In celebration of National Poetry Month, Oak Spring Garden Foundation has teamed up with the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University to present an evening of poetry and conversation. As the nation’s first academic center dedicated to Black poetry, Furious Flower’s mission is to celebrate, share, and preserve the legacy of Black poets and poetry. Join us for a reception and reading with Furious Flower’s leadership, the two award-winning poets Lauren K. Alleyne (executive director) and L. Renée (assistant director), who will share poems of place, belonging, and engagement with natural world.
Poets:
Lauren K. Alleyne is the author of two collections of poetry, Difficult Fruit (2014) and Honeyfish (2019); two chapbooks, Dawn in the Kaatskills (2008) and (Un)Becoming Gretel (2022); as well as co-editor of Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry (2020). Her work has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, The Atlantic, Ms. Muse, Tin House, and The Caribbean Writer, among others. Her most recent honors include a 2020 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Poetry, the longlist for the 2020 Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and the shortlist for the 2020 Library of Virginia Literary Awards. Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, Alleyne currently resides in Harrisonburg, VA, where she is a professor of English at James Madison University, and the executive director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center.
L. Renée is a poet and nonfiction writer living in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where she works as Assistant Director of Furious Flower Poetry Center and Assistant Professor of English at James Madison University. Nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net and two Pushcart Prizes, her work has been published in Obsidian, Tin House Online, Poetry Northwest, the minnesota review, and elsewhere. The granddaughter of proud Black Appalachians, she won the international 2022 Rattle Poetry Prize and Appalachian Review’s Denny C. Plattner Award, among others. A recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem Foundation and the Watering Hole, L. Renée also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University, where she was Nonfiction Editor of the Indiana Review, and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University, where she was a Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Moore Fellow. She believes in Black joy, her ancestors, wondering, and wandering.
You can sign up for the event here!