Remembering Jayne Cortez

I was very sad to read that poet Jayne Cortez passed away on December 28th, which just happens to be my birthday. Cortez was a poet who I read extensively to understand how to write poetry that was lyrical and culturally-referenced. I tried to imitate her style. When I read her as a young person, I knew from her references that she read an expansive knowledge base and I knew that if I wanted to write I had to read a lot. I was also intrigued that she was from the west, from Arizona, and that she had changed her name. Here is a link to one of her poems. R.I.P. Jayne and thank you.

It's National Poetry Month!

I'll be reading this Thursday at Chandler-Gilbert Community College with Jimmy Berlin and Jacquelyne Kibler as part of the college's celebration of National Poetry Month. Come if you can. Pecos campus, 7:00 p.m. Let's celebrate the word!

Pictures from Egypt

Credit: Emilio Meorenatti/Associated Press



Credit: Dylan Martinez/Reuters


Credit: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

These photos are taken from the front page of today's New York Times online. My students are writing ekphrastic poetry based on war images. These pictures of a people's revolution surely inspire words.

A poem by e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

by e. e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,glady beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the colors of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

Poetry: Christian Campbell

Congratulations to Carribean poet Christian Campbell who won the Aldeburgh first collection prize for poetry on Friday! I was just reading his collection, Running the Dusk. Here is a poem from that collection:

Legba

A well-loved lit classic
packed in each bag, and a Harvard
sweatshirt to match the Pakistani
passport -- Iqbal goes first, catching
a flight to France. Then me,
in a tie and soft pants, khaki hat
to keep my head tame. We chat
clipped and colonial, like our tutors,
grinning out Oxford with a nod.
At immigration I put on airs
and styles, let the maleness growl
without teeth. Hold my chest
with untouchable height. All like
a politician, a Sidney Poitier,
an old Bahamian man. I look
only ahead and walk straight-back,
like my grandfather. Speak like he spoke
to foreigners, in his best moods,
he would put on the mouths
of all the Englishmen he'd met,
playing the Queen and how
she gave him his MBE -- Pa.
There, reciting and reciting Blake,
until he fell down blank and silent
as any road in Nassau
the morning after junkanoo.

--copyright Christian Campbell 2010 from Running the Dusk (Peepal Tree Press)

The Yale Anthology of Rap

I have to admit that I'm dorky enough to be really excited by this anthology released last week. I relate to hip-hop through language more than beats; I remember writing down all the lyrics to Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" just so I could see the words on paper and study the narrative.

So an anthology that professes to examine the poetic tradition of rap sounds good to me.

If this review in NY Magazine is right, YAR is different from other books on hip-hop (and there are tons) because it focuses on textual analysis of lyrics and not on music or personalities. Funny how the author, after reading the anthology, concludes that Big Daddy Kane is the best rapper (poet) ever. I'm wondering how the lyrics of Biggie and Lauryn Hill will rank in the canon and hoping that I can finally understand the lyrical power of Jay-Z which is lost on me when I listen to his music.

note, passed to superman by Lucille Clifton

note, passed to superman

sweet jesus, superman,
if i had seen you
dressed in your blue suit
i would have known you.
maybe that choirboy clark
can stand around
listening to stories
but not you, not with
metropolis to save
and every crook in town
filthy with kryptonite.
lord, man of steel,
i understand the cape,
the leggings, the whole
ball of wax.
you can trust me,
there is no planet stranger
than the one i'm from.

--copyright Lucille Clifton, from The Book of Light (1993)

A Poem

Free Falling

You and I are right here
flung hard onto a hawk's wing.
We've grown accustomed to the grisly
view below. Once, I watched video of a hand
blown clean from the body; a pale scorpion
dropping curled in desert sand. A girl's face
with an opening where the nose should be.
These pictures dig holes that never close,
as if war was not blood and bones and teeth
and skin shot through the air, as if I am not made
of the same, as if strategies for torture make sense.
Any day now, I expect to raise myself from this ride,
throw my body full from the bird and land
upright and giant.

