Arts & Culture | Arts, Culture & Community | Arts & Anti-racism | Elm City LIT Fest | Kulturally Lit
New Haven Poet Laureate Sharmont "Influence" Little and Kulturally Lit Founder Ife Michelle Gardin at The Year of Baldwin launch party. Markeshia Ricks Photos.
Famed writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin would be 100 in August had he lived and IfeMichelle Gardin and her team of cultural curators at Kulturally Lit are throwing him a yearlong birthday party that celebrates his life, the rich legacy of the artistic work he left behind and its relevance to today.
The Kulturally Lit team from left to right: Zaniya Léon, Gardin, Juanita Sunday Austin and Shamain "Sha" McAllister.
Poetry, art and music anchored Kulturally Lit’s official launch party at The Bricks in Hamden Saturday night. Nearly 100 people gathered in the prolific writer’s name to hear about “The Year of Baldwin” ahead and be inspired to participate in the many upcoming events including a screening and discussion of the film “I Am Not Your Negro” at the Mitchell Branch Library on Monday at 5 p.m.
“I’m so full and so happy to see everyone,” Gardin said as she opened Saturday’s event.
Gardin is the creator of the Elm City LIT Fest, a now five-year-old literary festival, that she birthed on Arts Council of Greater New Haven Board President Babz Rawls Ivy’s front porch. (Full disclosure: this reporter was on that porch for that birthing process.)
The Elm City LIT Fest, which happens in September each year, is now produced under the umbrella organization of Kulturally Lit, and has gone on to birth a spring event known as DiasporaCON, which showcases opportunities in the comic and graphic novels industry.
When she realized that 2024 would mark Baldwin’s 100th birthday, Gardin knew this year’s LIT Fest would be dedicated to him.
“It just lined up to celebrate and have something in remembrance of such an iconic literary artist,” she said.
This year’s LIT Fest theme “Baldwin Forever” also was shared at Saturday’s launch event along with several other key events including a summer production of Baldwin’s “Blues for Mister Charlie” in partnership with the Beinecke Library. Gardin said there also would be future salons featuring artists of all stripes who will showcase Baldwin-inspired work. A 100 Years of Baldwin book club will be making its way through several of Baldwin’s books throughout the year.
Top photo: New London Poet Laureate Josh Brown performs as Gardin looks on. Bottom photo: New Haven Poet Laureate Sharmont "Influence" Little.
Attendees of the launch party got a sample of what they could expect from the salons in the form of poetry from New Haven Poet Laureate Sharmont “Influence” Little and New London Poet Laureate Josh Brown. Kulturally Lit partnered with New Haven’s Arts, Culture and Tourism Department to make sure that the Elm City had its own poet laureate.
Attendees got to hear the poetic stylings of Frederick-Douglass Knowles II (top photo), 2022 poet laureate of Hartford and Iyaba Mandingo (bottom photo).
Gardin said in a time where people actively seek to ban the works of writers and artists like Baldwin that they don’t read because their work often deal with topics of racism and homophobia, it’s important to illuminate such work.
Top photo: Gardin and an event attendee. Bottom photo: Jennifer Heikkila Díaz and her children, Magdalena and Gabriela, with Shamain (Sha) McAllister.
“James Baldwin’s work is so vast and so intense and so timeless that I wanted to spread the word and because our mission is to enhance the awareness of the literary arts of the African diaspora for everyone it’s really important for people to know about James Baldwin’s work right now.”
“It still applies,” Dori Dumas, president of the Greater New Haven NAACP, chimed in.
“It still applies, “ Gardin echoed.