August 21th, 2025 (Harrisonburg, VA) — The Furious Flower Poetry Center proudly
announces a book launch celebrating the debut poetry collection of Post-Doctoral Fellow Dr.
Gbenga Adesina, Death Does Not End at the Sea, winner of the 2024 Raz/Shumaker Prairie
Schooner Book Prize. This poignant collection has been lauded as a complex chorus of elegies,
and a cosmic love song between the living and the dead. Terrance Hayes, MacArthur Genius
Fellow and National Book Award in poetry winner described the book as a "revelation
The event will take place on Monday, September 1st, 2025, at 5 PM EST at the Furious Flower
Poetry Center located at 500 Cardinal Drive, Harrisonburg, VA 22807. The evening’s events
include a reading by the author beginning at 6PM EST, a book signing, and light refreshments.
This gathering is free and open to the public and welcomes poetry lovers, students, educators,
and community members to meet the author and engage in meaningful dialogue about the work.
Books will be available for purchase at the event.
Dr. Gbenga Adesina, Nigerian poet and essayist, is currently serving as the inaugural Mellon
Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Black and Diasporic Poetry at the Furious Flower Poetry Center,
James Madison University. He is the cofounder and editor of A Long House, a journal of
diasporic art, thought, and literature. He has won multiple fellowships, and his poems have
appeared in numerous publications including Paris Review, Harvard Review, Yale Review, The
Best American Poetry, and the New York Times Magazine. He received his MFA from New York
University, where he was a Goldwater Fellow, and recently completed his PhD in Creative
Writing at Florida State University where he was the Interviews Editor of the Southeast Review.
Event Details:
What: Book Launch for “Death Does Not End at the Sea” by Gbenga Adesina
When: Monday September 1st, 2025 at 5PM EST (Reading begins at 6PM EST)
Where: Furious Flower Poetry Center, 500 Cardinal Dr, Harrisonburg, VA 22807
Parking: Off-campus guests of James Madison University’s Campus have permissions to park in
lot C3 for the duration of the event.
For more information, please contact Jazmin Witherspoon at furiousflower@jmu.edu or visit
https://www.jmu.edu/furiousflower/index.shtml