The Dead Poets of Washington DC

Grand Finale of Southern Grand Tour in DC August 2nd

You are invited to the Grand Finale of the Graves of Southern Poets Grand Tour at 4 PM on Sunday, August 2nd, as we celebrate the African-American poets of DC. After visiting 16 States and the graves of over 90 poets, Dedgar The Poemobile will be ready to roll into DC for a Party!

Please confirm your attendance on the Grand Finale Facebook page. There will be light refreshments and the location has parking and is near a Metro station; however, please RSVP to skold7@juno.com to get the location, as it is a private residence.

We'll be honoring Sterling Brown, the first poet laureate of DC, as well as some other poets whose work and lives has enriched Washington -- and the world.

The African-American Poetry Heritage of DC

Washington has long been home to a wide variety of historic poetic voices in the Negro/Black/African-American community. Our event will celebrate this heritage with our special readers as well as guests. Here is a partial list of poets whose work you can pick a poem from to share with us:

Gwendolyn Brooks, Sterling Brown, Ahmos Zu-Bolton, Langston Hughes, May Miller Sullivan, Sam Alan, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Walter DeLegall, & Gloria Oden.

Tour to Focus on "Forgotten" Women and African-American Poets

Besides focusing on State Poets Laureate, this 4th major national tour of the graves of poets will also focus on many "forgotten" women and African-American poets. More than we can name here (look at the itineraries), the list includes:

Sun Ra, Margaret Walker, Herberto Padilla, Virginia Boyle, Melvin Tolson, Mary Austin, Belle Turnbull, Peter Orlovsky, Laurene Tibbets, and Arna Bontemps.

Some are more well-known or more-forgotten than others, but they all shared the gift of poetry.

(W.S. picture: at the grave of Nevada Laureate, Norman Kaye)

List of DC's Dead Poets

The grave locations of many of these poets related to Washington, DC. need to be researched (maybe YOU can help?) : The Mother of All DC Poets List is kept up by GWU Libraries, but here is a fairly comprehensive list, also found on our MAP:

Paul Dunbar ; Langston Hughes ; Stephen Vincent Benet ; Vachel Lindsay ; Dudley Randall; 

Walt Whitman; Jean Toomer ; Steve Mason ; Jim Morrison ; Adesanya Alekoye; Sterling Brown;

Gwendolyn Bennett ; Ed Cox ; Leon-Contran Damas ; William Waring Cuney ; Ann Darr; 

Owen Vincent Dodson ; Gabrielle Edgcomb ; O.B. HARDISON, Jr.; Roland Flint; 

Angelina Weld Grimke ; Georgia Douglas Johnson ; May Miller; Gaston Neal; 

Bettu Parry; John "Gunboat" Pauker ; Sarah Morgan Piatt ; Elinor Wylie; 

Helen Gordon Quigless ; James Russell Wiggins ; John Joyce ; George Washington Cutter

Haki R. Madhubuti Remembers Gwendolyn Brooks

Hear groundbreaking African-American poet and founder of Third World Press, Haki R. Madhubuti, as he remembers the legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks and reads one of her poems. (2009 video)

Haki R. Madhubuti on Gwendolyn Brooks from Walter on Vimeo.

The DC Dead Poets Map Now Online

The Washington, DC Dead Poets Map is now online. It has the names of over 50 poets from or related to DC. Many of their gravesites have not yet been documented, so maybe YOU can join the hunt.

At the "Cosmogram" of Langston Hughes in Harlem

This colorful cosmogram was made over the spot where Langston Hughes' ashes were placed. It is on the list of 15 Top Poets' Graves in the US.

Christopher P. Moore, Curator and Special Projects Coordinator, Schomburg Center-- 

"If there is one location in Harlem that represents the Harlem Renaissance and its myriad of connections of the past, present, and onward, it is the Cosmogram (pictured above). Designed by artist Houston Conwill, Rivers is a public art installation, dance floor and peace memorial in honor of Langston Hughes and Arturo A. Schomburg.

The Cosmogram is inspired by Hughes’ brilliant poem, The Negro Speaks of Rivers. Within the fish shape at the center of the circle, beneath the final words of the poem—’My soul has grown deep like the rivers,’—the poet’s cremains are interred in a stainless steel book-like vessel. The circle is an awesome and active trail, a continuing cycle of connections, in the lives of Schomburg, Hughes, and all others who come to the Schomburg Center. To those who believe there is simply too much bad mojo in the world, this circle holds the cure.”—Christopher P. Moore, Curator and Special Projects Coordinator, Schomburg Center.

The Library of Congress Poetry Room

Washington DC is my favorite place in the US to visit, but my favorite place in DC I have yet to visit! It is the Library of Congress Poetry Room.

A National Poetry Treasure Chest!

Short Film on Daniel Hoffman in 2 Festivals

We are pleased to announce that the short film "A Love Story in Stone" has been accepted into 2 film festivals this Spring, 2015. (For that reason, we can't post it here right now)

This is a picture that I took of former US Poet Laureate, Daniel Hoffman, at his wife's grave in Cape Rossier, Maine. Elizabeth McFarland Hoffman was a poet as well.

Keys' Three Graves: D.C & Frederick, MD

Francis Scott Key belongs to that handful of poets who ended up in the afterlife with 3 graves. You can see the pictures here:

Comprehensive is an Understatement : dcwriters.org

dcwriters.org

A treasure chest of historical information, and very nicely put together. Not just poets, but all writers who have called Washington home (or just lived there for a time).

 

Amazing Frost Home in Franconia, NH

The Frost Place is a National Literary Treasure. Worth a visit in you are even near New England.

Video & Photo at the Grave of Randall Jarrell

 

"Next Day" By Randall Jarrell from Walter Skold on Vimeo.

