Broadside Lotus Press is the oldest African American publisher of African American poetry in the United States. Dudley Randall- Naomi L Madgett - Founders
For over five decades Broadside Press & Lotus Press has promoted the written word as a vital art form intimately related to self-determination, and used the publishing of literature as a vehicle for building communities and promoting cultural critique. Broadside Press was founded in 1965 by Dudley Randall, a librarian by profession and a poet whose expression of human compassion is unparalleled by
mainstream publishers. Broadside Press founder Dudley Randall, achieved national and international prominence along with Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez Etheridge Knight and Haki Madhubuti. Broadside Press also became the publisher of choice for Pulitzer Prize winners Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Walker, Sterling Brown, Robert Hayden and many other poets of Randall’s generation. Lotus Press was Founded by Naomi Long Madget in 1972, with the publication of Pink Ladies in the Afternoon by Naomi Long Madgett. Much of the poetry by African Americans at that time was characterized by anger and rage, but Madgett’s poems were quiet and subtle and she was unable to find a publisher who would accept it. In considering a name for the new company, the author remembered the Egyptian lotus and saw the best of black poetry as a part of Africa transplanted to American soil. Thus the motto, “Flower of a New Nile.”. Lotus Press has published more than ninety collections of poetry and Naomi’s autobiography, Pilgrim Journey. Among the poets whose books are now out of print are Louie Crew, Tom Dent, Toi Derricotte, Kamaldeen Ibraheem, Gayl Jones (3 books), Dolores Kendrick, Pinkie Gordon Lane, Haki R. Madhubuti, Herbert Woodward Martin (2 books), E. Ethelbert Miller, Dudley Randall, Isetta Crawford Rawls, Sarah Carolyn Reese, Satiafa (Vivian V. Gordon), and Helen Earle Simcox, editor. 2015 marked the historic merger of these two institutions.
Join WSU and the Office of DEI for there Juneteenth celebrationj panel discussion. I will be sharing remarks on how the 1989 Student Study In was one of the building blocks for creating the office!
Wayne State University celebrates the hallmark of Black freedom through the holiday of Juneteenth. Per the University's recognition of Juneteenth, various events and activities will occur across campus and in Detroit. We invite you to learn about The st
BSLP is proud to be a co-convener of this initiative.
A few spots available in our virtual community of practice-- register today and join us! Parents/caregivers, community educators, literacy leaders-- all are welcome! Launching this Thursday, May 30. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeETPTbhhw3Ny2LEnxqQcCEKJ_--abnbzbTdNsgphcgiVwZLg/viewform?usp=sf_link
Friends:
Please enjoy and post this wonderful newsletter and video announcing our NLM Award book on our BLP platforms and elsewhere.
A luta continua!
Aneb
"Holy Ghost Key is a poetry collection inspired by ancestral sounds as heard through contemporary vessels. The key announces and invites spirit, which is what makes Black music." -Joshua Myers
Create a poetry book with your class and become published authors for free with Studentreasures' classbook publishing program. Start your classbook today.
Broadside Lotus Press announces
release of the NLM Award Book 2024
Holy Ghost Key by Joshua Myers
Poet and Black Studies scholar, Howard University
“His poems are … moving because they are musical,
rich in swinging cadences, while they are fat with the
funk and soul of great gospel and blues….These poems
are deeply planted in Black culture.”
A.B. Spellman, Between the Night and Its Music
To order: wsupress.wayne.edu; 800-WSU-READ
Naomi Long Madgett Award Book
Distributed by Wayne State University Press
Submissions to NLM Award competition due March 15
c/o 14063 San Juan Dr., Detroit, MI 48238
[email protected]
www.BroadsideLotusPress.org for Guidelines
Black History Month feature — Dudley Randall
Randall (1914-2000) was an African-American poet and publisher in Detroit. He won first place in a Detroit Free Press young poetry contest at the age of 13. The majority of Randall’s works were based on significant historical events and people that impacted the life of African American people. In 1965, he founded a publishing company, Broadside Press, that published many leading African-American writers and poets. He was named the city of Detroit’s first Poet Laureate in 1981.
