Words without Borders; The Home of International Literature

Words without Borders; The Home of International Literature
Check out an interview with Rwandan Writer Scholastique Mukasonga

Monday, November 17, 2014

Bob Dylan Coming to Philadelphia’s Academy of Music

Only a Pawn in Their Game: Bob Dylan



*Reposting:
The following song, Only a Pawn in Their Game, epitomizes my Dylan !
July 2, 1963: Bob Dylan attended a civil rights gathering in Greenwood, Mississippi and sung, ‘Only a Pawn in Their Game,’ a song he wrote about the murder of activist Medgar Evers.
Listen to the lyrics-Powerful !  


Kimmel Center Presents
Bob Dylan
And His Band 
In association with Larry Magid Entertainment

Academy of Music
Friday, November 21
8pm
Saturday, November 22
8pm

Sunday, November 23
8pm




Sunday, November 2, 2014

Nina Simone in Liberia; Liberian Calypso

My Sunday Morning Praise-On
Nina Simone-Liberian Calypso



Mariam Makeba by Brunelle Marinelli











Here is an interesting link about Nina’s time in Liberia interwoven with some other history: http://riquespeaks.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/liberian-stories-nina-simones-liberian-life/




Remember Liberia (Guinea and Sierra Leone) this Sunday, its rich history, its challenges and especially during this time of the Ebola crisis. Support the efforts of Doctors Without Borders, who are on the frontlines of this crisis. Here is a link to learn more about their efforts and to make a donation.http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/anderson-cooper-360-what-do-mandatory-quarantines-mean-those-fighting-ebola-front-lines

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Remembering the Massive Polio Vaccine Trials in DRC

While there is much celebration today for the 100th anniversary of Jonas Salk, who developed the first successful polio vaccine, which consisted of an injected dose of inactivated (dead) poliovirus,
 we should also recognize and condemn polio researchers like  Philadelphia’s own Hilary Koprowski, by way of Poland,  who represented the University of Penn’s Wistar Institute, and who:

  • arranged to have his weakened polio viruses tested in a colony of 150 chimpanzees in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo



  • then in 1957-1960 organized the largest mass trial for an oral polio vaccine in  history, which was administered in DRC, on more  than a quarter of a million Congolese people. This is the same area that would become the epicenter of the AIDS and Ebola epidemic
  • also tested his experimental vaccine on youth committed to mental health institutions
  • tested his experimental vaccine on  the newborn infants of incarcerated women




  • Read more, and not only the following article, about what when horribly wrong in many of these trials, which is a matter of public, congressional record. http://www.whale.to/vaccines/curtis.htm


    While we debate and surmise the origin of the Ebola virus, it is imperative that we support the efforts of organizations like Doctors without Borders, who are on the ground trying to contain this pandemic. Give your support now. http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/















    Friday, August 29, 2014

    Preparations for the Voyage to Lampedusa by Octavia McBride-Ahebee


    Photograph by Victor Englebert
    I tagged him
    like a suitcase
    in our wedding henna
    and the indigo of our gods
    so sand and salt water could not erase                     him
    using a hand-rolled cone
    of discarded plastic
    I labeled him in Arabic on his forehead
    with the translated love poems of Rumi
    riding across the arch of each eyebrow
    I braided his eyelashes into a wind rose
    to inform a faltering will 
    where grace blew the hardest
    I pierced his ears with Voltaire’s call 
    to give ourselves the gift
                 of living well
    on the palms of his hands, I rendered
    in sloppy English,
    the poetry of lorde and knight

    between the nervous Dogon masks that dressed his breasts
    and the hairy lotus flowers that framed a navel I loved to get lost in

    I sung in the double swirl of earth’s only colors
    a plea in Italian to be kind

    A boat carrying migrants headed to Italy/Photograph by Massimo Sestini

     

    amid the spiraling canals of Sundiata’s praise song
    that ran up and down his legs, front and back
    I marked the empty spaces with the tattooed kisses
    Of his children and a p.o. box leading back to Kolokani
    on his stained fingernails I wrote our love dreams
    -you know –a quartered-filled belly of lamb and hibiscus,
    a muted chest,
    feces that is thick and whole and free of the world’s disdain,
    a means of stretching our children with ideas -
    I wrote this in Bambara because it glows in the dark
    because it can lift a diminishing resolve from the clutches
    of a cold night desert
    and even dance on death’s imminent arrival

    in the middle of a beautiful sea that will reject him


    This man was travelling on a boat that sank off the
    coast of Libya headed for Italy . AFP/Getty Images

    disguised as a lullaby
    to remind him 
    at the moment he is embraced
    in a wet, frothy death hug
    that this failure is not his
    it is not his
    it belongs to those who will rescue his body






