Past Issue: Brenda Marie Osbey

Logo-Fight&Fiddle


Winter 2021 |Brenda Marie Osbey | Vol. 4, Iss. 3

Welcome to The Fight & The Fiddle, a publication of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University. Each issue gives you a 360-degree view of a Black poet, including an interview, new poems, a critical essay, and a writing prompt inspired by our featured poet. 

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Brenda Marie Osbey is a poet, essayist, librettist and editor who works in English and French. Her seven books include All Souls: Essential Poems (Lousiana State University Press, 2015), History and Other Poems (Time Being Books, 2013) and the limited edition chapbook 1967 (William & Mary, 2018, 2019). She is also the author of a Kongo-New Orleans opera triptych, including Sultane au Grand Marais (Rites & Reason Theatre, 2011). Osbey’s edited works include features for Indiana Review, Poet Lore, War|Scapes, Illuminations and the 2016 African Poetry Book Series volume Gabriel Okara: Collected Poems, Edited and with an Introduction by Brenda Marie Osbey (APBS/University of Nebraska Press). The recipient of numerous writing and research fellowships and awards, she was most recently the 2018-2019 Emilia Galli Struppa Fellow of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. The first peer-selected poet laureate of Louisiana, Osbey is a native of New Orleans.

Brenda Marie Osbey reads “Slaves to the City” from her collection History and Other Poems (Time Being Press, 2012)

Photo by Adriana Hammond
Cover Design by Megan Hinton