IUPUI Professor's Debut Poetry Album in Running for Image Award

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IUPUI Professor Mitchell L. Douglas Nominated for NAACP Image Award

An IUPUI professor’s debut “album” of published poetry is nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the Outstanding Literary Work-Poetry category.

IUPUI Assistant Professor Mitchell L.H. Douglas’ book, “Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem,” is a collection of connected poems in which Douglas takes on the persona of the late soul musician, composer and singer Donny Hathaway, and his friends and family.

The 112-page paperback, published in Feb. 2009 by Red Hen Press, is an Image Award contender in the field that includes a collection of love poems by four-time Image Award winner and acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni.

“It’s a little . . . I am not sure if I have the words for it,” said Douglas when asked to describe his feelings about being nominated. “Part of it is I am nominated with Nikki Giovanni. (She) wrote one of my favorite poems. Her poem “For Saundra” . . . shaped my poetry (writing). So to be nominated with her is so unreal. It is something I can’t fully comprehend. I never even dreamed this would happen. It’s an honor.”

The NAACP Image Awards celebrate outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in motion pictures, television, recording and literature. The 41st NAACP Image Awards Show takes place Friday, Feb. 26, 2010, at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Fox TV will broadcast the show beginning at 8 p.m. EST, Feb. 26.

In “Cooling Board,” Douglas depicts the life of Hathaway, the co-composer and performer of “This Christmas,” recently popularized by pop singer Chris Brown. Hathaway, who died in January, 1979, is also known for his duets with Roberta Flack, including the 1973 Grammy award-winning “Where is the Love.”

“Not only does the poet speak in the voices of Hathaway and his long-time collaborator Roberta Flack, the reader also hears the voices of those closest to Hathaway whom we are less familiar . . . With Douglas as a guide versed in the power of possessing many tongues, “Cooling Board” captures its reader like the best Hathaway song: passionately, honestly, and with an undeniable sense of purpose,” according to the Barnes & Noble synopsis of the work Douglas presents as an album with Sides A and B.

Douglas has taught creative writing, poetry and literature courses in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI since earning his master of fine arts degree at IU Bloomington in 2006. “Cooling Board” is actually the follow-up to a long poem on Hathaway that Douglas, a Louisville native, wrote as a final project in a class taught by then IU Professor Kevin Young.

While “Cooling Board” is his first published collection of poems, Douglas has had several individual poems published in various journals and other publications.

As research for writing “Cooling Board,” Douglas made two trips to St. Louis, including a 2007 visit funded with a summer research grant from IUPUI. During those pilgrimages, the professor toured Hathaway’s neighborhood and visited with Hathaway’s high school friend, Charles Wartts, and others who were friends of Hathaway’s family.

“That was part of my creative process. I wanted to be physically close to the places and also be emotionally and psychically closer to the places, and people (Hathaway) knew,” he said.

Given the competition, if he wins the Image Award, what would Douglas say in his acceptance speech?

“I’ll thank Nikki Giovanni,” he said. “I am greatly indebted to her.”

What advice does he have for younger, aspiring poets?

“Creative writing is about your heart. Your head might weigh in with the logical saying, ‘You can’t spend all this time doing this with all the other things you have to do.’ However, if something in your heart tells you, ‘This is worthy of your time,’ you have to honor that,” says the poet.