Black Dandelion
Welcome to the dynamic sphere of BLACK DANDELION: CONVERGENT VOICE ™, the multimedia international, integrative, education platform derived from the poem, “Black Dandelion" by Semaj Brown. You have entered a growing community of educators, administrators, community programmers, partners, academicians, organizations, artists, institutions, libraries, schools, museums, and grass root advocates who are enthusiastic about creating new literate realities of wholeness for youth and community through the BLACK DANDELION: CONVERGENT VOICE™ BDCV platform.
WHAT IS BLACK DANDELION: CONVERGENT VOICE™?
BLACK DANDELION: CONVERGENT VOICE™ (BDCV) is a multimedia education platform derived from Semaj Brown's internationally celebrated poem, “Black Dandelion,” and from the learning arts innovation, PSL / POETRY AS A SECOND LANGUAGE: THE SEMAJIAN METHOD.™ The method is intergenerational and futuristic, utilizing applied poetry as an integrative technology to expand and amplify literacy capacity, critical thinking, and Social Emotional Equitable Learning (SEEL) across varying disciplines: ecology & science, art, history, women's and girls' empowerment, nutrition, English Language Arts, and more. BDCV is being engaged from Flint to West Togo Africa, from elementary school to graduate studies. AT&T licensed a powerful excerpt of the poem for a national television commercial, Dream in Black African American Afrofuturistic Lifestyles Platform in celebration of generational Black Excellence. Black Enterprise.com, in an April 2023 article, states, Black Dandelion: Convergent Voice™ Changes the Literacy Game (Article Link). Elisse Ramey, WNEM Channel 5, CBS affiliate reporter/anchor in a recent feature, broadcasted, "Flint Inaugural Poet Laureate receives International Acclaim." (Video Link)
ABOUT THE
POEM
Raked by Innocence, the narrative voice in the poem, “Black Dandelion” is a four-year old little Black girl who recollects the turmoil of the Civil Rights era. She associates discrimination and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the “mow down” of dandelions, her beloved flowers. View Poem Here
THE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS & THE BLACK DANDELION POEM
The Academy of American Poets distributed a video of poet laureate fellow, Semaj Brown reading her poem, “Black Dandelion” to middle and high school students. The poet laureate received letters from youth from across United States and world via the Dear Poet Project.
AT&T and THE BLACK DANDELION POEM
AT&T, in a search, found the video of Flint, Michigan Poet Laureate, Semaj Brown reading her “Black Dandelion” poem on her website. An excerpt of the audio recording of the poem highlights a one-minute commercial of the acclaimed Dream In Black, Black Future Makers Afrofuturistic Lifestyle platform, and aired nationally on television and throughout social media. Read Article Here
MCTE & THE BLACK DANDELION POEM
Black Dandelion: Convergent Voice™, a Multimedia Youth platform launched 2022 at Michigan Council of Teachers of English Centennial Conference ---Semaj Brown as Lunch Keynote Speaker presented, Poetry as a 2nd Language: Passcode to Literacy through the Semajian Method. Read Article Here
About
Semaj Brown | Flint MI Poet Laureate
“Poetry advances the quality of life of citizenry when organized as a precious power tool.” — Semaj Brown
Semaj Brown is Flint, Michigan’s inaugural Poet Laureate, and the recipient of the prestigious Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship award, 2021. Ms. Brown is the author of the memoir, Bleeding Fire! Tap the Eternal Spring of Regenerative Light, Conversations in Poetry and Prose, Broadside Lotus Press, 2019. She is also the author of the charming vegetarian, gluten free story cookbook and lyrical CD, Feasts and Fables from the Planted Kingdom, 2013, which evolved a volume of educational, innovative health programming and theater...
