Let's Jam on Pinterest

Nina Simone by Stanley Chow

Check out my music selection on Pinterest. 

  http://pinterest.com/explore24/music-life/

A Fan Remembers Fondly-Jayne Cortez 1936-2012

Poet Jayne Cortez-May 10, 1936- December 28, 2012

*Photo by John Sarsgard

Jazz Fan Looks Back

By Jayne Cortez

I crisscrossed with Monk

Wailed with Bud

Counted every star with Stitt

Sang "Don't Blame Me" with Sarah

Wore a flower like Billie

Screamed in the range of Dinah

& scatted "How High the Moon" with Ella Fitzgerald

as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium

                    Jazz at the Philharmonic

I cut my hair into a permanent tam

Made my feet rebellious metronomes 

Embedded record needles in paint on paper

Talked bopology talk

Laughed in high-pitched saxophone phrases

Became keeper of every Bird riff

every Lester lick

as Hawk melodicized my ear of infatuated tongues

& Blakey drummed militant messages in

soul of my applauding teeth 

& Ray hit bass notes to the last love seat in my bones

I moved in triple time with Max

Grooved high with Diz

Perdidoed with Pettiford

Flew home with Hamp

Shuffled in Dexter's Deck

Squatty-rooed with Peterson

Dreamed a "52nd Street Theme" with Fats

& scatted "Lady Be Good" with Ella Fitzgerald

as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium

                    Jazz at the Philharmonic

Sacheen Littlefeather and the Marlon Brando Oscar Refusal

Sacheen Littlefeather by Hannah Gray

A Recent TV Slur Revives Debate About Sacheen Littlefeather and Her Role in Marlon Brando’s Oscar Refusal
By Dina Gilio-Whitaker

Here's the link to the article: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/11/23/a-recent-tv-slur-revives-debate-about-sacheen-littlefeather-and-her-role-in-marlon-brandos-oscar-refusal-146704#ixzz2D64CSpNh

Here is a link to the video of Littlefeather declining the Academy Award on behalf of Marlon Brando:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2QUacU0I4yU

Thursday Art Talk- Margaret Bowland

Flower Girl by Margaret Bowland ; below -Amazing Grace

Artist Margaret Bowland
Artist Statement
   "...We inhabit a purely relative world, in terms of belief structures, yet each of us knows and in a sense, believes in, the need to be beautiful. My work is about beauty—what it means to be beautiful and what significance the idea has in the twenty-first century in the world of art. We all know that being beautiful is as important as being rich, that being beautiful is itself a form of wealth. One must be tall, thin and white. One’s features must be diminutive and regular. We recognize deviations from this norm, but recognize that these deviations, even if appealing, are far from ideal. The need to be beautiful fuels one of the largest and most ruthless industries in our world.
Beauty makes sense to me, has weight for me, only when it falls from grace. It starts to matter when it carries damage. Sorrow allows it to cast a shadow. It becomes three-dimensional. It enters our world..." 
Give a listen to Ms. Bowland as she shares more on what drives her as an artist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0RtOO7f8_A   

Here is a link to James Baldwin's essay "On Being White and Other Lies"  http://www.cwsworkshop.org/pdfs/CARC/Family_Herstories/2_On_Being_White.PDF

Poet Jack Gilbert; When Forgotten Things Are Collected

Painting by Jack Richard Smith  http://www.jackrichardsmith.com/

I am a huge fan of Gary Glazner and the work that he does with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project.   http://www.alzpoetry.com/  I had the good fortune to assist him, a few years ago, with a workshop for seniors at my neighborhood adult daycare center, where many of the clients have Alzheimer’s.  If you want empirical evidence of poetry’s ability to exert itself in a brain left for dead see Gary in action. See him as he ever so gently and vivaciously pulls to the surface of those with Alzheimer’s forgotten poems that were once committed to memory and to the heart and had gotten clobbered by the weight of this disease.   So often Gary’s workshop participants become so animated by verses they recall and recite and there is a kind of passion that covers their blank faces even if just for brief moments. 

As poet and daughter, I cared for my own mother, an Alzheimer’s patient, who died this past March. To the very end my mother still clung to poetry.  With a dead tongue, she spoke of poetry’s true power; to recognize, to celebrate and to redeem.

