Students from the University of Liberia Visit Furious Flower Poetry Center

A group of interdisciplinary students from the University of Liberia and the University of Virginia visited Furious Flower Poetry Center and James Madison University last month as part of a cultural landscape studies initiative.

The group, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, visited from Monrovia, Liberia with University of Virginia Landscape Studies Initiative Project Manager, Allison James, and collaborated with UVA students to establish the first bibliographic resource documenting the cultural landscape connections between Petersburg, Virginia and Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia.

Over the course of this Fall semester, students are participating in an independent study seminar, an intense introduction to cultural landscape research methods. Students will learn methods for connecting historic figures, including Virginia-born Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the first President of Liberia, to 19th-century Virginia and Liberia cultural landscapes through archival collections as well as field visits to Montpelier, Monticello, and Pocahontas Island in Petersburg.

The student visit to Furious Flower Poetry Center exemplified a chief priority of the center, which is “holding the term ‘Black’ in our mission to mean a global, diasporic experience,” said Executive Director, Lauren K. Alleyne. “And visits like this build on the center’s long legacy of bringing as many people as possible to the table of Black poetry.”

Alleyne and Assistant Director, L. Renée, introduced Furious Flower’s rich history and current programs to the group, then co-led a poetry workshop. They also provided the visitors with a 50-page, curated packet of poems that offered examples of how to engage history through poetry. This resource guide included a range of themes and forms, such as creation and origin stories, persona, reckoning with the past, engaging historical moments, writing about joy and writing for an occasion, and more.

L. Renée said the poets included in the packet, such as Derek Walcott, Nikky Finney, Ross Gay, and Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, demonstrate the ways “we make meaning through language” of our familial, cultural, and political histories.

“The work of these tremendous poets evoke such strong feelings for us as readers because we are invested in the narratives on a sensory level,” she said. “We can see and hear and smell and taste and touch the worlds they have created for us, and, as a result, are transformed.”

Many of the visiting students said they gained new inspiration for their own work, which ranged from science and engineering to education and medicine. 

“Poetry gives me the opportunity to educate and inform in a simple and entertaining way,” University of Liberia student, Thomas Nynweph Gmawlue, Jr. said. “If I put it in a book or just told you, you don’t have to listen, but if I transform it into a poem, I’m engaging you more in less time.”

John M. Lissa, an education student from the University of Liberia shared the impact the trip and workshop had on him with fellow education major, Lily Craig. Lissa and Craig also discussed his interest in returning to Virginia, maybe even James Madison University, for graduate school in the near future. 

Reflecting on the time the group spent with Furious Flower, James said, “It was amazing for everyone. I think it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students at UVA and Liberia. It was a really incredible exchange and a multi-faceted learning experience for all of us. We formed partnerships during this time that we know will really fuel future exchanges between Liberia and Virginia.” 

After the workshop, the group dined with Robert Aguirre, Dean of the College of Arts and Letters; Linda Thomas, Dean of the Graduate School; Delores Phillips, Director of the African, African American, and Diaspora (AAAD) Studies Center and others. Jessica Carter, a graduate assistant at Furious Flower Poetry Center, and Lily Craig, Carmen R. Gillespie Fellow, also attended and shared conversations with the other students and program facilitators. 

Later in the afternoon, Alleyne and L. Renée hosted the group at the Center to give a short tour and share more information about Furious Flower’s work. During this visit, Gamawlue performed an original poem, based on his experiences in Liberia, and received thunderous applause.