Sojourner Ahebee Featured on the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day Site

Artwork by Annie Kevans 

Oh, my gosh!!! Sojourner is featured on the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day site. for June 19th. Check out her homage to Sally Hemings:
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem-day

Legendary Author Maya Angelou Dies

Legendary Author Maya Angelou Dies

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/28/us/maya-angelou-obit/

A Brave and Startling Truth 

by Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it. 

Akala; Fusing Shakespeare and Hip-Hop

Akala-Fusing Shakespeare and Hip-Hop

I use the following video featuring Akala as an introduction for my young students to Shakespeare. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSbtkLA3GrY

Here is a link of some of my former third graders practicing Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=446769492068170&l=7628304241131744624

Here is Akala showing what he really does. This is a treat and listen to his lyrics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEOKgjoxoto

AWARD-winning hip-hop star Akala played a special, invitation-only evening gig for young people at Toxteth Library in Liverpool, England. 

Herat Province and the Problem of Self-Immolation; A Poem

Photograph by Paula Bronstein

Painting Billie’s Blues by Janeen Stone Morehouse

An Engagement for Burning

By Octavia McBride-Ahebee

 I took her

lamenting
protected
within the boundaries of my burka
buried beneath the world
I took Billie with me
a haggard chorus of one
a voice tied to silk and twisted hemp
that cut my ears with a melodic charm
her stretched out words
the ones that never stood to be sounded
were an incantation
pouring my despair across a crop
drugged and lying in wait for me
she squeezed herself through an iPod
a euphonious amulet
energized by currents of expectations
a gift given by a visiting girl from the West of Philly
to encourage my heart
a girl who came to Herat

with beaded hair 
braided in the shape of a halo
carrying the world in a Walmart duffel bag

we are both Khadeeja
the supposed complement of someone else
she taught her sisters an ambitious grammar
tied to a human history
told through Holiday’s songs
amid the redolence of the musk-scented roses
and orange blossoms
in the hall of fields flushed with swaying poppies
poppies naked in their fearless redness
red like the hardened candy apples I lick through my cloth cage
a cage with no delicious opening
for my tongue to peek out
and taste the world.

I will burn myself today
when the sun is its most vain
amid the opulence of candy-colored poppies
between the embrace of voluptuous pining trees
with Billie plugged in my ears. 
I will pour from a returnable Coca-Cola bottle
dinner’s petrol
over my whole existence
and wish 
that someone
with hands that are enlightened
will rub the sweetness of honey into my wounds.

This  poem, An Engagement for Burning, originally appeared in Damazine; A Journal of the Muslim World,  and  is my small attempt to shed light on the growing problem of Afghani women, particularly in the province of Herat, burning themselves- self-immolation- as an extreme protest against the dire challenges of their lives.

Here’s a link to a series of news articles about this problem.

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2009/03/17/an-afghan-woman-commits-...

Pulitzer Prize Winning Writer Junot Diaz Laments About The Lack of Diversity in MFA Programs

Photo of Junot Diaz from   lifeofman.esquire.com
Junot Díaz--Excerpts from the Dismantle Anthology Introduction in the NEW YORKER-
MFA VS. POC

"When I was in my mid-twenties I decided to apply for an MFA in creative writing. Part of it was I wanted to get serious with my writing—whatever that meant. Part of it was that my body was getting worn out from delivering pool tables. Part of it was a worrying sense I had that I was going to need a lot more sophistication if I was ever going to be any good at writing. And part of it was I didn’t know I had other options..."

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2014/04/mfa-vs-poc.html

Photo: Creative Commons/ Colgate University

Junot Diaz is a Dominican-American writer. He is a MIT professor & Boston Review editor. Central to his work is the immigrant experience, with books including This is How You Lose Her, Drown, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao & Monstro. He is a Pulitzer Prize Winner & a MacArthur Fellow, and a founding member of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Writing Workshop.

The Colors of Nina Simone

by  Cassia Lupo

 by Martha Rich

   

The Colors of Nina Simone

I'm preparing for my father to come home from a rehab facility. We were listening to Nina all day yesterday and he sharing his many Nina stories. My father and I saw Nina Simone together at the Chestnut Street Cabaret here in Philadelphia. What a venue-now sadly no more. She was about five or six hours late and the audience didn't mine a bit because we were waiting for the Queen and though a little testy she delivered!!!

by Nannette Harris

Checkout Belgian, Moroccan, Egyptian, and Palestinian singer Natacha Atlas, now based in England, and her version of Simone’s I Put a Spell On You. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FamqM4rI6DE

by Leonardo Rodriguez

by MARCELLA HAYES MUHAMMAD

Gabriel García Márquez- March 6, 1927 – April 17, 2014

"He Gave Us Back Our History": Isabel Allende on Gabriel García Márquez in Exclusive Interview

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/18/he_gave_us_back_our_history

Illustration by David Levine

Third World Press Call for Submissions for Anthology to Celebrate Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka, 2013, by Victoria Smith

Third World Press is sending this “Call for Submissions” on behalf of the editors of the forthcoming anthology celebrating the life and legacy of Amiri Baraka.