The following is a poignant article by John Penner, of the Los Angeles Times, about poet Jack Gilbert, the recent publication of his collected poems and what Alzheimer’s had claimed.  Mr. Gilbert died this past Tuesday.

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-jack-gilbert-20121112,0,3475739,full.story

Here is a link to Mr. Gilbert reading  "The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart"
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19351

Virginia B. Ball Writing Competition ;A $30,000 Creative Writing Scholarship to Interlochen Arts Academy

Do you know a high school writer looking for an opportunity of a lifetime to be in the company of his or her peers and to learn the craft from giants? Example: My daughter, though primarily a poet, attempted this past semester to write a one-act play.  Guess who Interlochen Arts Academy invited to campus to give such students as Sojourner a few tips?   … Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner.  This is typical of the caliber of artists who guide these students.  

Listen( click video above) to learn about the Virginia B. Ball Writing Competition which is a  $30,000 Creative Writing Scholarship to Interlochen Arts Academy boarding high school (2013-14 school year) and publication in the 2014 Interlochen Review.

Interlochen is an amazing boarding school for all of the arts.  Have a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2ncA0GyBe2Q

A Song for My Son

Artwork by Karen Morrison- Discover more of her amazing work at http://nsmorrart.com/

One of the supreme benefits of having a friend as a poet combined with a spectacular history of shared adventures is that these two circumstances may meet to bloom into a special poem. And it did in my case.

Poet Furaha Youngblood, author of Cat-Eyed Woman  From Louisiana-now ain’t that a title- a poetry collection  chronicling her experiences in West Africa, North Africa,  Central American and here at home, wrote a poem to mark my son’s thirteenth birthday.  How grand is this?  Furaha and I lived in Cote d’Ivoire for a number of years and shared many specials moments. Since both of our departures from CI and her continued globetrotting, we continue our annual reunions each summer.

How touched I was when she presented the gift of this poem for my son. Happy Birthday Auguste!

A Poem for Auguste

By Furaha Youngblood

Hanging upside down in the giant tree that overshadows the house where you live, your knees bend to the limb’s curve, holding you perfectly balanced between two worlds.

Boy qualities, stolen long ago from ‘at-risk’ youngsters, shine from your bright eyes, ready to follow a bird’s flight, or the dancing notes on the pages of your violin lessons.

As I watch you negotiate the magic contours of your grandparents’ big backyard, testing the boundaries between outer dangers, and your mother’s love and sister’s trust, I silently applaud your bravery and innocence.

You are prepared to cross the threshold taking you from childhood; all who love you, stand to greet you and witness the unfolding of your name—majestic, inspiring awe, reverence—our shining prince.

Here is a link to a radio interview with Furaha.  It starts about 83:10 http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2011/08/29/hurricane-katrina-report-back-and-update-wan-eye-on-irene

 Artwork by Karen Morrison Discover more of her amazing work at http://nsmorrart.com/

The French Connection; American and African Experiences in France



Illustration by Brian Stauffer

My 16-year-old daughter is African-American; a term that is increasing fluid and in recent years not the exclusive descriptor of descendants of the enslaved population of the United States.  I am African-American, the daughter of southern migrants, and my husband was from Cote d’Ivoire, in West Africa.  My children were born and raised in Cote d’Ivoire during their early years before our relocation back to my home in the States.  So, my daughter, Sojourner, is indeed African-American in all of its nuanced and changing and intriguing manifestations. 

This past summer, Sojourner visited and studied in Paris, France; a trip she planned for and anticipated with all of the idealism of a wide-eyed, gushy teen girl. Though she had an amazing journey studying the Parisian Architecture and the expatriates who called the City of Lights home, she was not prepared for the many occasions she encountered the overt hostility of white French people who always initially perceived her as being West African, which she is.  But when she was overheard speaking  whether in English or in French with her clearly American accent, this hostility immediately dissipated and she was always asked if she was American in a pleasant manner as much as the French can muster.  Her standard reply in perfect French was, “I am who you think I am and much more.”  

