For Sojourner by Octavia McBride-Ahebee

" we gave you to Isabella,
coal black, six-feet, steaming in her own appetites
because she staked a claim on self
hoisted by the gravity of her own cravings
to announce her arrival"

One of my many poems for Sojourner is featured today on the website Mothers Always Write. Here is the link: http://mothersalwayswrite.com/for-sojourner/     

*Artwork- Ain’t I a Woman” blue by Ofunne Obiamiwe

The New York Public Library and the Academy of American Poets Present New Series This Fall

Carrie Mae Weems, Claudia Rankine, & Elizabeth Alexander-Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

     The New York Public Library and the Academy of American Poets is presenting  a new series this fall in which they pair poets with complementary creative minds. Last week's event included poet Claudia Rankine and artist Carrie Mae Weems, with a special introduction by Elizabeth Alexander To learn more about this series, click here:

 http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/stanza/new-york-public-library-and-academy-american-poets-present-new-series-fall-pairing

10 Must-Watch Films About Identity & Survival

                                       by Sojourner Ahebee

"A film, in its most simple form, is a story. And stories are not only a powerful mode of witness, but most importantly they are a means of showing viewers everywhere that they are not alone. Some of our most intimate and personal self-discoveries are lying in the depths of a film. As a young person who is attempting to navigate this world, themes of identity are constantly taking up space in my own life. Who am I? Who am I becoming? What is in my way and how am I to respond to these obstacles?Identity is almost becoming synonymous with survival. How are we to fight for our sense of self each day? The 10 films I have listed below respond to various intersections of identity and survival. Through watching these pieces, I hope we can all look into our own lives as a means of self-reflection… I hope we can look into our own worlds and love each other a little more. "
Read on .... 

http://theodysseyonline.com/stanford/10-films-about-identity-survival/159454

Playing Dead for the Summer; A Girl Child's Tale

   Each morning for the school year, students in my third grade class would gather on a carpet at the back of the classroom and we would engage in a community meeting where we discussed and shared a variety of topics.  On June 18^th, the next morning after the Charleston massacre and the day before the ending of school, my students shared their summer plans. One of the liveliest, most engaged and extroverted students shared in a very muted and dazed tone that she was hiding for the summer- playing dead were her words-because now people were trying to kill girls.  She was genuinely terrorized by the events in Charleston.  I wrote this poem to document, in a small way, how events such as those that occurred in Charleston impact young African-American children, particularly those who already are living under precarious, impoverished and marginalized conditions. 

Discover the paintings of Margaret Bowland at http://www.margaretbowland.com/

   My poem, Playing Dead for the Summer, is now featured on the For Harriet website.  Here is the link:

http://soar.forharriet.com/2015/08/playing-dead-for-summer-poem.html

Raising Lilly Ledbetter; Women Poets Occupy the Workplace

I finally received my contributor's copy of Raising Lilly Ledbetter; Women Poets Occupy the Workplace. Wonderful blurb by Carolyn Forché . Almost 200 women poets "bear witness to women's workplace lives and act to re-envision and refigure the world of work for women..."

My poem highlights the plight of international sex workers. Other poets include Rita Dove, Nikky Finney, Denise Duhamel, Natasha Trethwey, Ellen Bass, Daisy Fried and so many others- almost 200!!!!

Bravo to the editors Carolyne Wright, M.L. Lyons and Eugenia Toledo and the publisher Lost Horse Press.

“This remarkable anthology, gathered in tribute to Lilly Ledbetter with a toast to Carolyn Kizer, gathers the lyric art of working women, writing from the depths of at least sixty-two occupations. These are the poems of the heavy-lifters, night-shifters, line and piece workers, writing with grace and often with humor: poets who punch clocks, woman the phones and decks, weave, weld and can, cotton-pick and cold call, thread-spin, typeset and teach. They sex-work, they ship-build, plaster and preach, butcher and drive the bus. This is anthology as page-turner, as fist in the air, as do-it-yourself manual against despair. Here, and in gratitude to Lilly Ledbetter, is the music of a movement, and it is one of the best of our time.”—Carolyn Forché  

