A review of Brian Gilmore’s NO MORE WORLDS TO CONQUER
No More Worlds to Conquer: The Black Poet in Washington, DC is a biography of the Black poet in Washington, D.C. I say ‘biography’, not ‘history’, because the subject is ‘the Black poet.’ However, the Black poet is not a single poet. The word ‘poet’ in the subtitle is a collective like ‘family’ or ‘team.’ It is also a biography of a place; therefore, it is a story of a community.
I should inform readers that I am a Japanese poet/translator who moved to South Carolina in 2014, with an MFA in poetry from City University of Hong Kong and one chapbook of poems published in Singapore. I was feeling like I was the community of one. I learned more about Black poetry from two books, Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry, edited by Camille T. Dungy, and The African American Haiku: Cultural Visions, edited by John Zheng. They showed me poems written from different points of view and expressed in radically different ways, which are possible and exist in the English language.
The author of No More Worlds to Conquer, Brian Gilmore (b.1962), is a native Washingtonian poet, lawyer, and educator, and he chronicled the development of the Black poetry community of Washington, D.C., for the period of over one hundred years. The chapters progress chronologically, yet the author circles back to add more detail on earlier periods, which clarifies the heritage of specific topics, whether family connections, historical events, or mentor-mentee relationships. Gilmore also follows the entire careers of notable figures such as Kenneth Carroll and Dolores Kendrick, the Second Poet Laureate of Washington, D.C.
The book emphasizes the virtue of respecting those who have come before and of preserving their legacy. While doing so, Gilmore also connects his own involvement and observations with memories passed down to him by the older generation. The chapter titles, as well as the chapter entry points, are often drawn from his personal recollections and impressions. Other additions interspersed throughout No More Worlds to Conquer that add immediacy to the reading experience are various eyewitness accounts. Especially those from elders, such as A.B. Spellman. Spellman remembers what it was like to be at the readings of Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, Ray Bresmer, and Gregory Corso, and tells us that after the main event, they went to hang out where that could have been at Coffee and Confusion, the short-lived Beat poetry café on K Street NW. The book is packed with details – we know when and where Drum and Spear bookstore opened and closed, who founded it, how it was talked about, and who frequented the place, for example. We know that May Miller was the guest on Grace Cavalieri’s Poet and the Poem radio program in 1981, which is still going strong. On the macro level, Gilmore informs us of the ratio of the Black population in the city at different times, of interactions with Federal Government agencies and the White House, and of the politically tense times that surrounded the poets’ daily business of writing, publishing, and reading.
The timeline in the back of the book begins with the year of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s birth in 1872 and ends with the 2024 death of Reuben Jackson, the prize-winning poet, a teacher, and the curator for the Duke Ellington Collection at Smithsonian, was one of the people the author dedicated the book to and the first poet the author saw read in the city. Out of the timeline that spans 152 years, the hundred years that begin in the time of Dunbar’s residency in Washington, D.C., between 1901 and 1903, and end with E. Ethelbert Miller’s final Ascension series reading in the year 2000 take the center stage. Miller hosted the Ascension Reading series from 1976 to 2000, counting 133 readings of over 700 poets. Gilmore writes: An Ascension Reading was always a place to catch up. It was where you realized how lucky you were to be a poet in Washington, DC, and even more an African American poet. The Reading series invited readers from outside the city, and they, in turn, opened many doors to the D.C. poets to achieve national recognition.
Gilmore continues to meticulously record the development in the first twenty-four years of the 21st century. We need more time to understand the significance and effects of those more recent events, but Kim Roberts’ Beltway Poetry Quarterly, beginning in 2001, is noted for consistently featuring African American poets as contributors and editors. His reporting of the poets, publications, and the city's situation is engaging and valuable.
Examining the entries in the Index, one realizes that the book touches upon who’s who of African American literature—poets and leaders, and the institutions, including most importantly, Howard University, D.C. Commissions on the Arts and Humanities, the Folger Shakespeare Library, along with other coffee shops, bookstores, and many street addresses where salons and meetings took place. It is as if we are looking at the D.C. as the night sky with the constellations of poets, locations, and publications. Had a visual aid, a map of the Black poet of Washington D.C., been created, it would present another layer of understanding of the community. As for Howard University, despite its academic and social importance to the city and to people of African descent and color, the author’s observation about the institution’s lack of regard for those who contributed so much to the community and to the university's literary reputation is notable.
The author makes frequent distinctions between poets who were native Washingtonians, those who were born elsewhere but came to D.C. for various reasons (often to Howard University to learn or teach), and those born in D.C. who moved away or returned. It is interesting information, but it also reveals the place's characteristics, the capital of the United States, and the presence of Howard University.
