Poetry deadline approaches for Randall contest
Thomas Gatchell
Issue date: 3/3/10 Section: Features
March 17 is the deadline for UDO annual Dudley Randall student poetry contest.
The contest is named after the late Dudley Randall, a poet who also worked in the campus library and who also judged the contest until his death in 2000.
Prof. Claire Crabtree knew Randall personally.
"Mr. Randall was a wonderful man," she said.
According to an article on the University of Illinois website, Randall was born in January 1914 in Washington, D.C. He moved to Detroit in 1920, and had his first poem published in the Free Press at the age of 13.
Randall's most popular poem was 1963's "The Ballad of Birmingham," which was about a racially motivated church bombing that killed four children. He printed the poem on a single sheet of paper called a "broadside" to protect his rights to the poem, thus establishing the Broadside Press in 1965.
He conceived the idea of broadsides - one-page sheets with one poem, sold for a small fee - as a way to gain publication when many presses ignored African-American poets.
Broadside ballads, which were poems or songs, had been printed up and sold in England centuries before, and it is typical of his sense of history and broad education that he put this old form to a new and imaginative use.
Randall encouraged African-American poets and offered many of them their first chance to be published. Many went on to be published, honored and studied.
According to an article in the Detroit News from 8-15-00,
"Pulitzer-prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks left Harper and Row to become a Broadside poet," wrote The Detroit News in 2000. "And Audre Lorde's 1973 Broadside book, 'From a Land Where Other People Live,' was nominated for a National Book Award."
After a brief teaching gig in 1969, Randall became UDO librarian and poet-in-residence until his retirement in 1974.
While his emphasis was on giving black writers recognition and publication, he was supportive of writers of all backgrounds. That is just one reason that this contest is named in his honor.
Crabtree remembers visiting Randall for the poetry contest.
"I would bring the best five or six poems to his handsome house in Detroit, and he would great me graciously," she said. "A few days later I would get a phone call with his choices.
"When judging, he tended to choose the poems with the most vivid (language)," said Crabtree. "Once a winning poem had only seventeen words, but it was the best in his opinion."
In the annual competition, three winners are picked and they read their poems aloud at the CLAE Honors Convocation. Crabtree views the reading as the highlight of the event.
In order to participate in the contest, you must be an undergraduate. Poems must be typed in English and be 55 lines or less.
Submission forms are in the Liberal Arts Office in Briggs.
The first place winner receives $100, with second getting $50 and third getting $25.
For more information contact Crabtree at crabtec@udmercy.edu or call 993-1080.
The contest is named after the late Dudley Randall, a poet who also worked in the campus library and who also judged the contest until his death in 2000.
Prof. Claire Crabtree knew Randall personally.
"Mr. Randall was a wonderful man," she said.
According to an article on the University of Illinois website, Randall was born in January 1914 in Washington, D.C. He moved to Detroit in 1920, and had his first poem published in the Free Press at the age of 13.
Randall's most popular poem was 1963's "The Ballad of Birmingham," which was about a racially motivated church bombing that killed four children. He printed the poem on a single sheet of paper called a "broadside" to protect his rights to the poem, thus establishing the Broadside Press in 1965.
He conceived the idea of broadsides - one-page sheets with one poem, sold for a small fee - as a way to gain publication when many presses ignored African-American poets.
Broadside ballads, which were poems or songs, had been printed up and sold in England centuries before, and it is typical of his sense of history and broad education that he put this old form to a new and imaginative use.
Randall encouraged African-American poets and offered many of them their first chance to be published. Many went on to be published, honored and studied.
According to an article in the Detroit News from 8-15-00,
"Pulitzer-prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks left Harper and Row to become a Broadside poet," wrote The Detroit News in 2000. "And Audre Lorde's 1973 Broadside book, 'From a Land Where Other People Live,' was nominated for a National Book Award."
After a brief teaching gig in 1969, Randall became UDO librarian and poet-in-residence until his retirement in 1974.
While his emphasis was on giving black writers recognition and publication, he was supportive of writers of all backgrounds. That is just one reason that this contest is named in his honor.
Crabtree remembers visiting Randall for the poetry contest.
"I would bring the best five or six poems to his handsome house in Detroit, and he would great me graciously," she said. "A few days later I would get a phone call with his choices.
"When judging, he tended to choose the poems with the most vivid (language)," said Crabtree. "Once a winning poem had only seventeen words, but it was the best in his opinion."
In the annual competition, three winners are picked and they read their poems aloud at the CLAE Honors Convocation. Crabtree views the reading as the highlight of the event.
In order to participate in the contest, you must be an undergraduate. Poems must be typed in English and be 55 lines or less.
Submission forms are in the Liberal Arts Office in Briggs.
The first place winner receives $100, with second getting $50 and third getting $25.
For more information contact Crabtree at crabtec@udmercy.edu or call 993-1080.
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Alan King
posted 3/06/10 @ 10:34 AM EST
"Photo Exhibit Showcases Black Poets" http://alanwking.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/photo-exhibit-showcases-black-poets/
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