Red Wheelbarrow: At the Grave of W.C.W.

Red Wheelbarrow: At the Grave of W.C.W.

At the Grave of Elizabeth Bishop

Photos at the Grave of Elizabeth Bishop

At the Grave of Claude McKay in Queens, NY

Photos At the Grave of Claude McKay in Queens, NY

California Home & Grave of Joaquin Miller

At the home and grave of Joaquin Miller, Oakland, CA.

At the Grave of Elinor Wylie

Photos At the Grave of Elinor Wyline

 

At the Grave of Paul Dunbar

Photos At the Grave of Paul Dunbar

At the Grave of Jane Kenyon & Donald Hall

Photos at the Grave of Jane Kenyon & Donald Hall

At the Grave of William Meredith

Photos at the Grave of William Meredith

The White House (Claude McKay, 1919)

Poem by Claude McKay, featured at Poetry Foundation:

Ah, not that Granite Dead and Cold (Whitman)

 

Ah, not that Granite Dead and Cold is what Whitman called the poem when he signed and dated this version in February, 1885, and the title under which it appeared when first published in The Philadelphia Press that year.

Whitman’s revised version of the poem was re-titled Washington’s Monument, February 1885 for the “Sands at Seventy” annex to his famous and constantly revised collection of poems, Leaves of Grass. In that version, the granite of opening line became marble.

At the Frost Family Graves in Vermont

One of the most-visited graves of any American poet is that of Robert Frost. It is also the Frost Family lot (vault), and his poet-daughter, Marjorie, has her name inscribed as well. This photo focuses on Mrs. Elinor Frost.

Amazing D.C Poetry Tour (Online or On the Streets)

The Washington, DC, Poetry Tour reveals our nation’s capital through the eyes of its great poets, including Archibald MacLeish, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Elizabeth Bishop, among many others. From the hallowed halls of the federal buildings to neighborhood side streets, the tour features poems written in and about DC, as well as photographs by poet Thomas Sayers Ellis.

Narrated by inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander and produced by the Poetry Foundation, the tour showcases archival and contemporary recordings of DC poets, scholars, and musicians, all shedding new light on DC’s historic landmarks.

Elizabeth Bishop : One Art

Elizabeth Bishop served as the Consultant to the Library of Congress in Poetry, so she is a DC poet. Watch this gravesite reading of "One Art."

"One Art" By Elizabeth Bishop from Walter on Vimeo.

Historic 2010 Grand Tour Report Now Online

The initial report of the historic Dead Poets Grand Tour 2010 is now online.

It chronicles all the places visited and the names of the poets read. From the Report: 

"We started on Shakespeare’s birthday, in Portland, Maine, the 23^rd of April, and we ended with a bang 6,500 miles later at the first Boston Poetry Marathon, May 25th. During those 34 days, and with the cooperation of 13 current and former State Poets Laureate, we held a Dead Poets Bash in 19 different States and visited 43 cemeteries!

The Grand Tour map can be accessed at the top left corner of the Dead Poets Society of America blog:  http://deadpoets.typepad.com/dpsablog/  

The other readings and interviews we held at poets’ graves and houses were really great as well, including the Lorine Niedecker home, the Carl Sandburg home, the E.L. Masters home, the Sidney Lanier house, The Virginia Military Institute, The Poe Museum, the Longfellow House and the Woodberry Poetry Room, at Harvard.

All totaled we visited the graves of 75 American poets, and heard the amazing poetry of over 100 American poets read. Dedgar and the crew kept up a pace of just over 191.18 miles per day and 2 poets’ graves per day!

The initial report of the historic Dead Poets Grand Tour 2010 is now online.

It chronicles all the places visited and the names of the poets read. From the Report: 

"We started on Shakespeare’s birthday, in Portland, Maine, the 23^rd of April, and we ended with a bang 6,500 miles later at the first Boston Poetry Marathon, May 25th. During those 34 days, and with the cooperation of 13 current and former State Poets Laureate, we held a Dead Poets Bash in 19 different States and visited 43 cemeteries!

The Grand Tour map can be accessed at the top left corner of the Dead Poets Society of America blog:  http://deadpoets.typepad.com/dpsablog/  

The other readings and interviews we held at poets’ graves and houses were really great as well, including the Lorine Niedecker home, the Carl Sandburg home, the E.L. Masters home, the Sidney Lanier house, The Virginia Military Institute, The Poe Museum, the Longfellow House and the Woodberry Poetry Room, at Harvard.

All totaled we visited the graves of 75 American poets, and heard the amazing poetry of over 100 American poets read. Dedgar and the crew kept up a pace of just over 191.18 miles per day and 2 poets’ graves per day!

2010 Grand Tour Breaks World Literary Land Speed Record

At 5:30 PM, at the grave of James Russell Lowell, in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, the crew of the USS Starship DEDGAR smashed the world literary land speed record by visiting the graves of 26 poets within 12 hours!

This epic journey, which had a sunrise start at the grave of Stanley Kunitz, in Provincetown, MA, was traveling at an average speed of 52 GPD (Graves Per Day), or, more than 2 GPH (Graves Per Hour).

Along the way we managed to visit two poetry landmarks: the Longfellow House and the Woodberry Poetry Room, both in Cambridge, MA. It was a truly phenomenal way to go out with a BANG on the Great Grand Tour 2010.

Mystery DC Cemetery Trivia Question

Who knows the name of the once-known Kentucky poet buried in DC who died a pauper and a drunk, and to this day has no marker over the spot where he was tucked away in the earth?

Sousa in the Cemetery

Nov. 7., 2009. United States Marine Corps Band, 'The President's Own', performs for Sousa's Birthday. Held at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington. Major Jason Fettig is the director.