06-27-2024 Howard - Flipbook - Page 43
Truth Thomas reads at the annual Books in Bloom event in May. COURTESY OF HOWARD COUNTY
GOVERNMENT
Thomas will serve for two years as Howard County’s inaugural poet laureate, a partnership between
Howard County Executive Calvin Ball, Howard County Arts Council and the Howard County Poetry and
Literature Society. PHOTO BY KIM HAIRSTON
Former resident and late poet Lucille Clifton
served as Maryland’s poet laureate and as a
longtime artistic director of Howard County
Poetry & Literature Society. PHOTO BY MARK
LENNIHAN/AP 2000
might not be so expected.
“I personally hope it will elevate poetry in
the consciousness of Howard County residents,”
said Coleen West, the executive director of the
Howard County Arts Council.
People are often exposed to poetry in school
and at open mic events, but those aren’t the
only avenues, said Sylvia Jones, the associate
poetry editor at Black Lawrence Press and an
adjunct creative writing lecturer at Goucher
College and George Washington University.
Earlier this year, she served on a review panel
alongside Maryland’s 10th poet laureate Grace
Cavalieri and literary activist and author E.
Ethelbert Miller to make a recommendation
to Ball’s office regarding who would become
the Howard County poet laureate — a task she
said was made more “strenuous” by the fact that
it would be the county’s first.
“I could see a definitive map of growth in his
work on the page,” she said of Thomas.
Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Thomas grew
up in Maryland just outside of Washington,
D.C., and studied political science at Howard
University. He recalled spending part of his
time at what was then the African American
Resource Center, directed by Miller.
Thomas didn’t graduate, instead heading
to Los Angeles in the early 80s to pursue a
career in music as a singer-songwriter. There,
he was signed to Capitol Records and released
an album called “Take Love” while still using
his birth name, Glenn Edward Thomas.
He started performing at slam poetry events
in D.C. after being inspired by the 1998 movie
“Slam.”
“That was the first time that I had seen
people express themselves passionately without
music, and move people,” he said of the film.
After returning to Howard University for
howardmagazine.com | Summer 2024 |
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