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THE
POETRY
OF
TYEHIMBA
JESS
Sharing stories of the past
for a brighter future.
I
n an increasingly divided
world, Tyehimba Jess works
to increase understanding and
unity by sharing forgotten sto-
ries of history through poetry.
Jess visited Hardin-Simmons
as the keynote speaker of
The Lawrence Clayton Poets & Writers
Speaker Series this April. He held a ques-
tion and answer session, a poetry read-
ing, and a book signing for his Pulitzer
Prize winning collection, "Olio."
The subjects of Jess’s poetry are the lives
of mostly unrecorded African-Ameri-
can performers who lived between the
Civil War and World War I.
“My primary interests were why they
chose their creative paths and how they
dealt with issues regarding their dignity
and their creative productions against
the stage of the minstrel show,” Jess said
in an interview.
While minstrel shows depicted African-
Americans as one-dimensional carica-
tures, Jess portrays his subjects as com-
plex humans.
LITERATURE
HAS
THE
OPPORTUNITY TO . . .
ALLOW US TO SEE THE
COMPLEXITY
OF
THE
PEOPLE
AROUND
US.
THAT’S WHEN POETRY IS
DOING
HUMANITARIAN
WORK.
by
Grace Mitchell '19
22
RANGE RIDER | SPRING-SUMMER 2018