{"id":413,"date":"2020-06-03T00:45:30","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T00:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/?p=413"},"modified":"2020-06-03T22:39:05","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T22:39:05","slug":"interview-with-prof-amy-alvarez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/2020\/06\/03\/interview-with-prof-amy-alvarez\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Prof. Amy Alvarez"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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What inspired you to attend the 2019 Furious Flower Summer Legacy Seminars?<\/strong><\/p>

I attended Furious Flower’s summer seminar on Nikki Giovanni to deepen my understanding of what it means to be a black Appalachian poet. I have read Nikki’s\u00a0<\/em>work since girlhood, starting with\u00a0Spin A Soft Black Song,\u00a0<\/em>a book gifted to me by my aunt.<\/p>

Did the experience meet your expectations?<\/strong><\/p>

My experience at the seminar went beyond what I could have expected. I knew I would learn and grow as a poet and educator. I knew I would meet incredibly talented writers and educators from all over the nation. I knew I would get to speak with Giovanni herself. The seminar met all my expectations. However, what I did not expect was to meet the\u00a0sisters of my soul\u2014brilliant women who I\u00a0want to gather with to write and talk and laugh for the rest of my days. Nikki Giovanni and Dr. Joanne Gabbin, the director of Furious Flower, have this sisterhood with the Wintergreen Women\u2014a group of women who have met for decades in the wilds of Virginia to write. The women I met at the seminar and myself feel compelled to create our own gathering and hope to walk in the footsteps of these brilliant scholars and writers.\u00a0<\/p>

Did anything about your experience change your perception of Giovanni, her work, her relevance today or her legacy?<\/strong><\/p>

After attending the seminar, I am even more convinced of the importance of Giovanni’s work and how overlooked her work has been as part of the Black Arts Movement. It is critical that scholars engage with her extensive body of work. Her voice as a black queer Appalachian woman, a voice that demands justice while celebrating life, is one of the most compelling and unique in all of American poetry.\u00a0<\/p>

As a poet and scholar, do you consider her a role model or an inspiration?<\/strong><\/p>

As a poet, Nikki’s work is inspiring. She is a master of her craft. She gives a great deal of thought to the line, to her use of verbs, and punctuation (whole poems turn on a carefully placed colon).\u00a0\u00a0Her confidence, vulnerability, and joy draw readers in while her layers of meaning allow the same poem to be read through multiple lenses. And that joy\u2014even as she writes about loss\u2014is pushing me to think about how I convey healing to readers even as I engage with difficult subjects.\u00a0<\/p>

How does her life\u2019s work celebrate the region known as Appalachia?<\/strong><\/p>

Nikki Giovanni has defined her Appalachian-ness as the \u201cindependence and individuality\u201d (Fowler) that emerges in her work. Her insistence on speaking her truth and not allowing others to speak for her in poems like \u201cNikki-Rosa\u201d are part of this independence. Her focus on mountain foodways, music, the work of quilting, and her references to the natural world, and mountain economies such as coal mining make her voice distinctly Appalachian.\u00a0<\/p>

Did the drive to or the rural mountain setting at JMU influence your experience in any way? If so how?<\/strong><\/p>

I loved being in the mountains at James Madison University for this seminar. I live in Appalachia and felt that the only way to really understand Giovanni\u2019s work was to be near those mountains. I watched the sunset over the mountains each day.\u00a0<\/p>

What is the one misconception you feel people have about Giovanni? What is one thing you wish everybody knew?<\/strong><\/p>

I think some people may not understand or appreciate how complex Nikki Giovanni’s work is. She is a popular poet, she is in dozens of anthologies, but even while I was at this conference, an acquaintance sent me a message asking whether Giovanni was a \u201clegit\u201d poet. This person is from Virginia and only knew of Giovanni because of the national coverage of her reading after the shooting at Virginia Tech. I want everyone to know how brilliant Nikki Giovanni is, how layered and complex her poems are. To that end, I am adding her work to my syllabi and am considering co-writing an essay on Appalachian foodways in Giovanni\u2019s work.\u00a0<\/p>

What is a favorite Giovanni poem and why?<\/strong><\/p>

I think the poem “Tourism” might be my favorite by Nikki Giovanni.\u00a0 In this nuanced love poem, she speaks to a feeling of otherness even while she draws strength from her multiple\u00a0identities. It inspires me to draw the same strength in my life and work.\u00a0<\/p>

Work Cited<\/span><\/p>

Fowler, Virginia C. \u201cTennessean by Birth.\u201d\u00a0Appalachian Heritage<\/em>, vol. 40 no. 4, 2012, pp. 15-22. Project MUSE, doi: 10.1353\/aph.2012.0108<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