--copyright 2010 by Renee Simms

On Thursday I Found This in My Notebook

On Thursday I Found This in My Notebook

by Amiri Baraka

When love is perfected, when love
is understood.
When love is the law
& the measure
The ruler & ruled & body of
of what is body mind of
what is mind
When love & the Soul
are uncovered
then you will always
sound like
Duke Ellington.

Staying Cool

Because it's getting so hot outside, here's a little coolness.....

We Real Cool

The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

--copyright Gwendolyn Brooks

Hear an audio clip of Ms. Brooks reading her poem here

Read Terrance Hayes' extremely cool variation on Brooks' poem here

Good Things Happening in AZ

I went with my kids to the candlelight vigil and protest against AZ's immigration law held last night at the state capitol building in Phoenix. Rev. Al Sharpton led a march from Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church to the capitol where several hundred people were already gathered with signs, candles, American flags, collage art, makeshift jail cells. A woman I didn't know thanked me for coming and said that she really appreciated the support of my family. Local writers were up in the crowd. I saw the efforts of poets Mark Haunschild and Fernando Perez who have provided a space for children and adults at the protests to use paint and markers to leave handprints and visual artwork against SB 1070.

I saw the Los Suns jerseys that the Phoenix Suns wore last night in their game against the Spurs. Sharpton was wearing a jersey when he spoke last night.

This week the city councils of Tucson and Flagstaff have voted to sue the state over SB 1070.

Last Friday, the documentary "9500 Liberty" premiered at Harkins Valley Art Theater on Mill Avenue in Tempe. According to the filmmaker's press release, "the documentary is about a Virginia county's short mandate requiring officers to question people they had cause to suspect were undocumented immigrants. The Prince William County mandate was repealed in two months due to negative economic, legal and public safety impacts." The documentary is playing all this week.

Speaking of documentaries, on Saturday, May 8th from 5:30-7:30 pm at Civic Park Space, 424 N. Central in downtown Phoenix, there's a screening of the film "A Village Called Versailles." From the press release:

Welcome to Versailles, New Orleans––home to the densest ethnic Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam. For over 30 years, its residents lived a quiet existence on the edge of New Orleans. But then came Hurricane Katrina, the immense garbage piles and the shocking discovery of a toxic landfill planned in their neighborhood. Watch as they fight back, turning a devastating disaster into a catalyst for change and a chance to build a better future. Independent Lens is like an independent film festival that introduces new documentaries and dramas made by independent thinkers: filmmakers who are taking creative risks, calling their own shots and finding untold stories in unexpected places.

And today at Civic Park Space I will be taking part in Poetry Central where several Phoenix Union High School students will get the opportunity to write poetry on themes of war and peace in response to paintings created by Vietnamese Children. It's part of the Vietnamese Children's Art Project that you can read about here.

For Those Who Were Teenaged Prince Fanatics Like Me

The Death of Soul, a Remix

I've decided to marry a treble clef or break beat
men, sex, music are that intertwined in my life
me and my future husband will speak exclusively in song lyrics
or island patois, pidgin, rien que Anglais, unless it's rhythmic
like: you're jinglin' baby/go 'head baby
you're jinglin' baby/go 'head baby

I blame this alchemy of men and music on my childhood
which rocked with tambourine shakes, doo-wop harmony
and in every other house lived a slick-pretty man who could sing.

Men with bass-guitar voices, men inside pyramid homes, men
driving Cadillacs glossed by the moon. How could I not be
peculiar? Post-Motown Detroit, air still ripe with miracles
and temptations and me with wild, flapping feelings
between my nine year old thighs.

Then 1977, he arrived.

He was guitar riffs and wanton falsetto, everything I felt
but could not express, only knew it when I heard it
like when his anthem spun soft and wet on FM radio.

My best friend's daddy, who sang backup, didn't like him.

Pornographic, her daddy said. The devil, Mama would say
but what did they know? My girlfriend's daddy kept
women vacant as Smokey Robinson's house and
Motown was dead at the edge of a continent--
the pious heel-spins by suited men, cliches
we no longer used.

