Sterling D. Plumpp | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sterling Dominic Plumpp (1940-01-30)January 30, 1940 (age 85) |
| Education | St. Benedict's College |
| Alma mater | Roosevelt University |
| Occupation(s) | Poet, critic |
| Employer | University of Illinois |
| Awards | American Book Award |
Sterling Dominic Plumpp (born January 30, 1940) is anAmerican poet, educator, editor, and critic. He has written numerous books, includingHornman (1996),Harriet Tubman (1996),Ornate With Smoke (1997),Half Black, Half Blacker (1970), andThe Mojo Hands Call, I Must Go (1982). Some of his work was included inThe Best American Poetry 1996. He was an advisor for the television production of the documentaryThe Promised Land.[1] Plumpp was awarded the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's Fuller Award for lifetime achievement in September 2019.
Born inClinton, Mississippi, Plumpp was raised by his maternal grandparents, Mattie and Victor Emmanuel Plumpp, on the cotton plantation where they worked as sharecroppers. Working with them in the fields, Plumpp and his brother did not attend school until they were eight or nine years old and could walk the 10 miles to the school.[2] At the age of 16, Plumpp converted toCatholicism. He won a scholarship toSt. Benedict's College inAtchison, Kansas, where he discovered Greek literature andJames Baldwin's work, and was inspired to become a writer. He left after two years, and in 1962 traveled north toChicago, Illinois. There he found work in a post office. Eventually he enrolled atRoosevelt University, majoring in psychology, while continuing to read widely. He earned a B.A. degree in 1968 and an M.A. in 1971.[3]
Plumpp's first book of poetry,Portable Soul, was published in 1969. Since then, he has edited and contributed to various anthologies, as well as publishing further collections of poetry, and in 1972 a non-fiction work entitledBlack Rituals, "about behavior that supports oppression of the Black community".[4] In a February 2022 interview, Plumpp said aboutBlack Rituals:
"I did not want to write a book about Black psychology per se; I simply wanted to culturally account for how the unique African Americans believed and expressed their beliefs. There are times when I am talking about Black beauty as expressed in theHarlem Renaissance and theBlack Arts Movement of the 1960s. I was looking for a way to culturally position concepts of beauty and art in the two cultural/literary movements. I wroteBlack Rituals at a time when I became intently aware that I am really a Black peasant, a child of the Mississippi soil, baptized in a Saturday-afternoon lake and nourished to a conversionary experience whereby Christ showed me a sign that I had been saved. I was rural. Country folk knew hot dust broiling feet in summers. Somehow I learned to read. I left the South for the North, but I have not lost those southern roots."[5]
His bookClinton won anIllinois Arts Council Literary Award in 1975.[4] He won theCarl Sandburg Literary Prize for poetry for his 1982 bookThe Mojo Hands Call, I Must Go. ThePublishers Weekly review of his 1993 collection,Johannesburg & Other Poems, described Plumpp as "that rarity: a poet who looks with his ears."[6]
His 2014 book,Home/Bass, won an American Book Award for Poetry.[7]
Plumpp took a post teaching African-American studies at theUniversity of Illinois, Chicago, in 1971, and went on to become a full professor there, teaching literature and creative writing until he retired withemeritus status in December 2001—having become a $1 million winner in theIllinois Lottery.[2][1]
The Sterling D. Plumpp Collection, containing works by African and African American writers, is held at theUniversity of Mississippi.[4]
Plumpp was awarded the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame's Fuller Award for lifetime achievement in September 2019.[8][9]
