions for future formal innovation. Poets including Elizabeth Alexander, Toi Derricotte, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Marilyn Nelson, Quincy Troupe, Kwame Dawes and Jericho Brown explore these themes in panels and one-on-one dialogues, illustrated by readings from their recent work. This third festival of Black poetry paid special tribute to Rita Dove, the first African American U.S. Poet Laureate, who delivers the keynote address and a reading. It also featured “Honoring the Memory of Amiri Baraka” (1934-2014), a panel remembering and reading his work as an outstanding example of socially engaged poetics. These four video volumes vividly affirm the lines which gave this event and the Center their names:

“The time
cracks into furious flower. Lifts its face
all unashamed. And sways in wicked grace."
Gwendolyn Brooks, Second Sermon on the Warpland

Video Volume One: Cultivating Form, Creating the Black Aesthetic, 58 minutes
The seven poets in this opening volume discuss and demonstrate the formal and stylistic characteristics of an evolving Black aesthetic, both in their own poetry and their peers’. It features a special panel on the teaching of African American poetry and mentoring younger poets, as well as Rita Dove’s keynote address. Featuring: 

• Rita Dove
• Elizabeth Alexander
• Patricia Smith
• A. Van Jordan
• Aracelis Girmay
• Marilyn Nelson
• Toi Derricotte

Video Volume Two: Cultivating a Poetry of Social Change, Resistance and Truth-Telling, 84 minutes
This volume recalls the key role played by poets as architects of the Black Arts Movement, their contribution to the African American Freedom Struggle and adaptation to the political changes of the past half-century. It features a panel: “S.O.S Calling All Black People: Honoring the Memory of Amiri Baraka.” Readings by the ten poets below reveal how African American poetry acts both as an historical witness and advocate for racial justice. Featuring:

• John Bracey, Jr.
• Tony Medina
• Haki Madhubuti
• Quincy Troupe
• Ishmael Reed
• Evie Shockley
• jessica Care more
• Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie
• Camille Dungy
• Nikki Giovanni
• Sonia Sanchez

Video Volume Three: Pollinating and Dispersing - Black Poetry Collectives and the Diaspora, 76 minutes
This grouping looks at the centripetal and centrifugal forces shaping Black poetry today, both collective practices and growing ties with the poets and poetry of the world-wide African Diaspora. These eight poets speak to the underlying unity of these two tendencies – a poetry deeply rooted in the history of its people. Featuring: 

• Thomas Sayers Ellis
• Patricia Smith
• Frank X Walker
• Afaa Michael Weaver
• Brenda Marie Osbey
• Kwame Dawes
• Samantha Thornhill
• Lorna Goodison

Video Volume Four: The Flowering of African American Poetry Today, 63 minutes
The conference’s final thematic focus was the role of formal innovation in defining and developing a Black aesthetics for the future. These seven poets explore directions which are “pushing the envelope” of African American poetic expression. Featuring:

• Tyehimba Jess
• Major Jackson
• Evie Shockley
• Jericho Brown
• Mendi Lewis Obadike
• Thomas Sayers Ellis
• Yusef Komunyakaa