    Thursday, August 28, 2014

    Rethinking Language: A Selection of Nine Poems from Eight Young Writers

      

    Kartik  Mailk/ Flickr

    I am a proud mama!!! The works of Sojourner  Ahebee, my daughter, and 7 of her young peers are featured within the Atlantic Magazine's online content. Bravo. Here is the link:

    Monday, August 25, 2014

    To Sir With Love; Help Me Get to London

    By Octavia McBride-Ahebee




    Writer E. R. Braithwaite
    The new school year is upon us, which often makes me think of the movie To Sir With Love and Sidney Poitier’s character and his unrelenting energy and commitment to transform the lives of his students. This is what we all want! To Sir With Love was based on the autobiographical book by Guyanese-British writer Edward Ricardo Braithwaite and his experience teaching in a tough school in London. Do check him out. He’s has a fascinating history.
    I am asking you to help me have a transforming experience in London. I am a poet and community-based teacher who has been selected to participate in the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, which will be held this fall in London, England. Callaloo, a Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters based in Texas A&M University, is ranked as one of the top literary journals in the United States and is edited by the legendary Charles Henry Rowell. The workshop facilitators include novelist, essayist and Princeton Lecturer Maaza Mengiste, whose book Beneath the Lion’s Gaze is an international bestseller, and famed poet and Columbia University teaching fellow Gregory Pardlo.
    In light of the current Ebola crisis, I will work on a series of poems that highlight the human stories behind this global failure.
    Also here is a link to Chaka Khan singing To Sir with Love:

    Urge the National Institutes of Health to Speed Up Human Trials for the Ebola Vaccine

    By Octavia McBride-Ahebee

    My first year in Cote d’Ivoire was difficult for me in terms of not being able to communicate with people, of not being able to easily share the new experience of a being a new bride in a foreign country beginning a new journey. Cote d’Ivoire is a French-speaking country and Francophones are so unforgiving of those of us Anglophones who on too many occasions sloppily conjugate verbs, pronounce emphatically all h’s and neglectfully misplace adjectives. Many Liberians, refugees at the time from a civil war in their country, were living in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire’s economic capital. And they were my savior. They were English-speaking and so familiar on so many levels. 

    There was William, young, tall, proud, traumatized by the war in his country and from being uprooted and landing in Abidjan, which was safe, but unkind. He was a master quilt-maker, and I would sit with him for hours, detailing the designs I wanted for my quilts and he sharing the history of how he learned quilt-making; a family tradition carried to Liberia by many of the African-American slaves who settled there. 
    This is the kind of history and complexity and storytelling that surrounded me. And when I lay in those handmade quilts I was wrapped in a continuity of desire and protest and connections that were palpable. I am thinking of my Liberian friends, who when my husband died, came en masse to my home in Abidjan and for three nights sung Negro Spirituals and African-American gospel songs to remind me of the continuity of life, of how we eventually meet up again, whether it be in another time period or another sphere of the world.
    It is 3:30 in the morning; I am wondering where the sustained outrage is and where the support is for the Liberian people during this horrific Ebola crisis. I have friends in Liberia that I have lost touch within the last week; friends with families, with children who were scheduled to start University, friends who share all of our desires. There is only silence now and those awful images we see occasionally in the news; images that alienate you from them.
    Here is link to Paul Farmer, who is a doctor, activist and Harvard professor, discussing the global inequity of global healthcare as it relates to the Ebola crisis in Liberia. Listen and then begin to actively search for a way in which you can support those affected by the Ebola crisis. I have started a letter campaign urging the National Institutes of Health to speed up human trials for the Ebola vaccine. It is our tax dollars that support this organization. Let’s make some loud demands.


