Celebrating Toni Morrison with Hanif Abdurraqib and Dionne Custer Edwards

A celebration of Toni Morrison with two of Ohio’s most revered poets and authors as Hanif Abdurraqib and Dionne Custer Edwards discuss the influences of Toni Morrison’s work on their own and celebrate the importance of her legacy as writers and Ohioans.

Toni Morrison Day is celebrated on February 18th in Ohio, commemorating the birth of the literary giant and possibly “the greatest Ohioan we’ve ever had,” as Hanif Abdurraqib remembers her. Morrison often used Ohio as a setting for her novels, from examining the influences and disparities of White and Black families living in post-Depression era Lorain in The Bluest Eye to exploring the insidious reach of slavery over the Ohio River in Beloved. Toni Morrison’s writing shed the white gaze and centered stories that explored the terrors, hopes, and dreams of Black lives and communities. 

Hanif Abdurraqib - a 2021 MacArthur Genius' Grant Recipient - is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. He is the author of the poetry collections The Crown Ain't Worth Much, a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and A Fortune For Your Disaster, which won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize, and the essay collections They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, named a best book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others; Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest, a New York Times Bestseller, a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and longlisted for the National Book Award; and A Little Devil In America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, which was shortlisted for the National Book Award. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.

Dionne Custer Edwards is a writer, educator, and the Director of Learning & Public Practice at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Her work in the arts and education spans 25 years, including nearly two decades at the Wex where she pioneered several groundbreaking education programs that include Pages, an art and writing program serving hundreds of high school students a year from across central Ohio. Dionne has received acknowledgments and awards that include professional fellowships with Americans for the Arts, the Jefferson Center for the Arts, and a GCAC Arts Educator of the Year. Dionne is co-editor of a forthcoming book series by Ohio State University Press, On Possibility: Social Change and the Arts + Humanities, with the first issue due out in 2023.

Special thanks to fo/mo/deep for lending us their song, "Bourbon Neat" for the podcast!

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