Helping all students, regardless of race, to appreciate the craft is often a challenge, scholars say.

By Diane Mehta

Thomas Sayers Ellis, assistant professor of creative writing at New York’s Sarah Lawrence College, is one of many scholars fighting for the soul of Black poetry, a struggle that takes place largely off-campus. Unless one is accepted into a top-level graduate poetry program, such as Boston University’s program or the Iowa Writing Workshop, a poet’s opportunities are limited. And Black poets face an even tougher road.

E. Ethelbert Miller, director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University, says the problem has been brewing for a while. In the 1980s, Miller tried to get 100 or so historically Black colleges and universities revved up about creative writing programs. Only a dozen responded. Most of the institutions didn’t see the value in investing in the programs, arguing that creative writing wasn’t a marketable skill. Xavier University of Louisiana was one of the HBCUs that did respond favorably, creating an undergraduate poetry program. Xavier and Spelman College both currently have undergraduate creative writing minors, and Howard and Morehouse College each offer one undergraduate class. But none of the top-tier HBCUs offer graduate-level poetry programs.

“Just like anything else, programs grow out of demand,” says Dr. Eleanor W. Traylor, chairman of the English department at Howard. “We have an undergraduate creative writing program, but our graduate program is focused on training future faculty.”

But Traylor doesn’t rule out the possibility that Howard will institute a graduate poetry program in the future.

“When demand changes, things shift. I see this will be an evolving eventuality, not long in coming. We have no will or intent of bias against it,” she says. “The success of poetry in popular culture, and the fact that many writers hold academic degrees and seek employment as university professors, have both prompted interest in creative writing.”