Over the past 30 years, significant numbers of people from France’s former colonies in Africa have settled in France and the French find this very unsettling as my little girl discovered.  Over the past few months, my daughter and I have discussed and read a few books on the subject on Americans and Africans and their experiences in France.  On December 1, 2012, a group in Philadelphia is getting together to discuss one of the books we read; Three Strong Women by Marie N’Diaye.  Do join us.  

Here is a  link to amazing books on this subject.  Read of the experiences of Angela Davis, Susan Sontag and Jackie Kennedy as young women in Paris as well as that of  Ivoirian writer Bernard Dadié and much more.

http://omcbride-ahebee.blogspot.com/p/book-that-invite-us-into-world.html

VOTE!

Election Day, November, 1884 

by Walt Whitman

If I should need to name, O Western World, your 

   powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless 

   prairies--nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its 

   spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, 

   appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's cones--nor Huron's belt of mighty 

   lakes--nor Mississippi's stream:
--This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, 

   I'd name--the still small voice vibrating--America's 

   choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the 

   main, the quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd--sea-board 

   and inland--Texas to Maine--the Prairie States--

   Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West--the 

   paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless 

   conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern 

   Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker 

   odds, the dross:
--Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to 

   purify--while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

Help Fund A Full-Length Documentary about the Tiberino Clan; Philadelphia’s First Family of Art



Painter Joe Tiberino



The Tiberino Dynasty

Older Photo of Tiberino Family

The Tiberino Family is indeed a longstanding UNIQUE Philadelphia gem.  Discover for yourself how they have been the epic center of a local and worldly artistic community and support their campaign.  Click the link below to learn more.   http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1301138061/tiberino

This Land Is Our Land

Flag and Map by Jasper Johns

I know we have been bombarded with all kinds of political commentary, especially concerning this upcoming presidential election.  But here is a link to a very thoughtful essay about where we are headed as a nation if Romney and the interests he represents prevail. This is not a pro-Obama piece.  It’s about us; ALL of us.  

The One Percent Will Eat The Poor and Other Prophecies

by Hal Crowther

http://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/email/newsletter/1411514344/

Festival of Films From the Middle East

Asghar Farhadi's thrilling domestic drama from Iran offers acute insights into human motivations and behavior as well as a compelling look at what goes on behind a particular curtain that almost never gets raised. -Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic/ This film won the 2012 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

The Cinema Studies Program, the Jewish Studies Program, the Middle East Center, and the Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Department at the University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, present the 2012 edition of New Middle East Cinema.

This four-day festival has been curated by Blake Atwood (Penn, NELC), Mehmet Darakcıoglu (Penn, MEC), Iris Drechsler (PJFF), Nicola M. Gentili (Penn, CINE) and Nili Gold (Penn, NELC), and aims to further the understanding of current Middle Eastern societies and cultures through cinema.

Recently released feature films, which represent a number of countries in the region, have been selected as the best to be presented and discussed on the Philadelphia screen.

This  festival is free-admission and open to all!

Here is a link to the festival schedule: http://cinemastudies.sas.upenn.edu/events/2012/October/FilmFestivalNewMiddleEastCinemaDay1

* Source- Penn Arts & Sciences Cinema Studies

Always Speaking Truth to Power-Senator George McGovern

Rest in peace, dear senator !    July19, 1922-October 21, 2012

* Senator George McGovern on a jeep ride with Fidel Castro during a visit to Cuba in 1975.  Credit: Charles Tasnadi/ Associated Press

Why Not Risk Everything ?

Picasso; Need We Say More ?

 

Thank you, Keith Flynn.

"Painting is an instrument of war.
I want to create mountains of paintings,
enough to reach the moon, to express
...

what no one possesses, to hear the ageless
river throb..."
...
"Painting is praying, and while the street preachers
rub their Bibles and pull their hair,
denouncing all sinners, the places we paint
become churches. Why not risk everything?"

from: The Painter as Mantis Sings the Blues---Keith Flynn
(The Lost Sea, 2000. Iris Press)

* To learn more about Keith Flynn, visit his website:

http://keithflynn.net/

Philadelphia Writers Welcome Aliki Barnstone and Richard Wertime

Poet and Apiary Magazine Editor Tamara Oakman, 2nd from the left, introduces 

guests of honor  Aliki Barnstone and Richard Wertime



Poet and Translator Aliki Barnstone reads from one of her poetry

collections. Dr. Richard Wertime is 2nd from the left.



