Poets Gerald Stern, Haki Madhubuti, James Galvin, and Marvin Bell reflect on the state of American poetry during the Contemporary American Poetry Seminar panel discussion at The University of Iowa on September 8, 1983.

Haki Madhubuti argues that poetry is ‘an endangered species’ in America.

 

From the Daily Iowan, April 1977:

‘Resurrection of the Black Mind,’ a conference sponsored by the Black Student Union at the UI, will take place today and Saturday at the UI campus for students and non-students. Haki R. Madhubuti will speak at 6 p.m. today in Phillips Hall Lecture Room 1. Madhubuti is the director of the Institute of Positive Education in Chicago and a poet.

In the University of Iowa Archives, Haki R. Madhubuti’s unpublished 1984 thesis gives relevant insights about his early writing experiences in Iowa City. The thesis, titled “Earthquakes and Sun Rise Missions,” consists of various poems that Madhubuti wrote while in the workshop, including such quotes as:

“Poetry will not stop or delay wars, will not erase rape from the landscape, will not cease murder or eliminate poverty, hunger or excruciating fear. Poems do not command armies, run school systems or manage money. Poetry is not intimately involved in the education of psychologists, physicians or smiling politicians.

In this universe

the magic   the beauty the willful art of explaining the

world & you;

the timeless   the unread the unstoppable fixation with

language & ideas;

the visionary the satisfiable equalizer screaming for

the vitality of dreams interrupting false calm

demanding fairness and a new   world are the

poets & their poems.”