Gilmore meticulously lists other luminary poets who passed through or stayed for a while yet cast long shadows or lights. Everything began with Paul Laurence Dunbar in the city, 1901-1903. The Harlem Renaissance, with a Washington, D.C., connection, includes Langston Hughes, who lived in Washington, D.C., between 1924 and 1926. Both William Waring Cuney and Jean Toomer were born in D.C. in 1906. Lewis Grandison Alexander, born and raised in the city, pioneered writing Hokku (an older name for Haiku) during the Harlem Renaissance. Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Hayden came to the city as consultants to the Library of Congress in 1973-76 and 1976-78, respectively, and left their marks. And there are Léon Damas, Haki Madhubuti, Owen Dodson, Sterling A. Brown, and E. Ethelbert Miller of Howard University. Amiri Baraka, before and after his radicalization, was iconic. So did the musician and writer, Gil Scott-Heron. In the chapters on the Harlem Renaissance/New Negro Movement and Black Art Movements, Gilmore’s writing on William Waring Cuney and Gaston Neal are particularly vivid.
Gilmore adds interesting episodes of an “expatriate,” Richard Wright that Wright made a speech against Adolf Hitler at Dunbar High School in 1941. Gilmore also quotes the liner note Richard Wright wrote on Cuney’s writing for Josh White’s Southern Exposure that “images we all know and see each day. . . images that run through these blues”; and a surer guide than facts and figures” of the “state and quality of feelings existing among Negro folk.” These words for Cuney serendipitously describe his stupendous collection of haiku he would write many years later.
But the communities do not exist without the people on the ground. Throughout the book, three names keep appearing in multiple chapters: May Miller, Sterling A. Brown, and E. Ethelbert Miller. Brian Gilmore writes that:
if there is one constant to the African American poetry scene in the city, it is that sense of cross-generation community. . . . It has come together cohesively because of the solid foundation and values laid out decades ago, long before any of the city’s newest voices were born. Sterling Brown was a publishing poet and scholar during the initial Harlem Renaissance period. . . May Miller as well has a similar historical arc in the city and the literary circles. Gaston Neal, E. Ethelbert Miller and Martia Golden were writers in the city in late 1960s and into 1970s. . . Golden and Miller remain part of the current literary scene in Washington.
E. Ethelbert Miller wrote an article entitled Sterling Brown and the Browning of My Life in 2014:
Between 1969 and 1984, my life was linked to Sterling Brown's in several ways. His life in many ways shaped my own literary career and resulted in my decision to become a literary activist. Perhaps, even the idea of becoming a poet might be linked to hearing Brown read his poems on campus around 1969. Growing up in the South Bronx, I had never attended a poetry reading or heard someone read poetry in public.
There are interesting parallels between Miller and Gilmore. As mentioned earlier, Reuben Jackson was the first poet Gilmore aspired to be, but his encounter with Miller goes back further. After college, when Gilmore told his father about his intention to become a poet, his father gave him the list of contacts compiled by his fraternity brother. The list contained 1) Gwendolyn Brooks, 2) the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and 3) E. Ethelbert Miller.
I came to know E. Ethelbert Miller, the time between the publications of the first and second of the Baseball Trilogy. The title of the first, If God Invented Baseball, struck a chord in me, and we began corresponding. Since 2021, Ethelbert Miller and I have been collaborating with the aim of writing 1,000 poems together, and we have reached 650 at this point. One thing I have learned about this poet is that he keeps looking ahead, always searching for the next thing, while archiving every writer he meets, being very generous with his time to mentor younger writers, and supporting old friends. More publications are on the way.
Brian Gilmore writes: The end of the Ascension did free Miller up to commence a furious record of publications. He lists a long list of publications, including memoirs, essays, and book reviews, as well as the steady flow of poems such as Miller’s Baseball Trilogy and a Grammy nomination. Had Brian Gilmore extended the time coverage, he would have mentioned Miller’s book of haiku, the little book of e, lifetime achievement awards from Furious Flowers and PEN Oakland for his writing career, and a special folio in Poetry Magazine in 2025 that showcased his artistry in poetry.
No More Worlds to Conquer is an important book because it follows through the events, publications, and life events of the D.C. poets and others where they were concerned with the movement and development of the community, but also the author offers historical perspectives on the one hundred years, roughly decade by decade, that he meticulously researched and analyzed. As a result, the bibliography, including the author's first-hand interviews and the archives from university libraries, including two local collections, Gelman Library —Special Collections, George Washington University, and Moorland-Spingarn Library, Howard University, constitutes an excellent checklist for future scholars’ research on the era’s arts and culture in Washington, D.C., and beyond. How skillfully the author compiled so much information and reflections in the (mere) 200 main-text pages deserves special recognition.
The title, No More Worlds to Conquer, is a phrase of ambiguous origin and meaning; however, it seems to ask, What’s Next? The title also must come from the pride Brian Gilmore feels for the Black poet of Washington, D.C. He is proud of what has been achieved over the long haul and is hopeful that the Black poet is unstoppable and shall overcome adversities as a tightly knit community. It is an important book because his optimism, backed by solid facts, is infectious and encouraging to all readers.
No More Worlds to Conquer: The Black Poet in Washington, DC by Brian Gilmore is available from Georgetown University Press.