Playwright Mona R. Washington and Poets Octavia McBride-Ahebee
and Mel Blake

Poet Mel Blake calls us The Family; our group of local writers who periodically come together to celebrate the writing life and to extend to visiting writers to the Philadelphia area our singular Philly welcome.  This past Tuesday poets and literary journal editors Tamara Oakman, of Apiary Magazine and Courtney Bambrick, of Philadelphia Stories, hosted in my home The Family and guests of honor Aliki Barnstone and Richard A. Wertime. 

Aliki Barnstone-poet, translator, critic, and editor-is also a professor at the University of Missouri.  Here’s a link to learn more about her work:  http://english.missouri.edu/graduate-and-doctoral-faculty/118-barnstone.html    Richard A. Wertime is a professor and Director of Graduate Studies in English and the Humanities at Arcadia University. Here’s a link to learn more about Dr. Wertime : http://www.arcadia.edu/faculty/richard-wertime/

 A huge shout-out to poets Monique Gordon, Dr. Anne Kaier, Paul Siegell , Peter Baroth , Leslie Burnette , Kathy Volk Miller,  collagist Theodore Harris, playwright Mona R. Washington, theatre artist Anthony Kamani,  Adonaya Boyd and a host of other folks who made this evening of  poetry and yummy food so delightful.

Also, a riotous bravo to Family member and Apiary editor Lillian Dunn, who was recently awarded a Leeway Foundation Grant to fund her project Common Ground.  Click here to learn more: http://www.leeway.org/grantee-info.html?action=granteeDetail&GranteeID=877

*Photos- Monique Gordon

 

Let's Get a Room of Our Own !

Virginia Woolf  by Danielle Fraser

Give a Listen to “Pull the Lever” by Lauren Baldwin- http://www.aroho.org/Pull-the-Lever.php    and then prepare to apply for A Room of Her Own Foundation’s $50,000 Gift of Freedom Award.  Deadline November 1, 2012.  Let’s Go! http://www.aroho.org/giftfreedom.php  This award is for U.S. women writers.

From Broken Hands to Broken Lands ;Celebrating the Legacy of Victor Jara

The Bronx-based political rap duo of Chilean brothers Rodrigo Venegas and Gonzalo Venegas-Rebel Diaz- is another example of politically engaged and socially conscious young artists.  I thank them because I learned something from them today.  I learned of Victor Jara.  You can, too.  Click here:  http://soundcloud.com/agentofchange/free-download-rebel-diaz

Mona Eltahawy, Human Rights Activist, Arrested for Defacing Racist Ad in New York Subway- You Go Girl !

Mona Eltahawy, writer and human rights activist, was arrested on charges including criminal mischief and making graffiti after she used a can of pink spray paint to cover the words, “In a war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. ” The under text of the ad says, “Support Israel” and “Defeat Jihad” in red letters. The lone protester maintains her direct action was a form of “non-violent freedom of expression,” not vandalism.

Strangely, a lone counter-protester appeared to protect the racist ad by placing her body between it at the can of spray paint.

“Mona, do you think you have the right to do this?” said Pamela Hall, as she began to position her self in front of the ad.

“I do actually, I think this is freedom of expression, just as this is freedom of expression,” Eltahawy responded in a non-confrontational manner as she continued to spray over the woman’s shoulders.

The two person stand off continued for nearly three minutes before police arrived to instantly make their arrest. While one hand was already cuffed, Eltahawy repeatedly asked what she is being charged with, with out ever getting a response from the arresting officers.

“For what? Tell me what I’m under arrest for! I need to know what you’re arresting me for! It’s my right to know what you’re arresting me for, it is my right as a US citizen to know what you’re arresting me for,” Eltahawy voiced to the muted officers. “I’m expressing myself freely and I’ve hurt no one,” the protester says to a small applause by the growing crowd of on lookers.

Eltahawy continued to speak her mind as police walked her out of the area.

