Play
44:47
Acknowledgment is an audio archive in commemoration of the legacies of Black Chicago Literary Movements, past and present. In honor and in reflection of The Chicago Defender, Chicago Black Renaissance, South Side Writers Group, Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) Writers Workshop and individuals and collectives yet to be heralded or born.
Acknowledgment seeks to bring together voices in the spirit of celebration and reckoning. It’s a ring shout, a friend, an aunt in prayer, an ancestor, an affirmation, and a beckoning home.
Directed by: Janelle Ayana Miller
Sound Producer: Jared Brown
Design/web development by: Jacob Lindgren
Transcript of audio available here*
Tracklist:

Old Soul Intro
Origin - Sparkle Nation*
Founded by artists and writers, Gabrielle Rucker, Precious Okoyomon and Diamond Stingily, Sparkle Nation is a literary arts collective dedicated to the written word and organizing through its various forms. Through intentional readings, radio broadcasts, workshops, and discussions, Sparkle Nation’s purpose is to directly challenge traditional academic notions of how to properly obtain, share and utilize knowledge.
https://gogogogo.info/Sparkle-Nation
For Our People - Angela Jackson*
Angela Jackson is a poet, playwright, and novelist. She is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Voo Doo/Love Magic (1974); Dark Legs and Silk Kisses: The Beatitudes of the Spinners (1993), which won the Carl Sandburg Award; and National Book Award–nominated And All These Roads Be Luminous: Poems Selected and New (1998). She has also written several plays, including Witness! (1978), Shango Diaspora: An African-American Myth of Womanhood and Love (1980), and When the Wind Blows (1984). Her novel Where I Must Go (2009) won the American Book Award. Jackson is the current Illinois Poet Laureate.
The Serpent - Devin Malone*
Devin Malone (they/them) is a public programmer, curator, and dreamer based in Brooklyn, New York. They have organized programs at Dia Art Foundation, The Museum of Modern Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Gallery 400 (Chicago). Their work draws on a host of influences, from Black studies and Marxist theory to contemporary art and experimental pedagogy. They are currently Assistant Curator of Public Engagement at Dia Art Foundation in New York.
Kitchenlude
House / Body - Madison Smith*
Madison Smith is an artist and independent programmer exploring ideas of intimacy, autobiography, and collective care. Since graduating with a BFAAH (Bachelors of Fine Art and Art History) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017, she has worked to shape spaces that support creativity and interpersonal transformation. Smith has managed a diverse range of public programs in partnership with organizations such as the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Architecture Center, Evanston Art Center, Field Museum, Hyde Park Art Center, LATITUDE | Chicago, and Links Hall. Smith is also Co-Founder of Monarch Art and Wellness.
Take a Breath/Catch Your Breath
Blue Haiku(s) - Briana Lynn*
Briana Lynn is a cross-disciplinary language artist and classically trained dancer working at the intersection of a literary and visual practice. She received her MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University (2018), with coursework at Rhode Island School of Design. She is interested in multi-dimensional poetry; in language as object; and in engaging both her body and that of the reader—she is looking to choreograph text. Her work is an exercise in designing poems that can shepherd space and ultimately, perform.
https://www.brianalynn.info
Phone Call from Edgewater - Jared Brown
Jared Brown is an interdisciplinary artist born in Chicago. In past work, Jared broadcasted audio and text based work through the radio (CENTRAL AIR RADIO, 88.5 FM), in live DJ sets, and on social media. They consider themselves a data thief, understanding this role from John Akomfrah's description of the data thief as a figure that does not belong to the past or present. As a data thief, Jared Brown makes archeological digs for fragments of Black American subculture, history and technology. Jared repurposes these fragments in audio, text, and video to investigate the relationship between history and digital, immaterial space. Jared Brown holds a BFA in video from the Maryland Institute College of Art and moved back to Chicago in 2016 in order to make and share work that directly relates to their personal history.
soundings (Ambient Edit) - Imani Elizabeth Jackson*
Imani Elizabeth Jackson is a poet working across disciplines. Her first book, Flag, is forthcoming from Futurepoem and her chapbook, saltsitting, is available from g l o s s.
https://www.imanie.info
Works from Angela Jackson*
Poetry
Voodoo Love Magic. Third World Press. 1974.
The Greenville Club, 1977 (chapbook)
Solo in the Boxcar Third Floor E. Oba House. 1985. ISBN 978-0-933653-01-6.
The Man with the White Liver. Illustrator Melora Walters. Contact II Publications. 1987. ISBN 978-0-936556-16-1
Dark Legs and Silk Kisses: The Beatitudes of the Spinners. Northwestern University Press. 1993. ISBN 978-0-8101-5001-0.
And All These Roads Be Luminous: Poems New and Selected. Northwestern University Press. 1997. ISBN 978-0-8101-5076-8.
It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time. Northwestern University Press. 2015. ISBN 9780810130517.

Plays
Witness!, 1970.
Shango Diaspora: An African American Myth of Womanhood and Love, 1980.
Comfort Stew. Northwestern University Press. 1984. ISBN 978-0-8101-4117-9. Also known as When the Wind Blows.
Lightfoot: The Crystal Stair

Novels
Treemont Stone
Where I Must Go. Northwestern University Press. 2009. ISBN 978-0-8101-5185-7.

Book Award
Roads, Where There Are No Roads. Northwestern University Press. 2017. ISBN 978-0-8101-3472-0.

Memoir
Apprenticeship in the House of Cowrie Shells

Anthologies
Kalamu ya Salaam, ed. 1998. 360,̊ a revolution of Black poets. Black Words. ISBN 978-0-7394-1585-6
Pamela Gemin; Paula Sergi, eds. 1999. Boomer Girls: poems by women from the baby boom generation. University of Iowa Press.
Elise Paschen, ed. 2019. The Eloquent Poem: 128 Contemporary Poems and Their Makings. Persea Books.