Poet Laureate of Carrboro, NC 2019 -2022 / 2019 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow
Hey y’all
I am having some issue with my website. The Center For Poetic Thought section is not opening and my url redirects are not working bear with me as figure out what is going.
If you have any questions about what The Center is just hit up the Contact page.
I know updates have been scarce…what can I say except, soon come. In the meantime head over to BOOM FOR REAL Bamako and check out a few updates over there.
The National Gallery of Art in DC has a really nice series going called The Collecting of African American Art . They are up to Episode XII (a conversation with Artists Leonardo Drew and Jennie C. Jones with Pamela J. Joyner, collector.) right now, so get your binge on if you have not been fortunate enough to be in DC or to have already heard.
I have had the privilege of knowing Bro. Yao ( Hoke S. Glover III) for quite some time. I don’t really remember how long it has been, but I do remember the conversations we used to have at the Karibu Books that was in the Landover Mall. We did not learn that we were both poets until a bit later.
Today on Rattle’s website‘s, Bro. Yao’s poem “PUTTING THE NIGGERS TO REST“ is the poem of the day. After reading it, I immediately thought of The Roots song 75 Bars (Black Reconstruction) ( I also thought of DuBois’ Black Reconstruction in America, but that is a much longer discussion for another time), from their 2008 album Rising Down; on which Black Thought uses both Nigger(s) and Nigga(s) repeatedly in punctuating his lines.
Right of the top, in Yao’s poem, I do notice various types rhymes and sonic pleasures that Yao layers into the poem.
I am going to spend some time with these two pieces to look for similarities beyond the repetition of Nigger(s)/Nigga(s) and the strikingly similar distribution of the word throughout, but I couldn’t ignore both poets’ use of Nigger(s)/Nigga(s) , perhaps as a way of pointing to some other layered meaning …….
Other Links to check out:
Bro. Yao’s (Hoke S Glover III) new book, Inheritance
Mos Def and Black Thought rhyming 75 Bars (Black Reconstruction)
As usual, the end of the year puts me an introspective mood, which sends my mind all over the place. Very often I find myself thinking about the future, what the next move will be for me, my art and my family. But quite often before I dive into the future, I find myself thinking about the year that has passed, what I have lost, gained, learned or even what I am going through at the present moment.
As those thoughts pass through my mind, I am in a mood of gratitude in general , but also because of some recent good news…
A few months ago, one of my poems was accepted by The Editors (Mahogany L. Browne and Amanda Johnston) for the #blackpoetsspeakout issue of Pluck! Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture (click here & here for more info). Needless to say it is an honor to be a part of the sea of poetic voices speaking up for our people as we face the crisis of state sponsored and sanctioned violence, through police and law enforcement who are supposed to be serving and protecting. Because I am living abroad, it hard to watch and to hear about all the things going on and not to be present to be a part of protests or to help out in someway. But I also realize this is a global issue and that the work I am trying to do with empowering Malian (and other West African artists) is a part of that struggle too.
Because of the vision of the guest editors, that this issue of pluck! was intended to be used as “a personal amulet, a tool in the classroom and a hammer in the streets. Get it either way, but carry it forward.” Editor Amanda Johnston goes on to say “Because this work is for the people and these poems have work to do, pluck! issue 13 is now available for FREE online. Click here to read now.”
Here is how you can get a print copy for you or your institution:
Pluck! $15/copy mail to:
pluck!, 1215 POT
University of KY
Lexington KY 40506
$30/subscription for individuals
$100/sub for institutions and organizations
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Secondly, I am grateful that Sarah Browning accepted a few of my poems for a forthcoming issue of the Delaware Poetry Review that will be out Spring of 2016.
And…
Last, but most definitely not least, I just found out a few days a ago that a small dialogue that I recorded with Kwame Dawes ( find him here & here) will be included in the final cut of Furious Flower III. I cannot even explain the kind of honor this is, mostly because even though I have been to thelast two Furious Flower Conferences and other tributes and events in between, I still walk around kind of starstruck to be among some of my super accomplished peers and folks whose work has shaped and continues to help me shape, my own work. So to be in the video presentation really means a lot me.
I am beyond grateful, thank you to Dr. Joanne V. Gabbin, for grabbing me by the hand that day back in September “to go with her to talk to Kwame” and many thanks to Judith McCray, of Juneteenth Productions for crafting Kwame’s brilliance and my babbling into a really nice dialogue (I almost sound like I know a little something).
