HU Launches Literary Reading Series with Award-Winning Poet

Hampton, VA - Hampton University's Department of English welcomes Ruth Forman, one of today's breakthrough female African-American poets, on Oct. 27 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Phenix Hall Auditorium. Forman is being presented through the new HU Literary Reading Series, funded by a $3,000 grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. The series aims to engage the HU community in a vital dialogue highlighting how literature represents and reflects African-American culture, traditions, heritage, aesthetics, and current social issues.

"This series will attempt to uncover some of the nuances of African-American culture that exist in fiction, poetry and narrative nonfiction. Those nuances become visible within literary images that depict, catalog, harness and translate African-American legacy and community," said Shonda Buchanan, assistant professor of English, who spearheaded the grant request.

Award-winning poet Forman is the first author to participate in the series. Her first book, We Are the Young Magicians, earned Forman wide acclaim for her fresh approach to poetry and a 1994 Barnard New Women Poets Prize. The American Library Association listed the book as a 2001 Popular Paperback for Young Adults. Renaissance, Forman's second book of poetry, won the 1999 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Poetry and received a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

The Library Journal has called Forman's works stunning and beautiful, saying, "through references to writers of the Harlem Renaissance, the work builds a bridge for a new generation. These poems acknowledge some painful history, both personal and collective, but they lift us from that pain."

Following Forman, the Literary Reading Series will present Nikki Finney on Nov. 17 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Phenix Hall Auditorium. Finney is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Kentucky and the the author of On Wings Made of Gauze, Heartwood, and Rice, the latter was the 1999 recipient of a PEN American Open Book Award.

Buchanan hopes the series will create meaningful conversation about significant social, cultural and historical representations, while simultaneously helping to define the meaning of identity and community of African Americans, past and present.

"Oftentimes, providing a forum for dialogue enriches the text for the reader, despite age, despite ethnicity," said Buchanan.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information on the HU Literary Reading Series, please contact Shonda Buchanan at (757) 728-6525 or via email at shonda.buchanan@hamptonu.edu.