Brilliant Fire! Amiri Baraka
Poems, Plays, Politics for the People
Editors: Haki R. Madhubuti, Michael Simanga, Sonia Sanchez and  Woodie King Jr.

Submission deadline is  April 30, 2014. For more information contact TWPBarakaCall@gmail.com .

RISE ! Bravo to the Women of Afghanistan Who Helped to Swell the Presidential Election Turnout

The courageous women of Afghanistan lined up to vote Sunday, in spite of dangerous threats made by the Taliban. 

Saheera Sharif, the founder of Mirman Baheer (upper center); Ogai Amail, a poet and member of the group (bottom left); also pictured are other members of the poets’ group. Photo-Seamus Murphy/VII for The New York Times




Here is a link to the article about the a women's poetry collective in Afghanistan.

 Why Afghan Women Risk Death to Write Poetry:  

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/magazine/why-afghan-women-risk-death-to-write-poetry.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Here also is a link to the 

Afghan Women’s Writers Project    http://awwproject.org/

Give These Sisters Our Support !

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Dare Disturb the Universe - Bravo to Activist Poet Shailja Patel

At the close of the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival,  Kenyan poet and activist Shailja Patel, inspired by the  Guantanamo prisoners who  scratched poems on a styrofoam cup with pebbles, passed it from cage to cage, until it was discovered and smashed by their jailers, did a necessary act.  She wrote and read the names of the many girls killed by U.S. drones on a paper cup.  She read these names introduced by President Obama’s words delivered at the 2010 White House Correspondents Dinner: "The Jonas Brothers are here, they're out there somewhere. (Applause) Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but boys, don't get any ideas (laughter). Two words for you: predator drones (Laughter). You will never see it coming (Laughter). You think I'm joking? (Laughter).”

 We all love our babies.

Activist Poet Shailja Patel reading the names of the many girls killed by U.S. drones.

Drone

By Solmaz  Sharif

…Let this be the Body
through which the War has passed.
—Frank Bidart

somewhere I did not learn mow down or mop up • somewhere I wouldn’t hear your father must come with me or I must fingerprint your grandmother can you translate please • the FBI has my cousins’ computers • my father says say whatever you want over the phone • my father says don’t let them scare you that’s what they want • my mother has a hard time believing anything’s bugged • my father and I always talk like the world listens • my father is still on the bus with contraband papers under his seat as uniforms storm down the aisle • it was my job to put a cross on each home with dead for clearing • it was my job to dig graves into the soccer field • I wrote red tracksuit • I wrote Shahida, headless, found beside Saad Mosque • buried in the same grave as the above • I wrote unidentified fingers • found inside Oldsmobile car • I wrote their epitaphs in chalk • from my son’s wedding mattress I know this mound’s his room • I dropped to a knee and engaged the enemy • I emptied my clip then finished the job • I took two steps in and threw a grenade • I took no more than two steps into a room before firing • in Haditha we cleared homes Fallujah-style • my father was reading the Koran when they shot him through the chest • they fired into the closet • the kitchen • the ninety-year-old standing over the stove • just where was I • uno a uno tu cara en todos los buses urbanos • Here lie the mortal remains of one who in life searched your face • call me when you get home • let’s miss an appointment together • let’s miss another flight to repeated strip searches • that Haditha bed • magenta queen sheets and a wood-shelved headboard and blood splattered up the walls to the ceiling • they held each other • they slept on opposing ends wishing one would leave • mother doesn’t know who I am anymore • I write Mustapha Mohammad Khalaf, fifteen months old • I write Here lies an unknown martyr, a big security guard with a blue shirt, found near an industrial area with a chain of keys • Martyr unknown, only bones • they ask if I have anything to declare then limit my response to fruits and nuts • an American interrupts an A and B conversation to tell me you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do • he strikes me as a misstep away from she was asking for it • what did you expect after fishing Popov from a trash bin • what did you expect after accepting a marbled palace • they drag the man who killed my uncle out of a hole • they inspect him for ticks on national television • no one in my family celebrates • when the FBI knocks I tell them I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do; they get a kick out of that • she just lay there and took it like a champ • she was dying for it • at a protest a man sells a shirt that says My dick would pull out of Iraq • my mother tape-records my laugh to mail bubble-wrapped back home • my mother records me singing Ye shabe mahtab mah meeyad to khab • I am singing the moon will come one night and take me away sidestreet by sidestreet • sitting on a pilled suburban carpet or picking blue felt off the hand-me-down couch • the displaced whatnots • I practice the work of worms • how much I can wear away with no one watching • two generations ago my blood moved through borders according to grazing and seasons • then a lifeline of planes • planes fly so close to my head filled with bomblets and disappeared men • scaffolding sprouts nooses sagging with my dead • I burn my finger on the broiler and smell trenches • my uncle pissing himself • shopping bags are legs • there is half a head in the gutter • I say Hello NSA when I place a call • somewhere a file details my sexual habits • some tribunal may read it all back to me • Golsorkhi, I know the cell they will put me in • they put me onto a crooked pile of others to rot • is this what happens to a brain born into war • a city of broken teeth • the thuds of falling • we have learned to sing a child calm in a bomb shelter • I am singing to her still