Fayetteville library gets grant

FAYETTEVILLE — The Fayetteville Public Library is one of three in the state to receive a $1,200 grant for public programs as part of the Lift Every Voice: Why African American Poetry Matters initiative, the Library of America has announced.

The other two are the Central Arkansas Library System Foundation in Little Rock and the John Brown Watson Memorial Library at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

They are among 49 libraries and institutions nationwide to receive the grants from the Library of America, a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. The initiative coincides with the publication of African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song, an anthology edited by Kevin Young, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library.

Money for the grant comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Emerson Collective.

Planning is still in the works at the three Arkansas libraries, but officials provided a general overview of what to expect in the fall and winter.

The Fayetteville library will use its grant money to host poetry readings, panel discussions, an exhibition of poetry from African-American authors from the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections, reading groups based on the Lift Every Voice Reader led by University of Arkansas professor Constance Bailey, a poetry slam for local poets to share their work and poems, and a poetry workshop led by a local writing instructor, according to Leah Frieden, the Fayetteville library’s assistant manager for reference services, who is planning the events.

“We also hope to have musical performances that showcase African American poetry,” she wrote in an email.