Another CLA conference, and another anniversary of this blog. We gathered in Dallas, first time the conference has been West of the Mississippi during the year's I've been attending, and next year we're going to Houston.
Hats were in evidence.
Our panel was on the first afternoon, and I presented another section of my work on C.L.R. James at the Institute of the Black World in Atlanta in the early seventies. This chapter is destined for a book porbably coming out from Duke that collects essays reconsidering Black Jacobins. The panel reunited me with my old friend Dolan Hubbard, chair of English at Morgan State, and introduced me to a new friend, Min Zhou, who is a professor of literary studies and associate dean at Shanghai International Studies University.
This year's recipient of the Langston Hughes Society Award was Everett Hoagland, who I had not seen since a University of Maine conference a decade back. Everett did read from his own poetry, but he also gave a wonderful talk about meeting Hughes when a Lincoln University undergrad, and the importance of Hughes to his own work and that of others of his generation.
I see that the New Bedford newspaper took notice of this far away event. Click here to read the article.
Jean Philippe Marcoux and I, on a stroll through the neighborhood, came across a sculpture gallery that was exhibiting the works of Melvin Edwards, who was married to the poet Jayne Cortez. The gallery was showing the complete "Lynch Fragments" series, some of which inspired early poetry by Cortez. You can see Edwards's images in many of the poet's books.
Among the panelists on the session I chaired were these two remarkable young men from Morehouse.
This year's conference alos reunited me with my dear Wuhan friend, Lianggong Luo.
Kenton Rambsy, now Dr. Kenton Rambsy, was in the house.
1 comment:
Thank you for sharing your observations and these photos! You enrich the CLA conventions in many ways, and I look forward to your presence and your responses for many years to come!
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