“See this America? This is non-violent protest! This is what happens to non-violent protesters in America in 2012,” as some in the crowd audibly agree. “I’m Egyptian American, and I refuse hate and I will continue to non-violently protest hate and that is hate and racism,” she continued as the video ends.

The ads were approved by a federal court ruling on first amendment grounds after Pamela Geller, a leader of the group ’Stop Islamization of America‘ was denied her first request to post the ads by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Geller reportedly paid $6,000 to have the anti-Arab ads up for one month.

Though Eltahawy acted alone in this attempt to erase racist propaganda, she was not alone over all. Since the ads debuted in 10 Manhattan stations on Monday, several have been defaced by like minded protesters. Multiple photos have been spread around social networking sites of similar actions.

The internet collective of activists known as ‘Anonymous’ has called for actions like this to occur where ever the racist ads pop up. @YourAnonNews, who has over 640,000 followers on Twitter tweeted, “#NYCsubway welcome to #OpSavage” with an image of a defaced ad early Tuesday morning.

Here is raw video of this incident:  http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=69016&sitesection=nypost&VID=23823109

*Source- Neo-Griot

Walt Whitman and Alessandro Cosmelli; A Love Note to Brooklyn

Photograph by Alessandro Cosmelli

"I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd..."

An excerpt from "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"  by Walt Whitman

Check out Photographer Alessandro Cosmelli's Brooklyn project, where he captures this singualr borough from a bus.  Here's the link:  http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/galleries/2012/09/09/brooklyn-buzz-photographs-by-gaia-light-and-alessandro-cosmelli.html#introSlide

Tattooed Man by Billy Morrow Jackson; Remembering Our Girls

Billy Morrow Jackson, artist

This piece of artwork is arresting and bold and so thoughtful.  The following is a description of this piece written for the Archives of American Art:

“The Tattooed Man of course is Uncle Sam (the U.S. of A.). The tattoos are events and symbols indelibly pressed on the conscience of all the Americans so that even when or if these ills are remedied, the stigma, the history cannot be removed; stamped there as much by apathy as by atrocity. The children are the little girls killed in Birmingham; Nacirema (American spelled backwards) on the raised forearm of Uncle Sam is the name of the bomber society in the South.”

http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/images/detail/tattooed-man-8513

Birmingham Sunday By Joan Baez; Remembering Our Girls



King leads a group of African-American children to their newly integrated school in Grenada, Mississippi, escorted by folk singer Joan Baez and two aides. Bettmann/CORBIS



Joan Baez has forever been one of my role models of a socially and politically engaged artist.  She has been front and center in campaigns for human rights. Here is a link to Joan singing Richard Farina’s song Birmingham Sunday;  a song in commemoration of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, September 15, 1963

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shgSLKb-onA&feature=related

BIRMINGHAM SUNDAY by Langston Hughes

BIRMINGHAM SUNDAY
(September 15, 1963)

By Langston Hughes

Four little girls
Who went to Sunday School that day
And never came back home at all--
     But left instead
     Their blood upon the wall
     With spattered flesh
     And bloodied Sunday dresses
     Scorched by dynamite that
     China made eons ago
     Did not know what China made
     Before China was ever Red at all
     Would ever redden with their blood
     This Birmingham-on-Sunday wall.
Four tiny little girls
Who left their blood upon that wall,
In little graves today await:
     The dynamite that might ignite
     The ancient fuse of Dragon Kings
     Whose tomorrow sings a hymn
     The missionaries never taught
     In Christian Sunday School
     To implement the Golden Rule.
Four little girls
Might be awakened someday soon
By songs upon the breeze
     As yet unfelt among
     Magnolia trees.

Remembering Four Little Girls

Do we remember this Act of Terrorism?   …The bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, September 15, 1963

Here’s a link to Spike Lee’s Documentary 4 Little Girls:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGoP6TGa7ig&feature=related

To Dwell in Possibilities-Back to School with the Coursera



Art by Penelope Dullaghan for the Emily Dickinson Museum.

