Lawrence.com

Lawrence is rolling out the welcome mat for the rest of the nation at its 100th birthday party for poet Langston Hughes.

Organizers of the Lawrence symposium on Hughes, who spent much of his childhood in Lawrence, have received a $40,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to help them organize poetry circles across the country.

Hughes poetry circles, where about 25 people discuss four of his books, began in Lawrence last week. Two groups of 25 each are participating in the groups, which meet three more times in October and November.

More are scheduled to begin in January in Topeka, Iola, Independence, Hays and Norton.

"The key to this is you must read, you must read aloud, you must hear the words, you must talk about the power of the words," said Maryemma Graham, a Kansas University English professor who is organizing the circles with Bill Tuttle, a KU professor of American studies.

Organizers already have talked to venues about playing host to poetry circles in Chicago; New Orleans; Memphis, Tenn.; St. Louis; New York and Washington, D.C.

The grant also will be used to put more information on KU's Hughes Web site for use by the groups across the country.

If the planning goes well, Graham said KU would apply for another NEH grant this winter that would pay for organizers and materials in the other cities. That grant could range from $200,000 to $300,000.

The poetry groups are part of the 100th anniversary celebration of Hughes' birth. A four-day symposium on Hughes' life and works will be Feb. 7-10 in Lawrence. It will include appearances by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker and actor Danny Glover.

It also will include poetry readings, a film festival, and "Poetry in Motion," which will feature dancers and musicians interpreting Hughes' works.

"We want to make sure it's something that will bridge the community and the campus," Graham said.

Hughes died in 1967. His works include "Not Without Laughter," a fictionalized account of his childhood in Lawrence, and poems such as "Dream Deferred" and "Youth."

Graham said she hoped the national poetry circles would keep the interest generated by the symposium about Hughes going through the rest of 2002.

"This is an extension of the centennial activities into the nation and beyond," she said. "We're not doing the symposium other than locally, but NEH was not interested in sponsoring a one-time event. They were interested in teaching people about the power of American poetry."