You may follow this link to order the book:  https://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/WRIRAI.html

Congrats to Juan Felipe Herrera; Our Newest Poet Laureate

Juan Felipe Herrera, From Farm Fields to Poet Laureate

Poet Juan Felipe-Photo Credit Gary Kazanjian

By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER  JUNE 10, 2015

The Library of Congress is to announce on Wednesday that Juan Felipe Herrera, a son of migrant farmworkers whose  writing fuses wide-ranging experimentalism with reflections on Mexican-American identity, will be the next poet laureate.The appointment is the nation’s highest honor in poetry and also something of a direct promotion for Mr. Herrera, who was poet laureate of California from 2012 to 2014. “I feel like I’m on one of those big diving boards,” Mr. Herrera, 66, said by telephone from his home in Fresno. “I was on a really high one already, and now I’m going to the highest one.” 
*
Read on at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/books/juan-felipe-herrera-of-california-to-be-next-poet-laureate.html?smid=tw-share

Opera Philadelphia's Charlie Parker's YARDBIRD; Live Tweeting the Final Dress Rehearsal

Charlie Parker’s Yardbird’ Ties Jazz and Opera Together in Philadelphia

Carlie Parker, left, and Lawrence Brownlee, who will portray him in the world premiere of “Charlie Parker’s Yardbird” at Opera Philadelphia. CreditAgence France-Press - Getty Images; Dominic M. Mercier/Opera Philadelphia

           Join me @omcbrideahebee when I will live-tweet the final dress rehearsal of Opera Philadelphia's Charlie Parker's YARDBIRD on June 3 at 6:15 p.m. Find me on twitter @omcbrideahebee and follow me. 


Now, meet the wives of Charlie Parker.

Happy Birthday to Poet Marilyn Monroe

     Happy B-D Marilyn! Love this photo of her & poet Edith Sitwell. Here’s link to Monroe’s poetry:

http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/07/27/marilyn-monroe-fragments-poems/

Philadelphia Museum of Art Puts Its Famous Artworks on the Streets

  BY CARALYN DIENSTMAN

The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) has hung 60 replicated masterpieces along Philly city streets, making onlookers across the region do double takes.

PMA and the Knight Foundation teamed up to bring a unique outreach program to Philadelphia called “Inside Out,” which hopes to break down the intimidating barriers of the Museum walls, and bring a more casual and approachable feel to classical art.

Twenty-two local neighborhoods will take part in the project within the next two years. The comprising works will span five different areas for three months at a time and then be relocated to five new areas throughout the city. The first five neighborhoods and towns to host the works this spring are East Passyunk, Newtown, Chestnut Hill East/Mount Airy, Haddonfield and Media. Each community hosts up to twelve classical pieces at a time...

Read more about this at http://www.phillymag.com/ticket/2015/05/28/philadelphia-museum-of-art-puts-its-famous-artworks-on-the-streets/#blsHMcJiiUzyYduu.99

*Source Phillymag. com 

Opera Philadelphia Premieres 'Charlie Parker's YARDBIRD'

                  'Charlie Parker's YARDBIRD' marks the first time in almost 40 years that Opera Philadelphia will present a world premiere. Check out Aubrey Nagle's piece to learn more:

                     

"Opera Philadelphia is presenting its first world premiere in nearly four decades with "Charlie Parker's YARDBIRD," the story of Grammy-winning jazz saxophonist and bebop star Charlie Parker. "YARDBIRD" was created for star Lawrence Brownlee, an internationally renown American tenor, by composer Daniel Schnyder.

The opera encompasses hints of jazz, R&B, gospel and classical music wrapped up in the story of Parker's last living day, March 12, 1955. Set in New York, the opera follows Parker as he writes his last great work..." Read on:

http://www.phillyvoice.com/opera-philadelphia-presents-world-premiere/

Also check out this video of literacy coach Sue Smith who couple of months ago introduced some our lower elementary students to Charlie Parker in such a wonderfully fun and accessible way by using Chris Raschka’s book Charlie Parker Played Be Bop.  Here is the link to her presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp-rrUeUfRk