Here is an interview I did with Redbud Writing Project’s Arshia Simkin
click here to read it.

Pre-order link coming soon….

The post Long time… I know, but… first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

If you are reading this and you know me well, you know I have been on my soapbox about Black artists creating repositories of our work for some time. I always think about the importance of repositories like PennSound, From the Fishhouse, and others and how much I learned from being able to listen to those recordings.

In the Early 2000’s  I bought a mini-disc recorder to start documenting poetry readings, lectures, and other activities I wanted to make sure I had in my own “archive” to re-visit and enjoy. A few years later, artist Holly Bass included me in a grant she was writing to do a production of Langston Hughes and Charles Mingus’ Weary Blues. We used a Zoom H4n to record and document the session at Busboys and Poets (14th&V).
These two devices have enabled me to document so many events that will be important in the study of our cultural production.

In thinking about how the pandemic has changed us and how things are starting to return to “normal,” I am also thinking about how we may miss some really important opportunities if we are not mindful.
Although we grapple with technological advancements, they also provide opportunities for us to document, preserve, share, and connect beyond the boundaries of what we may think of as our target “communities.” During the pandemic, we were all enabled to connect beyond geographical and time boundaries.
Zoom and other virtual platforms enabled us to build relationships in places we may never get to travel. These platforms also gave us the ability to record and share these convenings with greater audiences.
What has disappointed me over the last year or so, as the pandemic has been  “winding down,” fewer and fewer events are offering virtual viewing options, which could very well mean the opportunity to record, document, and preserve these events. The added injury is that those communities that were able to connect during the pandemic are now cut off from that programming.  To flip it another way, it is also quite possible that arts orgs are now cut from potential supporters and new donors because they can no longer take part. For Black artists, I think it is a unique missed opportunity because these networks amplify our work and put us in conversations and spaces that help us build the kind of community will need, particularly as our books are being banned, our art being challenged by aesthetes who try to keep us in the crosshairs of their can(n)ons.

If nothing else, the pandemic has definitely shown us (again) that we cannot only use technology to build communities that overflow boundaries and create connections we not ordinarily make but also to build and maintain archives at a time when continued and sustained attacks on our narratives, our work, and our lives are raging.

As I was writing this reflection, I came across this fascinating conversation at the Harvard University Center for  African Studies.  It is the pilot episode of the Black Archive Visual Podcast featuring a conversation between Sihle-Isipho Nontshokwen and Siseko H. Kumalo.

I love the conversation they are having…I was having all the feels listening to this conversation; they are continuing to ask questions that our elders and ancestors asked and creating targeted work as tactical approaches to repair, re-member and redeem our people to one another …I will be chewing and churning on this one for some time. I look forward to the next episode of this podcast.

The post Arts & the Pandemic & “the Archive” & so on first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

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 post updates first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

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

Click Here for more info

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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.

The post Gratitude first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

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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

The post A Pan-African 40th Birthday Meditation… first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

The contest is one the events connected to the new exhibition,  The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists.  

My poem was in response to Malian textile artist, Abdoulaye Konate’s 2008  Dance of Kayes from La Danse series, as seen above. Read the poem here.

I choose Konate’s work not only because he is Malian, but because his exhibition at the Institut Francais of Mali , was the one of the only art of a Malian artist I had seen other than Malick Sidibe, Seydou Keita, Alioune Bâ and a few others – all photographers.  Painter, Amadou Sanogo, was the other Malian artist’s work that I had seen, aside of the famous Malian photographers.

I also chose Konate’s piece because of the cool colors he chose to represent Kayes are not what I expected given that the Kayes region is one of the hottest places on the planet, so the contrast was quite striking.

I was asked to read the poem at the Museum’s Divine Poetour this summer on July 2. Split This Rock’s DC Youth Slam Team and NMAfA’s Teen Ambassadors, will be reading their works that engage the The Divine Comedy exhibition.  So come out and support the DC Youth Slam Team and NMAfA’s Teen Ambassadors. Peep the flyer below…

I am excited to be a part of The Divine Poetour, it looks like it will be similar to a project that I did afew years back as a collaboration between The American Poetry Museum and The Phillips Collection.

The post Below as Above first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

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I was probably just a twinkle in my Mom’s eye in 1973, when my Dad recorded this song with The Intruders, there is apart of me that wonders what was going through his head when he was recording this song. Perhaps it was just one of the many recording gigs for Philadelphia International Records, or maybe he was just in whatever mental state it takes to be a part of creating timeless art…Perhaps I will ask him when I see him this summer on our visit to the States.

What I am certain of however is what this song means to me at this moment in my life as a new parent and African American man. In a way the song is an artifact of my own past that I am re-discovering and it is also acts as a timeless double tribute to both my parents, who have done so much for me. I am honored and privileged to have parents that lived lives that I can be so proud of.

So here’s to you Mom (and Dad)…Happy Mother’s Day to you, from The Joiners of Bamako (Freddie, Melanie, & Naomi)

The post Happy Mother’s Day… first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

I wish I could remember this man’s name, i think his family name was Diop…The sand painting he is holding was done in probably 5 minutes. I probably should have taken a video, but I am quite self conscious about being exploitative or making the art and the artist feel like an object in my lens.

I have seen sand paintings before as finished products, but have never seen the process or materials that make the final product.

Below are a few photos of a quick “sketch” that Diop did to showcase the wide variety of sand that is used to give color and texture to these sand paintings. Every color that you see on the wood is a sand that occurs naturally in terrain of Senegal, from grey-blue to the volcanic black…

It took Diop longer to explain where all the colors and textures came from than it took him to actually lay down this sketch, which he actually considers a throwaway…beautiful stuff.

The post Scenes from Ile De Goree #001: Sand Painting first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

I think these doors speak
for themselves      portals
to absolute otherwheres
on the flip side of the Black
Atlantic, where the long reign
of the upside down still reigns
&  those dishonored in darkness’
name are still looking for the light
of anything to explain the stillness

The post A few doors, windows and portals from Ile de Goree first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

These are a few images from our day trip Ile de Goree, while we were in Dakar. I have mixed feelings about what I saw there. In some way I have glad that UNESCO has designated the island as a World Heritage site, but I am somewhat dismayed about how touristy and commercial the island is. I do understand that the this helps the local economy and does improve the lives of the people who live and work on the island, but I am still troubled by the fact that Ile De Goree is also a cemetery and resting place for those captured and enslaved there.

I have a lot more to say about what I observed, felt and learned, but let’s start here…

The post Scenes from Ile de Goree, Senegal (Dakar) #000 first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.