MARILYN NELSON POETIC SESSION

By Liz Fleming
Contributing Writer

Broward College Foundation in conjunction with the Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation brought Marilyn Nelson to South Campus. Over 60 people filled the lecture hall, building 698/room 133, to hear the ethereal, methodic voice read from among her 10 published books of poetry.

The highly-accredited Nelson was the second installment in a series of three poetry readings hosted by Barbara Nightingale, President of the Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation and English Professor at BC. Nelson stunned the audience with her honest depictions of dissection, slavery accounts and a lynching.

Nelson began reading from The Freedom Business, a book containing both an actual narrative by the slave Venture Smith and Nelson’s response to the narratives in the form of poetry.
Caroline Lavayen, BC sophomore, connected with “A Voyage by Sea” from this book. Lavayen said it was the most descriptive and kept her attention the best. She also commented that it was “interesting how most of what she writes is on history.”

Nelson read 3 more poems from Fortune’s Bones, an account of the first known skeleton in the United States, located in Waterbury, Conn. The poems from this book were also written as songs which were performed by a soloist to “soothe the community” once they had learned the story of how the bones became a skeleton.

Nelson recounted the story saying the bones were actually a slave’s, Fortune, whose owner had dissected his body and then drilled holes into the bones so he could reassemble them for learning purposes.

A Wreath for Emit Till, the story of a 14-year-old boy being lynched in 1955, was the last book Nelson read from; the entire book was one poem. Nelson recounted her own version of what may have happened to Emit Till and read the entire Heroic Crown of Sonnets. David Plumb, Associate Professor at BC North Campus, responded by writing his own poem as Nelson read hers aloud. “It reminded me of why I write and why history is important in a time when in our culture we don’t take time to reflect,” Plumb said about A Wreath for Emit Till.

Publishers send Nelson ideas about historical events and she responds to them; however, her favorite era to write about is the 19 century. Some of her awards include: the Anisfield-Wolf Award and the Poets’ Prize. She is a three-time National Book Award finalist. You can learn more about Marilyn Nelson at poets.org.

The last poetry reading in the series will take place on April 20, and will be the renowned Molly Peacock, which you can learn more about on mollypeacock.org. To join the mailing list of the Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation sign-up at hannahkahn.org.