Legacy Series: Black Literary Institution Building Post-Black Arts Movement

Legacy Series: Magnitude & Bond, Black Literary Institution Building Post-Black Arts Movement & Pre-Cave Canem

The Legacy Series features eminent poets and scholars who have played historic roles in African American poetry. Moderated discussions address historical, aesthetic, political and personal influences on their craft and thought. This year we are pleased to present Sterling Plumpp, distinguished poet, professor, editor, and critic in conversation with the esteemed Dr. Duriel E. Harris, poet and editor of Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora.

About

Sterling D. Plumpp—blues poet and essayist—is the author of fifteen books including Home/Bass, Velvet Bebop Kente Cloth, Ornate with Smoke, Blues Narratives, and his most recent collection, Exile, released in 2024. He is the editor of two anthologies, Somehow We Survive, a collection of South African writing, Steel Pudding: Writing from the Gary Historical and Cultural Society Writer’s Workshop Plumpp is Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he served on the faculty in the African American Studies and English Departments. He served as a visiting professor in the Master of Fine Arts Program at Chicago State University, and he served as the Writer-in-Resident at Mississippi Valley State University.

In 2009, Valley Voices produced an entire issue of its journal, The Sterling Plumpp Issue, focused on his poetry, interviews, and critical explorations of his work. In 2016, the University Press of Mississippi published Conversations with Sterling Plumpp edited by John Zheng.  Plumpp is the recipient of numerous awards as a blues poet and African American cultural storyteller including The Before Columbus Foundation’s 2014 American Book Award for Literature. In October 2018, he was inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame and recognized for his work as a Blues Scholar. In 2022, Plumpp was honored by his hometown of Clinton, Mississippi with his inclusion on the Clinton Blues Legacy Marker, which is part of the historic Mississippi Blues Trail. In April 2025, Plumpp will be honored for his contributions to Black culture and American Arts & Letters and has been invited to be the featured poet in the Cave Canem Legacy Series.

Performance artist, poet, and scholar Duriel E. Harris is the author of three critically acclaimed volumes of poetry: Drag (2003); Amnesiac: Poems (2010); and No Dictionary of a Living Tongue (Nightboat, 2017), finalist for the Audre Lorde Award. Multi-genre works include the one-woman theatrical performance Thingification, the videopoem collaboration Speleology, the sound-image project Blood Labyrinth, and the speculative drama Code: A Sport. Appearances include performances at the Greenhouse Theater, the Chicago Jazz Festival, Babylon Cinema (Berlin), Votive (Auckland), Babel Theatre (Beirut), the University of Ghana, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Festival Internacional de Poesía de La Habana. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, BAX, Letters to the Future, Of Poetry and Protest, the &Now Awards, Imagined Theatres, PEN America, and Poets.org, among others. Harris has served as the University of Chicago Offen Poet, Visiting Professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Teaching Artist at Lynden Sculpture Garden and the Naropa Summer Writing Program. Professor of English at Illinois State University, Harris is the creator of the O|Sessions pedagogical initiative and the #SyllabusforLiberation. Recognized with the 2023 AWP lifetime achievement George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature, Harris is Editor of the award-winning publishing platform Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. 

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, 500 Howard Place Northwest, Washington, United States