Poet Laureate of Detroit Naomi Long Madgett

NOTED POET LAUREATE OF DETROIT NAOMI LONG MADGETT, DEAD AT 97

BY HERB BOYD | Nov. 8, 2020

SPECIAL TO THE DETROIT METRO TIMES

Amid the illustrious women listed on the cover of Haki Madhubuti’s book Taught by Women is Naomi Long Madgett. Cited randomly between Assata Shakur and Audre Lorde, Madgett may not have had their national recognition, but in Detroit she was the poet laureate and nurtured, mentored, and provided a platform for numerous writers, including Madhubuti. Madgett, 92, joined the ancestors Friday in Detroit where began endless choruses of tributes to her remarkable life.

Many poets and authors had long before noted her prominence and significance.

“She was a professor, ran a publishing company [Lotus Press], and wrote poetry steeped in ancestor worship and love of self, was political without being polemic, and personal without picking at scabs,” author Bill Harris wrote in the Kresge eminent artist booklet honoring her in 2012.

One of the poets she published was Paulette Childress, who in the Kresge booklet, recalled that,

“Naomi became not only my mentor, she also became my dear friend and confidante, the master teacher who would as gently correct my grammar as encourage my hopes of attaining higher education. In ‘Woman with Flower,’ she observes ‘The leaf is inclined to find its own direction.’ She mentored accordingly.”

Herb Boyd is a journalist, teacher, author, activist, and one time Metro Times contributing editor. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and grew up in Detroit and now lives in New York. https://www.metrotimes.com/arts/noted-poet-laureate-of-detroit-naomi-long-madgett-dead-at-97-25746776