    Sunday, August 24, 2014

    Help Octavia go to Callaloo Workshop in London

    Photo by Alice Gosling: http://society6.com/alicegosling
     I am a poet and community-based teacher who has been selected to participate in the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, which will be held this fall in London, England. Callaloo, a Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters based in Texas A&M University, is ranked as one of the top literary journals in the United States and is edited by the legendary Charles Henry Rowell. The workshop facilitators include novelist, essayist and Princeton Lecturer Maaza Mengiste, whose book Beneath the Lion’s Gaze is an international bestseller, and famed poet and Columbia University teaching fellow Gregory Pardlo.  
    In light of the current Ebola crisis, I will work on a series of poems that highlight the human stories behind this global failure.


    Wednesday, August 13, 2014

    Violinist Kai Kight - Glorious



    Kai Kight-Photo/TedxStandford
    For these trying times, someone whose talent is sweet and uplifting: 2014 Stanford grad Kai Kight.

    2014 Stanford  Grad Kai Kight-Photo Kight's Website: http://www.kaikight.com/
    Just listen: 


    3.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIbIlouN_MY




    Wednesday, August 6, 2014

    Hiroshima - 69th Anniversary of Atomic Bombing

    NAKANO Kenichi 中野健一 (なかのけんいち)
    A hell-like city in a sea of fire.
    全市火の海となった地獄のような様子
    Year of Birth: 1898 \ Age at time of blast: 47 \ Age when image created: 76
    Date of image depicted: 1945/8/6
    Distance from hypocenter in meters: 200
    Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
    FUJISE Asako 藤瀬朝子 (ふじせあさこ)
    Seen from Hijiyama Hill, the city was a bright red burning Hell.
    真火にもえる市内を放心状態で眺める
    Year of Birth: 1923 \ Age at time of blast: 22 \ Age when image created: 51
    Date of image depicted: 1945/8/6
    Distance from hypocenter in meters: 2000
    Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

    Monday, July 28, 2014

    Palestinian Artist Nabil Anani


    This is the work of Palestinian artist Nabil Anani.  To learn more about him and his most current work in response to what is presently happening in Gaza, visit here: https://www.facebook.com/NaAnani


    By Nabil Anani
    By Nabil Anani
    By Nabil Anani
    By Nabil Anani

    Tuesday, July 22, 2014

    Blood by Naomi Shihab Nye

    Gaza by Everitte Barbee 

    Blood
    by Naomi Shihab Nye

    “A true Arab knows how to catch a fly in his hands,"
    my father would say. And he’d prove it,
    cupping the buzzer instantly
    while the host with the swatter stared.

    In the spring our palms peeled like snakes.
    True Arabs believed watermelon could heal fifty ways.
    I changed these to fit the occasion.

    Years before, a girl knocked,
    wanted to see the Arab.
    I said we didn’t have one.
    After that, my father told me who he was,
    “Shihab”—“shooting star”—
    a good name, borrowed from the sky.
    Once I said, “When we die, we give it back?”
    He said that’s what a true Arab would say.

    Today the headlines clot in my blood.
    A little Palestinian dangles a toy truck on the front page.
    Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root
    is too big for us. What flag can we wave?
    I wave the flag of stone and seed,
    table mat stitched in blue.

    I call my father, we talk around the news.
    It is too much for him,
    neither of his two languages can reach it.
    I drive into the country to find sheep, cows,
    to plead with the air:
    Who calls anyone civilized?
    Where can the crying heart graze?
    What does a true Arab do now?

    *Source- poets.org http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/blood

    *Artwork: by Everitte Barbee

    The text for this piece is Surah 85: Al-Buruj written exactly once, starting in the darkest area read from top to bottom, and then continuing continuing in the lighter text, and finally finishing in the lightest areas, representing the post 1967 settled land.

    The map of Palestine is depicted showing the different borders as they have changed over time. The darkest area represents land which was given to Israel by the United Nations in 1948, the slightly less dark areas represent land captured by Israel in the war immediately following its creation. The lightest grey areas represent land which Israel has illegally settled since the war of 1967 when it invaded neighboring countries, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The white areas represent land which the remaining Palestinian Arab population is allowed work and live in.

    To see more of this artist's work: https://www.etsy.com/shop/EveritteBarbee

    Sunday, July 20, 2014

    “Running Orders” by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha



    As many of you know my daughter just recently graduated from high school and will be off to university by the end of the summer. Despite all of our excitement and joy for her future, we are so heavy with the events of our world, especially what is happening in Gaza.
    Yesterday, some friends gathered to wish Sojourner well and during this gathering we decided to read a poem, in turn, entitled “Running Orders” by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, to consciously remind ourselves that all is not well with the world. This exercise, poetry, is our means of keeping the people of Palestine in our hearts.
    Here is the link to our reading:




    Running Orders
    by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

    "They call us now.
    Before they drop the bombs.
    The phone rings
    and someone who knows my first name
    calls and says in perfect Arabic
    “This is David.”
    And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass shattering symphonies
    still smashing around in my head
    I think “Do I know any Davids in Gaza?”
    They call us now to say
    Run.