I also want to thank the few of you who take the time to read my random and often infrequent thoughts on this and my other web presences. Please know that it is EXTREMELY appreciated!
Onward & Upward…
***I am also super thankful for my parents, The Joiners of Bowie coming to visit The Joiner of Bamako for 5 weeks and for our upcoming trip home to the States for the holidays, this is the first time we will all be home together for the Holiday Season.
As a hip-hop head and poet, when I read Khadijah Queen’s Deleted Characters on LitHub, I could not help but think of Smooth Da Hustler’s Broken Language (f/Trigger Tha Gambler). Both pieces make great poetry simply by listing in very formulaic manner, but results in both cases are more than just a clever language game; they both use slang and colloquial language to play with the meaning (and energy) they are trying to convey.
Kinetic: Conversations in Contemporary Art Series with Titus Kaphar
Friday, November 6, 6:00-8:30 p.m.
AU Museum
A dynamic lecture series sparking critical dialogue about contemporary art and creative professional practices. Generously sponsored by Dr. Darryl Atwell. Free and open to the public.
Titus Kaphar’s ‘The Vesper Project’ is a massive sculptural statement—an encompassing installation, in which Kaphar’s own work is seamlessly woven into the walls of a 19th century American house. The culmination of an intense five year engagement with the lost storylines of the Vesper family, the project was “birthed in a state of extended disbelief,” according to Kaphar. As the artist’s muses, the members of the Vesper family and their histories are intertwined with Kaphar’s autobiographical details, and layered with widebased cultural triggers of identity and truth in the context of historical accounting. In ‘The Vesper Project’, period architecture, gilt frames, a vintage typewriter, a neglected wardrobe,and old photographs act as seemingly recognizable elements, but by employing every tool of his trade, Kaphar insinuates doubt and transports the viewer into a disrupted mental state. As the house fractures,so does the viewer’s experience. In so doing, Kaphar compresses times, conflates the continuum of history and postulates new powerful realities.With many of Kaphar’s interventions present in the installation including slashing, silhouetting, and whitewashing, this singular work is a complex map of overlapping timetables and collective genealogies. By obliterating the distance between the viewer and the work, ‘The Vesper Project’ is comprehensive,experiential, and it is the artist’s most ambitious expression to date.
I started writing this on the day after my birthday, but got caught up with family, putting together my thesis, planning our trips to Paris, Boston and DC. So I know that this is way belated, but I wanted to post it anyway as way to try to kickstart my blogging again. I hope you all will enjoy reading this nonetheless.
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I have learned a lot about myself in these past almost 2 years I have been living here in Bamako. Although it is easy to type or perhaps even to say, it is no small thing for African American like myself to make such a bold claim and internalize its weight in the face all that may be trying to tell me the opposite.
Last year, after hearing Lorna Goodison, Kwame Dawes and Brenda Marie Osbey speak at Furious Flower 2014, things become a lot clearer for me, in listening to what they had to say.
I was particularly struck by Kwame Dawes’ presentation, in which he spoke about his “absence of angst”, “absence of divideness” , “absence of struggle and identity crisis” , with regard to who he is and where he comes from.
Hearing how clearly and resolutely he spoke really affirmed a lot of what I have been feeling and trying to articulate lately.
Later that same day I got a chance to sit down with Kwame Dawes to be filmed for the Furious Flower Archive, it was really an honor and privilege to talk with him. I hope some portion of that will find the light of day. After our conversation while walking back for another session, I started ruminating on the following quote by Kwame Nkrumah:
“I am not African because I was born in Africa, but because Africa was born in me.” -Kwame Nkrumah
This quote nailed it for me. I know some will find this problematic, or that perhaps that the Pan-African spirit that is undergirds what Nkrumah said is archaic and does not fit today’s reality, but I disagree. I think today more than ever we have access to so much more information about who we have been and who we are and that information used correctly can be empowering and perhaps build the kind of bridges necessary for Africa and America.
I have never felt more “African”, than I do today, despite being a “American” from the United States, by blood on the soil & by passport, despite difference, despite being called “white” sometimes (in a non-pejorative way…I think),despite only speaking one language fluently (our American dialect , not English), despite boarders, tribes & ethnicities, despite those who will not claim me, nor allow me to claim myself…I steal a/way, despite those who will claim a spot in my place, despite the magnetic black hole of the middle passage, where clocks run backwards, & the ark of bones left in that wake where time stands still…
I am clear. I am African