I tape-recorded my love's voice, carried scrolled parchments
with his songs, memorized his impish face. He was what it
meant to be young and hot, to be distilled between
the rub of bricks, Funk and your parents' social movements.
He was North American royalty, was cravings
unsheathed, the center of a flower,
seduction as a principle.

Nothing is permanent.
Not neighborhoods or soul music.

Even my history of lovers mimics staccato:
I've loved dozens of dark, polished men
who were abruptly gone

--copyright Renee Simms, from Mischief, Caprice, & Other Poetic Strategies (Red Hen Press 2004)

In Celebration of Poetry Month

I've read so many good poetry collections in the last couple days. Randall Horton's The Definition of Place (Main Street Rag Publishing 2006) was one of them. Here's one of my favorite poems from that collection:

The Ideology of the Lean

I'm thinking to myself Superfly the first time I see
Pocketknife bend the corner between history and
algebra class, almost hugging brick wall with his
right shoulder, the stringent sway of his left arm like
a well oiled piece of machinery in search of a brace
to propel his young-blood strut. Although his strides
are not long, each time he thrusts the bow of his legs,
drag pigeon-toed feet forward, the circular crack
of space revealed speaks of contempt, a trait that will
always keep him unchained. So I emulate his defiance,
practicing in front of full length mirrors anywhere I can;
perfect my own variation of the lean until it feels natural
and I can express my entire belief system in a walk.

(Copyright Randall Horton 2006)

Latest Scribblings

Medusa Asks a Question

What kinda man can love
a flawed woman once
she is unpretty, but powerful,
and can calcify your ass
with one look?

A Poem by C.K. Williams

The Dance

A middle-aged woman, quite plain, to be polite about it, and
somewhat stout, to be more courteous still,
but when she and the rather good-looking, much younger man
she's with get up to dance,
her forearm descends with such delicate lightness, such restrained
but confident ardor athwart his shoulder,
drawing him to her with such a firm, compelling warmth, and
moving him with effortless grace
into the union she's instantly established with the not at all
rhythmically solid music in this second-rate cafe,

that something in the rest of us, some doubt about ourselves, some
sad conjecture, seems to be allayed,
nothing that we'd ever thought of as a real lack, nothing not to be
admired or be repentant for,
but something to which we've never adequately given credence,
which might have consoling implications about how we
misbelieve ourselves, and so the world,
that world beyond us which so often disappoints, but which
sometimes shows us, lovely, what we are.

from Repair by C.K. Williams (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2000)

Simpatico

My aunt who is a scientist but behaves like a writer,
the one with stacks of books between her furniture;
aunt who is alone by choice with unopened boxes
all over her home; doctor-aunt, microbiologist aunt,
the one with cookbooks from around the world;
aunt like a redwood tree; the one whose tests have come
back fine but who needs a hearing aid; the aunt who rode
her bicycle across D.C., who visits farmer's markets
and Vietnamese restaurants, who hated working for the FDA;
Depression Era Aunt, War Time Aunt, woman who
raised a son and daughter, who is closer to her son than
to her daughter; aunt who strode from wedlock laughing;
favorite aunt, the one with a single sibling left, who has buried
a mother, two sisters and one brother, whose father
was not around; aunt as traveler, as speaker of many tongues;
the one who saves me the Times Book Reviews
and hands them over in a plastic bag; my aunt who would read
a praise poem that I wrote asked on Saturday if I'd write her obituary

Readings, Performances and Stuff

Saw people reading these books recently on the light rail:

At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Carmelo by Sandra Cisneros

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell (okay, that's me)

And here are a few events coming up in the Phoenix and Tucson area:

October 7: Mark Anthony Neal and Celine Parrenas Shimizu will speak about gender, race and justice from 12:30-2:30 in the Carson Ballroom, Old Main at ASU

October 8: Leslie Marmon Silko reads at the Heard Museum, Phoenix, at 7 p.m.

October 14: Kimiko Hahn reads in ASU's Memorial Union, Room 241A at 7:30 p.m., Tempe

October 15-18: "A Tribute to Donny Hathaway" a play based on poems by Ed Pavlice and performed by Black Poet Ventures at Playhouse on the Park in Phoenix.

