A. B. Spellman
*A.B. Spellman was born on this date in 1935. He is a Black poet and writer. Alfred Bennett(A.B.) Spellman Jr. is from Elizabeth City, North Carolina; his parents were educators.
He graduated from P.W. Moore High School, where he was a basketball team, glee club, and oratorical club member. In 1956, Spellman earned his B.S. degree in political science from Howard University. While at Howard, he was active in the chorus, the Howard Players, and began his writing career. After graduating, Spellman enrolled in the Howard University Law School. In 1959, Spellman worked as a writer, reviewing jazz artists and music for various magazines such as Metronome and Downbeat.
In 1964, he published his first and only book of poems, The Beautiful Days. In 1966, Spellman's writing career took off when he published his first full-length book, Four Lives in the Bee-Bop Business, an in-depth look at the lives of jazz musicians Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Nichols, and Jackie McLean. Spellman joined a group of black poets touring the nation's historically black colleges the following year. From 1968 until 1969, he worked as a political essayist and poet for Rhythm Magazine. In 1969, Spellman conducted a lecture series throughout the country, teaching at various colleges, including Morehouse, Emory, and Rutgers. In 1972, Spellman was hired to teach African American studies at Harvard University, where he remained until 1975. That year, he became director of the Arts in Education Study Project for the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) in Washington, D.C. In 1978, Spellman became the director of the NEA's Arts Endowment Expansion Program, a position he held until 1993.
Continuing his work with the NEA, Spellman became the special assistant to the chairman and acting deputy chairman for programs. Between 1994 and 1996, he served as associate deputy for program coordination at the NEA and then became the NEA's Office of Guidelines and Panel Operations director. In 1998, Spellman was appointed the deputy chairman for the Office of Guidelines, Panel, and Council Operations for the NEA. Spellman continues to be an avid writer. He serves on numerous arts panels and is a member of the Rockefeller Panel on Arts, education, and Americans, the Jazz Advisory Group, and the Advisory Group on the African-American Museum of the Smithsonian Institute.
In 2008, he released Things I Must Have Known, a poetry collection with Coffee House Press. Shortly after the release of this collection, Spellman spoke in an interview on the importance of small presses, declaring them "essential for poetry." He notes that without these small presses, he and many other poets like him would find no outlet for their work, for the larger publishing companies and commercial magazines publish little poetry, to begin with, and certainly even fewer works by poets that have not yet made a name for themselves.
