Poet Melba Joyce Boyd joined the ranks of Kresge Eminent Artists this year.
The distinguished title is given each year as a “lifetime achievement award” of sorts to Detroit artists who have changed the fabric of the city’s art community. They are recognized not only for the merit of their work, but their connection to driving the city’s original force forward.
Each artist gets a monograph dedicated to their work produced by the Kresge Foundation, and this year’s The Book of Melba provides a detailed survey of Boyd’s work including interviews with fellow writers, artists, and family members who speak to her legacy. The project was spearheaded by original director and lead writer Nichole Christian and also features selections of Boyd’s poems and essay excerpts, along with her reflections on the Black Arts Movement and the racial injustice protests that appear in so much of her work.
More than a poet, Boyd is an essayist, professor, historian, editor, and documentary filmmaker, among a long list of other titles. Above all, she’s a storyteller.
She has nine published books of poetry including Death Dance of a Butterfly, which was recognized by the Library of Michigan as a Notable Book in 2013. In total, she has published 13 books, and her documentation of Dudley Randall’s work is among her most fascinating.
Randall was the founder of Detroit’s pioneering Black-owned publishing outfit Broadside Press and Boyd was once his assistant editor. Broadside Press was a literary haven for some of the most prolific Black poets in current history including Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Naomi Long Madgett, and Gloria House.
In the Kresge monograph, she writes about the significance of Broadside Press in the 1970s. “The expansion of Black literature as a genre, and the rapid growth of poetry publishing during that time were occuring in Detroit,” she writes. “New York was still the center of mainstream publishing, and a few, select writers were making it into print with those houses. Most of the Black poetry presses at that time would maybe put out one or two books a year. Dudley Randall’s Broadside Press started out with a four-books-per-year plan, but by the time I became his assistant editor, he was releasing ten to twelve books a year; it was definitely a production line.”
Rather than writing much about herself, Melba’s work often focused on documenting others’ stories, particularly within the Black Arts Movement.
“I’m doing what you’re supposed to do as an artist; I didn’t come up with it,” she writes in an artist statement at the start of the monograph. “Since the beginning of time, poets, writers, even songwriters, have been documenting what has happened, trying to connect it to something that carries deeper meaning than necessarily the moments or incidents. You’re trying to help people reconcile. It’s an ongoing story. I’m just part of it.”
Boyd joins an esteemed list of Kresge Eminent Artists including Charles McGee, Marcus Belgrave, Bill Harris, Naomi Long Madgett, David DiChiera, Bill Rauhauser, Ruth Adler Schnee, Leni Sinclair, Patricia Terry-Ross, Wendell Harrison, Gloria House, Mari Woo, Shirley Woodson, and Olayami Dabls.
While The Book of Melba is about Boyd’s life and work, it’s chock-full of so many gems that give the reader a history lesson on Black literature and liberation movements. Digital copies are available for free online at kresge.org. You can also request a complimentary hardcopy by filling out an online form. So, whoever is trying to sell The Book of Melba on eBay for $500 should be ashamed of themselves!