October 16: Sherman Alexie reads at Heard Museum in Phoenix, 6 p.m.

October 16: "Fall into Poetry" reading featuring Gina Franco, Andrea Gibson, and Brian Turner at 2020 E. 4th St. in Tucson, 6 p.m.

"Let Music Thrill Your Butt"

Happy Monday! I will be posting soon now that I have a little time. I thought I'd share the first line of "poetry" the boy-child created with the magnetic poetry I bought over the weekend. A thrill indeed.

Schools, Poets, Windows, Mirrors

“Children need mirrors in which to see themselves and windows through which they see the world” – Lucille Clifton

I’m looking forward to President Obama’s address to schoolchildren tomorrow. I’m thankful that my kid will get to hear the speech in his classroom and I hope that he’s encouraged by the speech to make the most of his years in school. My son is in public school. His dad and I went to public schools and I went to public universities. I believe in the idea of public education, but honestly, I believed in it more before I had children. Like any parent, I want what is best for my kids and I’m not convinced that the best is at the public school just down the street. Part of it is that Arizona spends among the least amount of money per child in the nation and that our state legislature made even more cuts to education in the last budget. But I think I’d be worried even if I lived somewhere else. My friends who live in other states are like me, they constantly re-evaluate where their kids go to school and make adjustments. Private school or public? Charter school or home-schooling? There are so many choices for us to make, both good and bad, and that’s just talking about curriculum. Many of us also have concerns about diversity and cultural inclusion.

I like what Lucille Clifton had to say about how children learn: they need mirrors and windows. I hope I’m getting Ms. Lucille’s quote right. I wrote it down years ago when I heard her speak at Cave Canem, but I can’t find that notebook now and I’m working from my memory. I’ve heard Clifton speak on a couple occasions. In 2001 I was fortunate to be invited to an informal chat with the poet after one of her readings. There were about six of us in an L.A. apartment sitting wide-eyed at the poet’s knee (we were on the floor and Ms Lucille, of course, was seated on the sofa). Clifton shared so much wisdom about learning, writing, relationships, life. I felt then that had she not been a great poet she would have made a great educator.

There is a school here in Phoenix that was started by a poet named Mary Glover. Awakening Seed School opened in 1977 and it offers an amazing education to children from preschool through fourth grade. Glover has taken the best ideas from Montessori, Waldorf, and traditional education models. The result is a school that honors critical thinking, imagination, and respect for diverse cultures. It is a private school but it offers scholarships based on need. My son was there for a while and his sister is there now. It’s a school where the kids grow herbs and vegetables, cook with those vegetables, harvest and count what they’ve grown. It’s a school that teaches the West African tale of Anansi in kindergarten. It’s a school where children study myths from around the world, a place where students learn the history of catapults then construct their own catapult. It’s a school with an extensive library in each classroom, a school where a kindergarten teacher will write, illustrate and bind her own series of “first reader” books and give the entire series (35 little books) to each child. It’s a school where I’ve seen kindergartners who read and write like first graders.

I wish this type of education was available to every kid in our nation. We should do it just because.

**UPDATE**

My son will NOT get to watch the president tomorrow according to this slip of paper sent home with him that reads:

Schools nationwide have been invited by the Secretary of Education to watch a live speech from President Obama on Tuesday, September 8th. CUSD schools will not be able to view the speech live due to the technology that is being used to broadcast the speech; our bandwidth will not guarantee a quality feed to all classrooms. We will be able to use our current CUSD technology to record the speech and make it available to our students at a later time. We will keep you updated as to when and how we may use this broadcast.

Our Future is in Good Hands

I can't even explain how emotional I became when I saw this picture of William Farley and his little brother at the Poetry Out Loud national competition. They were crying, overcome with emotion, because of a poetry recitation contest. Farley, a high school senior from Virginia, won $20,000 toward his college education. He recited poems by Langston Hughes and William Carlos Williams. His high school (and all the high schools attended by the 12 finalists) get $500 to purchase books for their libraries.
Poetry doggone it! Our future is in good hands.