THE WORD IS A WOMAN

#NMpoetry, Sun Feb18m, 4pm, featuring Jessica Helen Lopez & Jasmine Cuffee). h/t to Billy Brown (in his words, "wild and wonderful"), Hakim Bellamy (COME GIT SUM POETRY! #Akademics) & ABQSlams.  THE WORD IS A WOMAN (Sunday, 4pm Featuring Jessica Helen Lopez & Jasmine Cuffee) 4-5:15 Sunday, February 19, Hyatt Regency, Downtown ABQ Enchantment F Hakim writes, "Jessica Helen Lopez and Jasmine Sena Cuffee are dos poetas whose compelling craft and fiercely dynamic performances speak to a higher truth, embracing a modern feminist perspective that captures the homegrown and grassroots power of slam poetry. Both Lopez and Cuffee tangle with socially-engaging themes such as gender equality, sex-positivity, cultural and geographical identity as well as chicanisma, familia and mixed heritage." Chair: Hakim Bellamy, University of New Mexico Poetas: Jasmine Sena Cuffee Jessica Helen Lopez Western States Communications Association Annual Conference Convention Program  COME GIT SUM POETRY! #Akademics The Newsletter of the Western States Communication Association wscanews.org

Friday Poem:: Ka 'Ba by Imamu Amiri Baraka

 + brief guides to the Harlem Renaissance & jazz poetry

 

Baraka at Malcolm X Festival, Oakland CA  

Friday Poem via 3quarksdaily 2/17/12

Ka 'Ba by Imamu Amiri Baraka 

A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and black people
call across or scream or walk across
defying physics in the stream of their will

Our world is full of sound
Our world is more lovely than anyone's
tho we suffer, and kill each other
and sometimes fail to walk the air

We are beautiful people
with african imaginations
full of masks and dances and swelling chants

with african eyes, and noses, and arms,
though we sprawl in grey chains in a place
full of winters, when what we want is sun.

We have been captured,
brothers. And we labor
to make our getaway, into
the ancient image, into a new

correspondence with ourselves
and our black family. We read magic
now we need the spells, to rise up
return, destroy, and create. What will be

the sacred words?

♥ Valentine's Day app: remixing poetry

♥:

Just the thing for Valentine’s Day. Remix Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese using charNG, a text-generator that uses Markov chaining to make new texts from old. Below are two samples. Our poet (unlike the original) seems to have run out of inspiration during the second…

1. Silver answer

silver

answer

rang, — "Not

Death," I

said,

But,

there,

The sweet years, of

all those

natural

joys

as

light once

how

Theocritus

had sung

Of

the silver answer rang,

—

"Not

Death,"

I

said,

But, thereby!

But

love alone.

umber of chars: 300

N-gram length: 7

Type of chaining: markov

40% chance of inserting a newline after a word

40% chance of inserting 5 ± 5 initial spaces

2. And breadth

after

sorrow

after sorrow after sorrow

after

death.

love thee?

Let me an

example,

shown me with

a passion

put to use

In my old

grief

If

thou didst bid me bring

thee to the depth and

breadth

and

breadth and

breadth

and

breadth and

breadth

and breadth

and breadth and breadth

and

breadth

and

breadth

Number of chars: 300

N-gram length: 7

Type of chaining: markov

40% chance of inserting a newline after a word

40% chance of inserting 5 ± 5 initial spaces

To make your own love poems, copy the raw material below into the Corpus window at the top left of the charNG window. Set the controls and let the Internet pour its heart out, just for you!

I thought once how Theocritus had sung

Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,

Who each one in a gracious hand appears

To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:

And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,

I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,

The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,

Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

A shadow across me. Straightaway I was 'ware,

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;

And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,

"Guess now who holds thee?" — "Death," I said, But, there,

The silver answer rang, — "Not Death, but Love."

Indeed this very love which is my boast,

And which, when rising up from breast to brow,

Doth crown me with a ruby large enow

To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,—

This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,

I should not love withal, unless that thou

Hadst set me an example, shown me how,

When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,

And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak

Of love even, as a good thing of my own:

Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,

And placed it by thee on a golden throne,—

And that I love (O soul, we must be meek!)

Is by thee only, whom I love alone.

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

The love I bear thee, finding words enough,

And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,

Between our faces, to cast light on each?—

I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach

My hand to hold my spirit so far off

From myself—me—that I should bring thee proof

In words, of love hid in me out of reach.

Nay, let the silence of my womanhood

Commend my woman-love to thy belief,—

Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,

And rend the garment of my life, in brief,

By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,

Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief

If thou must love me, let it be for nought

Except for love's sake only. Do not say

'I love her for her smile—her look—her way

Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—

For these things in themselves, Beloved, may

Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for

Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love's sake, that evermore

Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

A heavy heart, Belovèd, have I borne

From year to year until I saw thy face,

And sorrow after sorrow took the place

Of all those natural joys as lightly worn

As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn

By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace

Were changed to long despairs, till God's own grace

Could scarcely lift above the world forlorn

My heavy heart. Then thou didst bid me bring

And let it drop adown thy calmly great

Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a thing

Which its own nature doth precipitate,

Which thine doth close above it, mediating

Betwixt the stars and the unaccomplished fate.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, —- I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Phillis Wheatley: 1753-1784

Today a 3 Quarks Daily posting via Progressive Eruptions (making this iteration a third generation clone, but at least up front about it and introducing you to not one but two online publications you may want read more of. Curating + content recycling + blogging. Phillis Wheatley: 1753 - 1784:

Phyllis Wheatley was America's first African-American poet. A bronze sculpture, by Meredith Bergmann, celebrating Ms. Wheatley is on the mall on Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Mass. Wheatley, a slave in colonial Boston, was our first published African-American poet. Her pose is derived from the only extant image of her. She represents youth and Imagination.

On Being Brought from Africa to America

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negro's, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

I read this poem as supremely sarcastic in the poet's intent. "Twas mercy brought me from my "Pagan land..." Really? Mercy took her away from her "Pagan" land? And taught her "benighted soul?" Benighted by the white masters? The most heartbreaking lines are the last 3: "Their colour is a diabolic die."/Remember, Christians, Negro's, black as Cain,/May be refine'd, and join th' angelic train."

More here. (Note: In honor of African American History Month, we will be linking to at least one related post throughout February. The 2012 theme is Black Women in American Culture and History).

Editor's note: don't forget to support local observations and programs. Follow Hakim Be for announcements. PS Hakim and others, please post reading / viewing / listening recommendations

Newsletter: Poetry International Web

PIW 1 January 2012, #poetry_int

 

Happy New Year! We are delighted to kick off 2012 with excellent, thought-provoking poetry from Burma and Australia. Editors ko ko thett and James Byrne have chosen a selection of poems by six contemporary Burmese poets: Aung Cheimt, Ma Ei, Maung Cha Nwe, Maung Pyiyt Min, Maung Yu Py and Zeyar Lynn. Learn more about the history and development of Burmese poetry in ko ko thett's article "From panegyrics to the end of poetry." These poets are featured alongside 18 poems by bilingual Vietnamese-Australian poet Nguyễn Tiên Hoàng. There is also an interview with Nguyễn Tiên Hoàng and two short essays about his work.

For the editorial, articles, poems and translations of the current issue.

Later this month, PIW will be publishing new poems written by Joke van Leeuwen for the Dutch and Flanders Poetry Day celebrations on 26 January.

Poem of the Week
A UFO SIGHTING YESTERDAY AT THE EDGE OF TOWN ~ Maung Yu Py

Clip of the Month

THE FATHER ~ Armando

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