To Dwell in Possibility-Back to School with the Coursera

 “N., thank you so much for your recommendations of the two Mahmoud Darwish poems. I am looking forward to discovering them. You mentioned how I might so appreciate Darwish without speaking Arabic. I love writers who emanate from everywhere and I have to rely on translators and I have developed equal passion for both the writers I love and the translators of their work. For example, I adore translator Edith Grossman as much as I adore Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes. For Darwish, I like the translator Fady Joudah.

This class, even before it has started, is proving to be quite amazing.”

So begins an exchange into my first odyssey into one virtual classroom of over 30,000 students who dare to dwell in the possibilities that a modern and contemporary American poetry course might offer.  

Led by University of Pennsylvania professor Al Filreis and his enthusiastic cohort of teaching assistants, this course of American poetry, now known affectionately to its takers as ModPo, is part of a grand and equalitarian experiment powered by the social entrepreneurship company   Coursera.   And I am smack in the middle of it and on fire.

Coursera provides the conduit for universities like Penn, Princeton, Stanford, John Hopkins, University of Michigan, and the University of California at Berkley-, to name a few, to offer an array of courses online to anyone in the world, with access to a computer and the courses are absolutely free.  Courses range from An Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, Securing Digital Democracy, A History of the World since 1300,  Greek and Roman Mythology,  Community Change in Public Health, Neuroethics,  Calculus,  Philosophy and more than 100 other courses.

Though I am a practicing poet and I am, like I tell my elementary students, on a constant journey of learning.  Each year I infuse my classroom with the likes of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton and so many others.  I am overjoyed to be a member of Coursera’s Modern and Contemporary American Poetry class because it means I will bring something new and enlightening to both my students and myself.

My course officially opened today,  though  ModPo students had earlier created a Facebook page and the exchanges there tell the real power of this experiment; of when the world is invited to come together to explore a topic and share ideas.  Already, I have read the comments from ModPo classmates from Egypt, South Africa, Brazil, Ukraine, Thailand, Canada, Chile, Australia, Russia, India, Germany and from across the Ben Franklin Bridge.   

Though the focus ModPo will be American poets, starting with the Belle from Amherst, Emily Dickinson, I have already been introduced to poetry from around the world starting with a suggestion to read two poems by Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish, as well as the work of Nicaraguan, Czech and Canadian poets.

I think it goes without saying that the majority of those who are able to avail themselves of this experiment are privileged just by the fact they have internet access.  So, the real test of

such a project like Coursera is how we, the advantaged, campaign and lobby and involve ourselves in undertakings with a mission to narrow the digital divide.

As Emily Dickinson said, “The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” I believe my ModPo course will be just that.

To learn more about Coursera and its courses click this link:  https://www.coursera.org/

Philadelphia Art Museum Will Feature the Work of Barbara Chase-Riboud

Barbara Chase-Riboud- Photo by Erica Freudenstein

Barbara Chase-Riboud- Sculptor – Author-Historian-

I just learned from my Philadelphia High School for Girls Alumni newsletter that in the Spring/ Summer of 2013, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will gather and display more than 40 art works by our world-renowned alumna- Barbara Chase-Riboud.

 The exhibit will focus on Ms. Chase-Riboud's career in art. The special show will feature her Malcolm X sculptures but will also have examples of her works in other art media. In addition to being a brilliant and creative artist, Ms. Chase-Riboud has gained great fame as a writer of historical novels.

Here is a link to an older, short documentary about Chase-Riboud:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyioJJIl4Hg

We Are The Things of Dry Hours

Photograph- Rosary Higgins, from the the project: Illinois’ Hidden Poverty by Kini Takahasi

On the eve of  Labor Day, I share with you Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem Kitchenette Building.

How labor is organized and protected and dignified is directly linked to how we dream; to how those dreams lead us to a quality life.  There is an unrelenting assault on labor in our country now and there is an orchestrated effort to strip any semblance of dignity and security our labor once gave us.  These are dark times.

Kitchenette Building
By Gwendolyn Brooks

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,
Grayed in, and gray. "Dream" mate, a giddy sound, not strong
Like "rent", "feeding a wife", "satisfying a man".
But could a dream sent up through onion fumes
Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday's garbage ripening in the hall,
Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms,
Even if we were willing to let it in,
Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,
Anticipate a message, let it begin?
We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!
Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,
We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.