In The News | First Toni Morrison bench in state honors Prudence Crandall and Black students

Canterbury (The Bulletin, September 20, 2021) — Poets, activists and community leaders gathered outside the Prudence Crandall Museum Sunday afternoon under the bright, late summer sunshine to unveil the first Toni Morrison Society bench in the state. 

The 6-foot steel Toni Morrison “Bench by the Road” sitting area was dedicated to the memory of Prudence Crandall, an educator and 19th century local civil rights icon, and her Black students, a group whose story traces a direct line to the modern civil rights era and beyond.

The bench, fronted by a black plaque inscripted with gold lettering, was brought to Canterbury through a fundraising effort spearheaded by Windham Judicial District State’s Attorney Anne Mahoney with the help of the Sustainable CT group and local donators.

“My hope is the next generation can find inspiration here and seek out the works of (Morrison) and become more morally enhanced,” Mahoney said.

READ MORE

In The News | Why Poetry Matters Now With Hartford’s Poet Laureate

Connecticut Public Radio, April 9, 2021 — April is National Poetry Month. It’s a time to celebrate poets and their craft. So we asked Hartford’s poet laureate, Frederick-Douglass Knowles II, if he would share his talent and his thoughts about why poetry matters, especially right now. 

Knowles is Hartford’s inaugural poet laureate, named in 2018. He’s a professor of English at Three Rivers Community College in Norwich and the author of BlackRoseCity. He’s also a recipient of the Nutmeg Poetry Award and the 2020 Connecticut Office of the Arts Fellow in Artist Excellence for Poetry and Creative Non-Fiction.

Here is the poem he read during the interview.

How Many Fanatics In the Cosmic Realm of Roller Skating Actually Overdosed on Rhythm and Speed?

I laced my shiny black boots
and dashed to the boy’s bathroom
to christen fluorescent green
Zingers in lukewarm water,
assuring my wheels an extra grip.

Disco lights flickered like electronic
Christmas trees. Huge box speakers
dangled from the ceiling blaring
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller:”

It’s close to midnight,
something evil’s lurking
in the dark, under the moonlight…

Vincent Price hypnotizes
ambitious roller boogies with
the funk of forty thousand years.

Saturday nights belonged
to the skate gods; we, obedient
zealots circling their shrine.

Wilbert rolled in reverse,
sporting blue Dickies
and a crisp white polo T
embroidered skate guard.
Though he never benched
anyone for speeding.

Phillip Marshall owned
the only pair of triple
jump-bar skates ever seen
in the Rose; shiny, crisp blades

reflecting psychedelic hues
of turquoise, green and gold
that mesmerized white girls
as they floated past waving
blonde locks of allure.

Pete fancied an old
wheel for a toe stopper;
cool, the way he’d cut
his ankles screeching
his plump frame to a halt.

An exhilarated Chanise
offered me five dollars
for a blind couples’ skate.
I did the math, two slices
of pizza, a coke and some
chips for two songs: deal.

Allison, was the economically
advantaged out of the group
who dished out her allowance
for Pole Position tournaments.

And I, was the Shoot The Duck King,
the undefeated Chipped Tooth Champ.

When Afrikka Bambaata’s
“Planet Rock” hit the turntable
we’d drop conspiracy theories
on who shot J.R.?

And wager how many laps
one of us could achieve
before Rolo, the by the book
guard, blew his whistle.

We ignored the shrieks.
No time for rules.
Only time for speed.

More whistle-blowing
and then, Rolo’s pointed
finger. His direct order
to get off the floor
and sit by the office.

Damn! I got kicked off again.
eight laps into “White Lines,”
Melle Mel’s prophetic hook
shouting to a skate feign on
the verge of od’ing to don’t
don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t
do it ba ba ba ba ba ba baby!

Too late.

During my 10 minute suspension,
I contemplated how many fanatics
in the cosmic realm of roller skating
actually overdosed on rhythm and speed
in a world of bliss and 80’s pop music?

Times up.
I pressed my black
toe stopper firmly
into the carpet,
assuring me a solid
thrust back onto the floor.

 

— By Lori Mack, Connecticut Public’s Morning Edition host

The original article can be found here: “Why Poetry Matters Now With Hartford’s Poet Laureate”

 

READ MORE

Three Rivers Community College Associate Professor Frederick-Douglass Knowles II Receives Connecticut Office of The Arts: Artist Fellowship for Artistic Excellence Award in Poetry

Three Rivers Community College is excited to share that Associate Professor Frederick-Douglass Knowles II has received the Connecticut Office of The Arts: Artist Fellowship for Artistic Excellence Award in Poetry.

The Artist Fellowship Awards are granted by the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the state agency charged with fostering the health of Connecticut’s creative economy. The Artist Fellowship program recognizes the creative excellence of individual Connecticut artists in a variety of disciplines and allows them the opportunity to pursue new works of art and to achieve specific creative and career goals. This year, the program awarded fifty-one artists as recipients of the FY2020 Artist Fellowship Program.

Three Rivers President Mary Ellen Jukoski congratulated Knowles on receiving the award, saying, “This is a wonderful honor for Professor Knowles. We take pride in his positive achievement and wish him continued success on this auspicious occasion.”

Of his accomplishment, Knowles says, “It is an esteemed honor to be recognized by the Connecticut Office of the Arts for an Artist Excellence Award in Poetry/Creative Non-Fiction. The Artist Fellowship will assist me accessing pivotal resources, such as writing residencies and retreats, in efforts to complete my current manuscript, Mentors, a collection of elegies honoring my ancestral and communal roots in Connecticut.”

Knowles is an Associate Professor of English who has taught at Three Rivers for 12 years in the English and Communications Department. He also teaches classes at a local prison as part of the Three Rivers Community College Second Chance Pell Grant program. In addition to serving as the Three Rivers representative on CSCU’s Students First Consolidation Committee, he co-founded the Men Against Domestic Violence Artistic Expression annual event which consists of music, poetry readings and performances, and a live artist painting. Knowles also chairs the TRCC Community Involvement Committee. In 2018, he was named Hartford’s first Poet Laureate.

 

READ MORE