LISTEN TO EPISODE 122!

Dear Listener,

It is with great joy that I share Episode 122, featuring a conversation between me and Rachel about Nicole Sealey’s latest book The Ferguson Report, as well as audio from Nicole’s visit to a Reading With Rachel class.

I have known Nicole for many years—we crossed paths during our respective times at NYU—and have always bought and read each of her (wonderful) books the moment they were released into the world. It has been fascinating to watch the ways Nicole has grown and changed as a poet over the years—with each book, she continues to challenge herself and her capacity for language. The Ferguson Report is, I believe, her greatest achievement yet.

It’s a book worth reading, then re-reading, then sitting with (not reading), then perhaps reading again. It’s one you should tell your friends and family about, especially the ones who don’t write or read poetry. It’s likely that they remember the protests of 2014, and perhaps even when the official Department of Justice report dropped and told us what we already knew: police discriminate against Black people, they brutalize Black people without cause, and they get away with it every day, in every city, without repercussions. 

Nicole’s erasure and rewriting of the official report offers us a lyrical, human-centered examination of what happened to Michael Brown—and so many other Black residents of Missouri—in 2014. It is a book in response to a text that was meant to address the “unrest” that year, but Sealey’s Report is so clear in its declaration that not only has this been going on long, long before Brown was murdered, but it will continue as long as we live under a racist, white supremacist police state. It is an honor to discuss the book with Rachel and share that conversation with you, and to also have Nicole visit our class and share her insights into the making of The Ferguson Report: the physicality of its construction, the erasures she read, how she balanced her writing with other life obligations. Please listen to Episode 122 when you can. 

Nicole Sealey was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and raised in Apopka, Florida. She received an MFA from New York University and an MLA in Africana studies from the University of South Florida. Sealey is the author of Ordinary Beast (Ecco Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book and Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards. Her chapbook, The Animal After Whom Other Animals are Named (Northwestern University Press, 2016), was the winner of the 2016 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Prize. In 2019, Sealey was named a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. She has received fellowships and awards from CantoMundo, the Cave Canem Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Elizabeth George Foundation, among others. Nicole Sealey worked at Cave Canem for several years, first as programs director and then as executive director. Even if you haven’t yet read Nicole’s amazing books or encountered her amazingness as a teacher or through Cave Canem, you might recognize her name from The Sealey Challenge which Nicole started in 2017.  

If listening to this episode made you want to join us for a future Reading with Rachel class—you’re in luck! You can still sign up here. Here’s a preview of upcoming classes:

• February 27th—Hafizah Augustus Geter will join us to discuss her memoir, The Black Period

• At the end of March, Sabrina Orah Mark will talk about her book Happily

• In April, we’ll welcome Eugenia Leigh to discuss her book of poetry Bianca

• Mary Ruefle will join us in May—her latest is called The Book

• For June, Rachel will discuss her own book, SoundMachine

• Finally, in July, we’ll have Brenda Shaughnessey visit to talk about her collection, Tanya

If you’d like to know more about Reading with Rachel and other Commonplace School classes, check out our new website: commonplace.today where you’ll also find all Commonplace episodes, extra resources for each episode and transcripts for almost every episode! 

In honor of this episode Commonplace’s charitable partner will donate $250 to Furious Flower, chosen by Nicole Sealey. The nation’s first academic center for Black poetry, Furious Flower is a department of James Madison University, a public institution in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Furious flower supports an annual national poetry contest, regional theatrical productions that honor Black cultural icons and writers, a Community Summer camp, and an International Conference for scholars and writers from around the world to explore contemporary trends in Black literature, culture, and thought that convenes once every 10 years. 

Thank you so much to Rachel, for inviting me to talk about Nicole’s wonderful book, and to my other Commonplace colleagues, Leigh Sugar and Lola Anaya, for producing Episode 122 with me.

Thanks also to you, for listening and supporting Commonplace! If you’re not a Patron yet, please consider signing up to become one—there is a lot of bonus materials we release with each episode. If you can’t afford to become a Patron, we completely understand—could you, instead, share this episode with one or two people?

With gratitude and solidarity,

Christine