He was reference librarian at the University of Detroit from 1969-76 and also served as the University’s Poet-in-Residence and inaugurated student poetry awards, now called the Dudley Randall Poetry Prize, in 1970. The poetry contest is awarded to UDM undergraduate students annually and is currently in its 54th year (runs through Friday, Feb. 9). The prize continues Randall’s legacy of amplifying creative voices within the Detroit Mercy community.
The Dudley Randall Center for Print Culture was established at the University in 2000 in his honor. The philosophy of the Center is based on the elimination of the boundaries traditionally drawn in the field of publishing between electronic and print projects, and between academic, student and community scholars and writers.
More on Dudley Randall and the poetry prize ⏩ https://bit.ly/49jiBy3
📸: Detroit Public Library
Kwame Alexander joins Morning Joe to discuss the new book 'This Is Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets'.
Fiddler worked with everyone from Prince and George Clinton to J Dilla, Moodymann and Theo Parrish.
I thought long and hard before writing this essay. I never want to sound like a relic screaming about good old days
My wish for you
Is that you continue
Continue
To be who and how you are
To astonish a mean world
With your acts of kindness
Continue
To allow humor to lighten the burden
Of your tender heart
Continue
In a society dark with cruelty
To let the people hear the grandeur
Of God in the peals of your laughter
Continue
To let your eloquence
Elevate the people to heights
They had only imagined
Continue
To remind the people that
Each is as good as the other
And that no one is beneath
Nor above you
Continue
To remember your own young years
And look with favor upon the lost
And the least and the lonely
Continue
To put the mantle of your protection
Around the bodies of
The young and defenseless
Continue
To take the hand of the despised
And diseased and walk proudly with them
In the high street
Some might see you and
Be encouraged to do likewise
Continue
To plant a public kiss of concern
On the cheek of the sick
And the aged and infirm
And count that as a
Natural action to be expected
Continue
To let gratitude be the pillow
Upon which you kneel to
Say your nightly prayer
And let faith be the bridge
You build to overcome evil
And welcome good
Continue
To ignore no vision
Which comes to enlarge your range
And increase your spirit
Continue
To dare to love deeply
And risk everything
For the good thing
Continue
To float
Happily in the sea of infinite substance
Which set aside riches for you
Before you had a name
Continue
And by doing so
You and your work
Will be able to continue
Eternally. ~Maya Angelou
(Book: Even the Stars Look Lonesome [ad] https://amzn.to/3QE4Bsa)
(Art: Photograph by Jack Sotomayor)
Congratulations Janet Jones! Source Book Seller! Detroits Gem!
We are so excited to attend the Heartland Booksellers Awards and celebrate our beloved owner as Voice of the Heartland 👏🏽📚💛 We are honored to have Heartland Fall Forum in Detroit this week. #2023
We are LIVE! 🎥📚📆
Join us for our October DPSCD General Board Meeting held tonight at Mumford High School from 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM
Stream online here: https://www.detroitk12.org/boardmeeting
One more week of The Moth’s Pop Up Porch! At the porch in Detroit you’ll get to meet The Moth’s staff, listen to stories and learn how to craft your own through free one-on-one story coaching! Come see the porch at Cadillac Square from October 4th through 6th and at Dequindre Cut Greenway from October 7th through the 8th! Learn more at themoth.org/popupporchmichigan
The is collaborating with the Public Library on the next issue of their literary arts zine Pagination! Submissions around the theme of border cities can be sent to [email protected] by October 16, 2023.
We are looking for the following with the theme of border cities:
Flash Fiction & Poetry (500 words or less)
Collage Art (300 DPI as JPEG or PDF)
Illustrations (One page. 300 DPI as JPEG or PDF)
Detroit School of Arts is now accepting applications for the 2024-2025 school year! Apply today!
If you know of an 8th grader in Metro Detroit who is interested and/or experienced in the fine & performing arts, share this event with them. Join our prestigious legacy.
Learn more: detroitk12.org/DSA
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