    You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.
    Your house is next.
    They think of it as some kind of
    war time courtesy.
    It doesn’t matter that
    there is nowhere to run to.
    It means nothing that the borders are closed
    and your papers are worthless
    and mark you only for a life sentence
    in this prison by the sea
    and the alleyways are narrow
    and there are more human lives
    packed one against the other
    more than any other place on earth
    Just run.

    We aren’t trying to kill you.
    It doesn’t matter that
    you can’t call us back to tell us
    the people we claim to want aren’t in your house
    that there’s no one here
    except you and your children
    who were cheering for Argentina
    sharing the last loaf of bread for this week
    counting candles left in case the power goes out.
    It doesn’t matter that you have children.
    You live in the wrong place
    and now is your chance to run
    to nowhere.

    It doesn’t matter
    that 58 seconds isn’t long enough
    to find your wedding album
    or your son’s favorite blanket
    or your daughter’s almost completed college application
    or your shoes
    or to gather everyone in the house.
    It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
    It doesn’t matter who you are
    Prove you’re human.
    Prove you stand on two legs.
    Run.”
    - Running Orders, by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
    via @Pacinthe

    Wednesday, July 16, 2014

    Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition

    Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition

    A prize of $1,000 and publication for a chapbook-length poetry collection in print edition and eBook format. Open to ALL. International entries are welcome. Multiple submissions are accepted. The top-ten finalists will be offered publication. All entries will be considered for publication.
    Submit up to 26 pages of poetry, PLUS bio, acknowledgments, SASE and cover letter with a $15 entry fee. To submit online please use its online submissions manager:
    https://finishinglinepress.submittable.com/submit/30098

    or mail entry and fee to
    Open Chapbook Competition
    Finishing Line Press
    P O Box 1626
    Georgetown, KY 40324 USA

    NEW DEADLINE! Postmark Deadline: Sept. 15, 2014

    Monday, July 14, 2014

    Nadine Gordimer, Warrior of the Imagination, Dies At 90



    Nadine Gordimer 


    Nadine Gordimer wearing an Arab necklace, 1953.
    Photo: Leon Levson. Nadine Gordimer's private archive
    A gathering of laureates: from left, Nadine Gordimer (1991 winner), Derek Walcott (1992), Wole Soyinka( 1986)and Toni Morrison (1993).© nytimes (300405)
    Nelson Mandela and Nadine Gordimer in 1993. Photograph: Louise Gubb/© Louise Gubb/CORBIS SABA



     Read more about Gordimer and her committed work: 

    http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1991/gordimer-article.html?print=1#.U8Qw95RdWac




    Sunday, July 13, 2014

    British-born Palestinian Rapper Shadia Mansour Sings the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish

    SInger/Rapper Shadia Mansour sings Darwish/ Photo retrieved from The Narcicyst featuring Shadia Mansour "Hamdulillah" Official Music Video



    Photo by Eamoon McCabe/Guardian -2008: Palestinians hold a candle-light vigil in Ramallah, to mourn the death of Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish

    On This Earth What Makes Life Worth Living
    By Mahmoud Darwish

    Translated by Karim Abuawad


    On this earth what makes life worth living:

    the hesitance of April

    the scent of bread at dawn

    an amulet made by a woman for men

    Aeschylus’s works

    the beginnings of love

    moss on a stone

    the mothers standing on the thinness of a flute

    and the fear of invaders of memories.

    On this earth what makes life worth living:

    September’s end

    a lady moving beyond her fortieth year without losing any of her grace

    a sun clock in a prison

    clouds imitating a flock of creatures

    chants of a crowd for those meeting their end smiling

    and the fear of tyrants of the songs.

    On this earth what makes life worth living:

    on this earth stands the mistress of the earth

    mother of beginnings

    mother of endings

    it used to be known as Palestine

    it became known as Palestine

    my mistress:

    I deserve, because you’re my mistress

    I deserve life.

