Eugene Redmond Timeline:1969-1977

[Compiled by Goyland Williams] 

As a continuation of HBW’s Look Back Series, I wanted to outline a timeline of what seems to be Eugene Redmond’s most productive years. Although this list is not exhaustive and only captures a small part of Redmond’s career, it highlights the great success that Redmond enjoyed from publishing several volumes of poetry, editing two anthologies, and publishing the seminal academic work on Black poetry. Aside from all of that, his status as Poet Laureate in East St. Louis continues to be a task/role that he takes seriously.

*1969—Eugene Redmond’s A Tale of Time and Toilet Tissue is published. Redmond also edited an anthology entitled Sides of the River: A Mini-Anthology of Black Writings.

*1970—Redmond begins his tenure as Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence at California State University-Sacramento and his book Sentry of the Four Golden Pillars is published.

*1971--River of Bones and Flesh and Blood is published

*1972--Black River Writers publishes Redmond’s Songs from an Afro/phone

*1973--Black River Writers also publishes Eugene Redmond’s In a Time of Rain and Desire: New Love Poems

*1974--Consider Loneliness as These Things is published by Centro Studi e Scambi Internazionali

*1975--Eugene Redmond remains as Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence at California State University-Sacramento

*1976--Doubleday publishes Eugene Redmond’s groundbreaking work Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry, A Critical History. Redmond is selected as the Poet Laureate of East St. Louis

*1977--Griefs of Joy: Anthology of Contemporary Afro American Poets for Students is published by Black River Writers.