—Amy M. Alvarez<\/a> is a poet, educator, and scholar. Her work focuses on race, ethnicity, gender, regionality, nationality, borderless-ness, and systemic injustice\/social justice. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse<\/em>, The Missouri Review<\/em>, Alaska Quarterly Review<\/em>, PRISM international,<\/em> Rattle, Sugar House Review,<\/em> and elsewhere. She is both a CantoMundo and a VONA Fellow. \u00a0Amy was born and raised in Queens, New York to a Jamaican mother and Puerto Rican father. She has taught English, History, and Humanities at public high schools in the Bronx, New York and in Boston, Massachusetts. She now lives in Morgantown, West Virginia and teaches writing at West Virginia University. \u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What inspired you to attend the 2019 Furious Flower Summer Legacy Seminars? I attended Furious Flower’s summer seminar on Nikki Giovanni to deepen my understanding of what it means to be a black Appalachian poet. I have read Nikki’s\u00a0work since girlhood, starting with\u00a0Spin A Soft Black Song,\u00a0a book gifted to me by my aunt. Did the experience meet your expectations? My experience at the seminar went beyond what I could have expected. I knew I would learn and grow as a poet and educator. I knew I would meet incredibly talented writers and educators from all over the nation. I knew I would get to speak with Giovanni herself. The seminar met all my expectations. However, what I did not expect was to meet the\u00a0sisters of my soul\u2014brilliant women who I\u00a0want to gather with to write and talk and laugh for the rest of my days. Nikki Giovanni and Dr. Joanne Gabbin, the director of Furious Flower, have this sisterhood with the Wintergreen Women\u2014a group of women who have met for decades in the wilds of Virginia to write. The women I met at the seminar and myself feel compelled to create our own gathering and hope to walk in the footsteps of these brilliant scholars and writers.\u00a0 Did anything about your experience change your perception of Giovanni, her work, her relevance today or her legacy? After attending the seminar, I am even more convinced of the importance of Giovanni’s work and how overlooked her work has been as part of the Black Arts Movement. It is critical that scholars engage with her extensive body of work. Her voice as a black queer Appalachian woman, a voice that demands justice while celebrating life, is one of the most compelling and unique in all of American poetry.\u00a0 As a poet and scholar, do you consider her a role model or an inspiration? As a poet, Nikki’s work is inspiring. She is a master of her craft. She gives a great deal of thought to the line, to her use of verbs, and punctuation (whole poems turn on a carefully placed colon).\u00a0\u00a0Her confidence, vulnerability, and joy draw readers in while her layers of meaning allow the same poem to be read through multiple lenses. And that joy\u2014even as she writes about loss\u2014is pushing me to think about how I convey healing to readers even as I engage with difficult subjects.\u00a0 How does her life\u2019s work celebrate the region known as Appalachia? Nikki Giovanni has defined her Appalachian-ness as the \u201cindependence and individuality\u201d (Fowler) that emerges in her work. Her insistence on speaking her truth and not allowing others to speak for her in poems like \u201cNikki-Rosa\u201d are part of this independence. Her focus on mountain foodways, music, the work of quilting, and her references to the natural world, and mountain economies such as coal mining make her voice distinctly Appalachian.\u00a0 Did the drive to or the rural mountain setting at JMU influence your experience in any way? If so how? I loved being in the mountains at James Madison University for this seminar. I live in Appalachia and felt that the only way to really understand Giovanni\u2019s work was to be near those mountains. I watched the sunset over the mountains each day.\u00a0 What is the one misconception you feel people have about Giovanni? What is one thing you wish everybody knew? I think some people may not understand or appreciate how complex Nikki Giovanni’s work is. She is a popular poet, she is in dozens of anthologies, but even while I was at this conference, an acquaintance sent me a message asking whether Giovanni was a \u201clegit\u201d poet. This person is from Virginia and only knew of Giovanni because of the national coverage of her reading after the shooting at Virginia Tech. I want everyone to know how brilliant Nikki Giovanni is, how layered and complex her poems are. To that end, I am adding her work to my syllabi and am considering co-writing an essay on Appalachian foodways in Giovanni\u2019s work.\u00a0 What is a favorite Giovanni poem and why? I think the poem “Tourism” might be my favorite by Nikki Giovanni.\u00a0 In this nuanced love poem, she speaks to a feeling of otherness even while she draws strength from her multiple\u00a0identities. It inspires me to draw the same strength in my life and work.\u00a0 Work Cited Fowler, Virginia C. \u201cTennessean by Birth.\u201d\u00a0Appalachian Heritage, vol. 40 no. 4, 2012, pp. 15-22. Project MUSE, doi: 10.1353\/aph.2012.0108 \u00a0 —Amy M. Alvarez is a poet, educator, and scholar. Her work focuses on race, ethnicity, gender, regionality, nationality, borderless-ness, and systemic injustice\/social justice. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse, The Missouri Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, PRISM international, Rattle, Sugar House Review, and elsewhere. She is both a CantoMundo and a VONA Fellow. \u00a0Amy was born and raised in Queens, New York to a Jamaican mother and Puerto Rican father. She has taught English, History, and Humanities at public high schools in the Bronx, New York and in Boston, Massachusetts. She now lives in Morgantown, West Virginia and teaches writing at West Virginia University. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,24],"tags":[38,30,32,28,39],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eswatini-issue","category-interviews","tag-amy-alvarez","tag-eswatini-issue","tag-furious-flower","tag-interviews","tag-nikki-giovanni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pluckjournal.uky.edu\/welcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}