Session Abstract: The genre of African American poetry has a long legacy of both preserving tradition and evolving to suit current times and places. This session invites discussion of the defining features that have been maintained over time as well as patterns of bold experimentation. Rather than seeing tradition and innovation as opposing aesthetic directions, this session hopes to examine ways they have co-existed in this genre and been mutually fruitful. 

Session Description: What are the defining features of African American poetry? How has this genre evolved and how has it preserved its core of identity? This session aims to address patterns of traditional preservation and bold innovation in African American poetry. Proposals may choose to reflect the conference theme but that is optional. Suitable topics are imagined as being very wide in scope and may include such possibilities as avant-garde and experimental practices, performance, conventional forms, orality, citationality, politics, diasporic influences, technology, audiences and dissemination, ecopoetics, visual poetics, creative writing programs and organizations, awards and commerce, publishing, and musicality, among many other possibilities.

Proposals for either a round-table discussion (10 minutes per speaker) or a panel (20 minutes per speaker) are both welcome as are inquiries. This is an approved session.

Submit to: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/20146