-founded in Boston in 1988 by a group of African American poets led by Thomas Sayers Ellis and Sharan Strange. According to the New York Times article ‘Where Black Poetry Took Wing’, in 1987 the two young poets attended the funeral of James Baldwin. They were deeply moved by the funeral ceremony, but also distressed that they had never met an African-American literary lion like Mr. Baldwin. Ellis and Strange then came up with the plan to bring young black writers and artists together to read their work aloud, bond with mentors and to foster the sort of relationships that had nurtured many a cultural movement.
-the mission of the Collective was to form a community of established and emerging African American writers
-Strange and Ellis began the Dark Room Collective at their house at 31 Inman Street in Cambridge, where they hosted the reading series on Sunday afternoons. A crowd showed up, some furniture got moved, some chairs unfolded and their living room turned into a salon.
-it soon expanded to include musical performances, art shows, and workshops and became known as a much needed home for writers of color in the mostly white-dominated literary community
-people of varying ethnicities, ages, classes, and communities attended the series, which later relocated to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston when it outgrew the living room in Cambridge
-scholars say the Dark Room Collective is less about strife or racial identity but it’s more about the imagination taking over and leading the poets to borrow from, and burrow into, history, pop culture, even quantum physics in new and surprising ways although some do use their work to to fight against various forms of oppression
-the Dark Room Collective stopped after a decade or so, however, some of its members now in their 40s, have gone on to become famous literary figures, winning major prizes. One example is Natasha Trethewey, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her book in 2006, “Native Guard,” and is the nation’s poet laureate
-other famous poets from dark room collective: Tracy K. Smith won the Pulitzer for “Life on Mars” in 2012, writers Kevin Young, Carl Phillips and Major Jackson have all been recognized as prolific and influential voices in American poetry.
-in the New York Times article by Jeff Gordinier he has a quote by Mr. Adrian Matejka, who is a part of a poetic organization that has come out of the Dark Room Collective. He described Dark Room Collective as a “shift out of the ‘I’m a black man in America and it’s hard’ mode” into “the idea of ‘you are who you are, so that’s always going to be part of the poem,’ ” with “a lot more room for the sublime experience of language.”
Poems by Tracy K. Smith: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/55520
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/56376
Poems by Kevin Young: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/58069
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/49763
“A Brief Guide to the Dark Room Collective.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, 9 May 2004, www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-dark-room-collective.
Gordinier, Jeff. “The Dark Room Collective: Where Black Poetry Took Wing.” New York Times, 27 May 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/arts/the-dark-room-collective-where-black-poetry-took-wing.html?_r=0.
“The Dark Room Collective, Then and Now.” Poets and Writers, www.pw.org/content/the_dark_room_collective_then_and_now.