Sterling D. Plumpp

Sterling D. Plumpp. Courtesy Society of Midland Authors.

Sterling Dominic Plumpp (born January 30, 1940) is an African-American poet, academic, editor, and critic.

Life

Born in Clinton, 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 8 or 9 years old and could walk the 10 miles to theschool.

At 16, Plumpp converted to Catholicism. He won a scholarship to St. Benedict's College in Atchison, Kansas, where he discovered Greek literature and James Baldwin's work, and was inspired to become a writer. He left after 2 years, and in 1962 traveled north to Chicago. There he found work in a post office. Eventually he enrolled at Roosevelt University, where he majored in psychology, while continuing to read widely.

Plumpp took a post teaching African-American studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago, in 1971, and went on to become a full professor of English and African-American studies there, retiring with emeritus status in December 2001.

In August 1991 he won $1 million in the Illinois Lottery.

Plumpp's debut collection 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. His numerous books inclue Hornman (1996), Harriet Tubman (1996), Ornate With Smoke (1997), Half Black, Half Blacker (1970), and The Mojo Hands Call, I Must Go (1982). Some of his work was included in The Best American Poetry 1996. He was an advisor for the television production of The Promised Land.

Writing

Chicago Tribune: "He is the poet laureate of Chicago jazz and blues, a man who conveys in words as much melody and rhythm as the musicians he immortalizes in print. For more than four decades, Sterling Plumpp has transformed the sounds of Chicago jazz giants – such as Von Freeman and Fred Anderson – into phrases that swing and dance and sway on the page. Read a poem by Plumpp, and you can hear the rasp of Freeman's horn or the free flights of Anderson's solos.Now Plumpp has turned his keen ear and poet's heart to the music of Chicago bluesman Willie Kent, a legendary singer-bass player who died in 2006 at age 70. In Home/Bass (Third World Press), which Plumpp has been honing since 1988, he writes largely from Kent's perspective, taking us inside the blues."

Recognition

Plumpp won the 1999 Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award for his contributions to literature. His other honors include the Carl Sandburg Literary Award for poetry and 3 Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards.

Publications

• Portable Soul. Chicago: Third World Press, 1969; revised, 1974.
• Half Black, Half Blacker. Chicago: Third World Press, 1970.
• Muslim Men. Detroit, MI: Broadside Press, 1972.
• Black Rituals. Chicago: Third World Press, 1972.
• Steps to Break the Circle. Chicago: Third World Press, 1974.
• Clinton. Detroit, MI: Broadside Press, 1976.
• The Mojo Hands Call, I Must Go. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1982.
• Blues: The Story Always Untold. Chicago: Another Chicago Press, 1989.
• Johannesburg, and other poems. Chicago: Another Chicago Press, 1993.
• Hornman. Chicago: Third World Press, 1996.
• Ornate With Smoke. Chicago: Third World Press, 1997.
• Blues: Narratives. Chicago: Tia Cucha Press, 1999.
• Velvet Be-Bop Kente Cloth. Chicago: Third World Press, 2003.
• Home / Bass: Poems. Chicago: Third World Press, 2013.

Juvenile

• Harriet Tubman (illustrated by Adjoa J. Burrowes). 1996.
• Paul Robeson (illustrated by Adjoa J. Burrowes), 1998.

Edited

• Somehow We Survive: An anthology of South African writing (illustrated by Dumile Feni). New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1981.
• Steel Pudding: Writings from the Gary Historical and Cultural Society writer's workshop (edited with Naomi Millender). Gary, IN: Gary Historical and Cultural Society, 2008.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

Sterling Plumpp

A. K. Toney reads "Be Bop" by Sterling Plumpp

• African-American poets
• List of U.S. poets

References

• James Cunningham, “Sterling Plumpp”, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 41, Afro-American Poets since 1955, eds. Trudier Harris and Thadious M. Davis, 1985, pp. 257–265.
• “Plumpp, Sterling D(ominic)”, in Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series, vol. 24, ed. Deborah A. Straub, 1988, pp. 371–372.
• James Cunningham, “Baldwin Aesthetics in Sterling Plumpp's Mojo Poems”, Black American Literature Forum 23 (Fall 1989): 505–518.
• Sterling Plumpp, “Sterling Plumpp”, in Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, ed. Joyce Nakamura, vol. 21, 1995, pp. 165–178.

External links

Poems

• Sterling D. Plumpp at the Poetry Foundation

Audio / video

• Sterling Plumpp at YouTube

Books

• Sterling Plumpp at Amazon.com

About

• Mississippi Writers: Sterling Plumpp at Mississippi Writers and Musicians
• Poet with a Stroke of Luck: Sterling Plumpp at African American Registry
• "Poet Sterling Plumpp captures rhythms of the blues," Chicago Tribune