Octavia McBride-Ahebee: Heart on Your Sleeve; a Poetry Initiative Bringing Poetry into Public Spaces

Monday, November 7, 2022

Heart on Your Sleeve; a Poetry Initiative Bringing Poetry into Public Spaces

*Philly- Come this Saturday, November 5th at 7 PM, for the launch of “Heart on Your Sleeve”, a year-long poetry and public arts initiative meant to bring poetry into public spaces in fun and playful ways. My daughter and poet Sojourner Ahebee is the featured. poet for the month of November.

Poet Sojourner Ahebee

For the next few months( November 2022 – April 2023), if you're in Philly, you'll be able to read selected poems on the coffee sleeves at Elixr's Center City location.

This year, these poems tap into themes of care and renewal. On Saturday, many will all gather at Elixr to celebrate the poets, and indulge in delicious food and drinks courtesy of Philly staples from Yards Brewing Company & Wood Street Pizza!

Come for the good vibes, and stay for the unveiling of the gorgeous textile installation by artist, Destiny Palmer! And leave with a coffee sleeve with Sojourner's poem on it hehe!

When: Saturday, November 5, 7-10pm

Where: Elixr Coffee on 207 S Sydenham St, Philadelphia!

This project is supported by Elixr Coffee and The Poetry Project.

And special thanks goes out to our wonderful curators, Molly Gross and Ryan Strand Greenberg !

Curators Greenberg and Gross

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"You and I" by Malak Mattar

One of Philadelphia’s brightest culinary treasures, the Southeast Asian Market at FDR Park

June 19, 2024 Collage as a Form of Resistance-At the Bok Bar /Philadelphia Celebrates Juneteenth

During this workshop, we will experiment with visuals to help curate our ideologies around pride, Black history, culture, and music. Through discussion and art making students will leave this course confident in the methods of collaging as a form of resistance. All materials will be provided but feel free to bring any of your own collaging materials as well (mats, exacto knives, scrap materials, photos, etc...) This class will be hosted by Doriana Diaz. Doriana Diaz is a multidimensional artist, archivist, and memory worker rooted in Philadelphia's soulful rhythms. She has hosted a wide array of collage and bookmaking workshops around the city in spaces like The African American Museum, Brandywine Museum of Art, United States Botanical Gardens, Mural Arts, and Fleisher Art Memorial, a variety of schools including Penn Charter, Delaware Valley Friends School, and Green Street Friends, along with places such as Express Newark, Ipade, and Bok Bar. Her work explores loss, memory, fantasy, utopia, formation, and identity through the archival documentation of visual imagery. Click the image to register for this event.

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A 106-year-old from the Philippines is Vogue's oldest ever cover model

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Wed, March 11, 2020 7:30 p.m.- James McBride Free Library/Central Branch

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Curtis Institute of Music Student Recitals-Mon., Wed., & Thu/Free

The Student Recital Series provides a platform for exceptional young musicians—and more than 100 free opportunities for audiences to indulge in a season-long showcase of artistry. Since Curtis was founded in 1924, some of history’s most important musicians have appeared on the stage of Field Concert Hall, and today the Student Recital Series continues this celebrated legacy. Students perform solo and chamber works on most Mondays at 6 p.m., and Wednesday and Friday evenings at 8 p.m. Additional dates and times are added throughout the year. Student Recitals are free and open to the public. Seating is general admission and first-come, first-served. Most recitals are about two hours long, with one intermission. Click image to learn more.

U-M anthropologist uses toe tags to highlight crisis at US-Mexico border

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Open Archive: The Poetics of Anti-Slavery Protest- New York

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Raquel Salas Rivera

Written in response the PROMESA bill (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act) bill, lo terciario/the tertiary offers a decolonial queer critique and reconsideration of Marx. The book’s titles come from Pedro Scaron’s, El Capital, the 1976 translation of Karl Marx’s classic. Published by Siglo Veintiuno Editores, this translation was commonly used by the Puerto Rican left as part of political formation programs. Lo terciario/the tertiary places this text in relation to the Puerto Rican debt crisis, forcing readers to reconsider old questions when facing colonialism’s newest horrors-Colette Arrand, author of Hold Me Gorilla Monsoon

Photos Of 1908 Japan, Before Wars And Devastation

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20 Amazing Writing Residencies You Should Apply for This Year

Leeway Foundation

The Leeway Foundation's grantmaking programs honor women and trans* artists for their ability to create social change through their artistic and cultural work. The Art and Change Grants and the Leeway Transformation Awards fund women and trans artists (including those identifying as transgender, transsexual, and/or genderqueer) living in the Delaware Valley region of Bucks, Camden, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties, who engage in art and social change work and have financial need. To learn more, click image.

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Ride a train across country and write a book. Welcome to the Amtrak Writer's Residency:

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Where My Birthmark Dances is now available on Amazon

What's being said about Where My Birthmark Dances ?

The Ancient Romans used to call a person's creative spirit her "genius," and recognized the labor of setting it free as one of love and sacrifice. Octavia McBride-Ahebee's latest collection is just such a labor. Her poems depict human longing, love and dignity in the context of global inequality with fierce, uncompromising grace. As her characters speak, she creates indelible sensory images of loveliness and affection, profound misery and anger, letting each co-exist on the page. The resulting complexity of tone makes space for nuanced and compelling human voices that might otherwise be categorized as "victims" or "villains" of oppression. It takes the full use of genius to notice and capture these contradictions, and a deep social conscience to care so passionately about writing them down. This collection is one of McBride-Ahebee's "bighearted magnolia trees," its trunk scarred by the fire of sacrifice, its blossoms and branches so beautiful you don't want to leave their shade.

-Lillian Dunn, Editor of Apiary Literary Journal

Octavia McBride-Ahebee

Words without Borders; The Home of International Literature

Monday, November 7, 2022

Heart on Your Sleeve; a Poetry Initiative Bringing Poetry into Public Spaces

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