    * Here is a link to Shadia Mansour singing some of this poem with Darwish reading some of it in Arabic. Riveting !
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv4LgJ0M-Ko

    Saturday, June 28, 2014

    Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Spike Lee's Iconic Film Do The Right Thing

    *Philadelphia
    Free Screening of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing at the Church of the Advocate
    Saturday, June 28, 6:00 pm, Do the Right Thing: Through the Lens of the Black Aesthetic, Church of the Advocate, 1801 W Diamond St, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19121


    Following the viewing of the film there will be a panel discussion. The panel will reflect different perspectives such as hip-hop, activism, film and more. The overall theme of the discussion will be black aesthetics. Q&A will take place after the panel discussion.
    Panelists: Leah Keturah Caesar - filmmaker and dancer, John Morrison - DJ and founder of Liberation Movie Night, Dr. Rhone Fraser - adjunct faculty teaching English and African American History at Delaware County Community College, Kashara White - student activist and undergraduate student in the African American Studies Department at Temple University, MJ Harris - teaching artist, actor, poet, hip-hop artist, and member of Sela, Moderator, Patrice K. Armstead, activist, cofounder of Building People’s Power
    Sponsored by: Building People’s Power and Liberation Movie Night

    Thursday, June 26, 2014

    Political Philosopher Danielle Allen Tomorrow at the National Constitution Center

    *Philadelphia 
    Join Political Philosopher Danielle Allen tomorrow, June 27th at 12 noon, at the Constitution Center for an afternoon of thought provoking conversation about the Declaration of Independence.
    "Political philosopher Danielle Allen will join Chris Phillips, Senior Education Fellow at the National Constitution Center, to take a fresh look at the Declaration of Independence—a document that changed the course of the modern world in 1,337 words—with an eye to its promise of equality.
    Allen, a professor of social science at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study and the newly appointed chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board—the first African-American woman to hold that position—is widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America.
    In her conversation with Phillips, Allen will draw heavily on her new book, Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, to tackle the contradictions between ideals and reality in a document that perpetuated slavery.
    Her discussion is presented in conjunction with the Constitution Center’s feature exhibition, Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello—a powerful, revealing and deeply personal look at six slave families who lived and worked at Jefferson’s plantation in Virginia.
    In the prologue to Our Declaration, Allen explains the rationale behind her latest project.
    “The Declaration of Independence matters because it helps us see that we cannot have freedom without equality,” she writes. “It is out of an egalitarian commitment that a people grows—a people that is capable of protecting us all collectively, and each of us individually, from domination.”
    “If the Declaration can stake a claim to freedom,” she adds, “it is only because it is so clear-eyed about the fact that the people’s strength resides in its equality.”
    Allen also laments popular notions of the relationship between liberty and equality—a misunderstanding she seeks to confront.
    Political philosophers have generated the view that equality and freedom are necessarily in tension with each other,” she says. “As a public, we have swallowed this argument whole. We think we are required to choose between freedom and equality. Our choice in recent years has tipped toward freedom. Under the general influence of libertarianism, both parties have abandoned our Declaration; they have scorned our patrimony.”
    “Such a choice is dangerous,” she goes on. “If we abandon equality, we lose the single bond that makes us a community, that makes us a people with the capacity to be free collectively and individually in the first place.”
    “I for one cannot bear to see the ideal of equality pass away before it has reached its full maturity,” Allen concludes. “I hope I am not alone.”
    This program will be followed by a book sale and signing. Admission is free; groups are welcome. However, reservations are recommended—call 215.409.6700 or order online. Event attendees will also receive $5 admission to see Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello."
    * Source: The National Constitution Center Blog 

    Sunday, June 22, 2014

    Discover the Beauty and History of Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery



    This summer I am committed to exploring sites in and around Philadelphia that are off the beaten track. I had a blast of real history this afternoon while visiting Laurel Hill Cemetery right off of Ridge Avenue with my daughter, niece and nephews.

    My family on a visit to Laurel Hill Cemetery .
    It rests on 78 acres of art and Philadelphia history. The landscaping is spectacular and the tombstones, mausoleums and various statues are just breathtaking. Part of the cemetery overlooks the Schuylkill River and is quite scenic. 

    Laurel Hill Cemetery
    tel. 215-228-8200
    fax. 215-228-7940
    3822 Ridge Avenue 
    Philadelphia, PA 19132