Friday, August 30, 2013

Poem of the Week: Kathi Wolfe

null  
Blind Ambition 

I'm in my seat,
averting my eyes,
those funhouse mirrors,
from the numbers
swimming across the blackboard.

Figures are slimy
monsters who slobber
all over your picnic
basket on the beach.
I grab my white cane
and run away from them.

"If you were Helen Keller,"
my teacher says,
"you'd get a gold
star in arithmetic."
Her voice sounds
like she's just
met Prince Charming.
"You would be a perfect
young lady," she says.

I don't want
to make friends
with fractions
or skip rope
with multiplication tables.

I want to chase
lightning bugs,
pull my brother's hair,
open up all the presents
before the company
comes on Christmas morning.

I don't want to be any
Goody-Two-Shoes Helen.
I want to baptize
my new sneakers
in the mud.


-Kathi Wolfe


From The Green Light (Finishing Line Press, 2013)
Used by permission.


Kathi Wolfe is a writer and poet. Her chapbook The Green Light was published by Finishing Line Press in Summer 2013. Wolfe is a contributor to the anthology Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, an American Library Association 2011 Notable book. Her chapbook Helen Takes the Stage: The Helen Keller Poems was published by Pudding House in 2008. Wolfe's poetry has appeared in Gargoyle, Beltway Poetry Review and other publications. In 2008, she was a Lambda Literary Foundation Fellow. Wolfe is a senior writer/columnist for the arts magazine Scene4 and a contributor to The Washington Blade.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

Thursday, August 29, 2013

September Sunday Kind of Love: Carlos Parada Ayala & Kathi Wolfe

 September
Sunday Kind of Love
Featuring

Carlos Parada Ayala &
Kathi Wolfe
    null
   

Sunday September 15, 2013
5-7pm

Busboys & Poets
2021 14th St. NW
Washington, DC 20009

Hosted by
Sarah Browning & Katy Richey
$5 online or at the door

As always, open mic follows!
Co-Sponsored by Busboys and Poets &
Split This Rock

Carlos Parada Ayala is the author of the poetry book, La luz de la tormenta/The Light of the Storm (Zozobra Publishing, Maryland, 2013) and co-editor of the anthology Al pie de la Casa Blanca: Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC (North American Academy of the Spanish Language, New York, 2010.) This poetry anthology, co-edited with Argentinian poet Luis Alberto Ambroggio, was selected by the US Library of Congress to celebrate 400 years of poetry written in Spanish in the United States. Parada Ayala is a recipient of Washington, DC's, Commission on the Arts Larry Neal Poetry Award and has received the Commission's individual artist's fellowship.
  
Kathi Wolfe is a writer and poet. Her chapbook The Green Light was published by Finishing Line Press in Summer 2013. Wolfe is a contributor to the anthology Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, an American Library Association 2011 Notable book. Her chapbook Helen Takes the Stage: The Helen Keller Poems was published by Pudding House in 2008. Wolfe's poetry has appeared in Gargoyle, Beltway Poetry Review and other publications. In 2008, she was a Lambda Literary Foundation Fellow. Wolfe is a senior writer/columnist for the arts magazine Scene4 and a contributor to The Washington Blade.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Poem of the Week: Gayle Danley

Become a slam poet in five steps - Gayle Danley
Become a Slam Poet in Five Steps - Gayle Danley
  


Lesson by Gayle Danley, animation by TED-Ed, narration by Paged d. Matam.



Used by permission.




Gayle Danley's explosive style combines movement and emotion as she performs her magic on the audience, sweeping them up in her words as she addresses and explores contemporary issues.  In addition to her motivational speaking and college performances, she has maintained a constant tour of elementary and secondary schools, helping students with traumatic experiences and teaching workshops on Slam poetry to all age groups. A multi award winning international Slam poet originally from N.Y., but now residing in Baltimore, her accomplishments as an artist, educator, and author are but a small part of her riveting mastery in fusing her poetry with the ability to touch her audience through real life experiences, leaving a lasting emotional message.

Pages d. Matam is a multidimensional creative writing and performance artist, residing in the D.C. metropolitan area, but originally from Cameroon, Africa. Author, educator, activist, playwright, host, event organizer, Award Winning slam poet, and his greatest accomplishment, being a father. A proud gummy bear elitist, bowtie enthusiast, professional hugger and anime fanatic, be prepared to be taken on a journey of cultural and personal discovery unapologetic in its silly, yet visceral and beautifully honest in its storytelling.  

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!



If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.   

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Talking Outside the Bounds: "Strumpets," History, & White Privilege






The email called me “whorish” and the “strumpet of a carpetbagger.” It called my recent editorial about my grandfather “revolting.”

Hot damn. Really? I had just published a New York Times editorial about a painful incident during the Civil Rights movement in Danville, Virginia. My grandfather wrote a letter of protest to a judge who had doled out stiff sentences to Civil Rights protestors. Arrested for writing the letter, my grandfather served a bench warrant and was ridiculed and publicly humiliated in his small mill town. 

In my article, I retraced the events. I meditated on some of what had been at stake for my grandfather, a white man, to speak out against the brutal violence and stark injustices faced by black protesters (and black people). I meditated about how my grandfather’s action both was and was not adequate protest to the era's injustice. And I’d interviewed the minister who organized the protests, Lawrence Campbell, to see how he looked back on that time now.

My piece mostly got a warm reception. What surprised me was that this virulently sour note, in my inbox, had the power to make me feel—at least briefly— ill, angry, defensive, hurt, small. I felt singled out, threatened. Eventually I called some friends and laughed off the hurt. After all: The man was accusing me of tying Danville to this violent and unsavory history—yet he was the one calling me a carpbetbagger. Oh please. Dear sir, I regret to inform: It’s hard to escape history if you go around calling people strumpets.

As I thought about it more, however, it seemed to me that this reprimand – its unpleasantness, its rotten smell – was one of the mechanisms by which racism is maintained and one of the reasons white people stay quiet about racism. If we talk outside the bounds, we might get dinged.

White people in my circle rarely say anything racist, but they also rarely want to talk about privilege, and, unless we’re really comfortable with someone, we don’t talk about race at all—we tiptoe around what might be lurking. We don't want to risk the pain, embarrassment, discomfort, and shame that might come out of conversations about race. After all, who really wants to confront that unsavory neighbor, that boorish uncle? We bite our lips at Thanksgiving thinking, "We don't agree." And then we also don't speak up. 

I’m aware, too, that the ability to sidestep threats of racial rudeness or violence is central to white privilege: As long as we’re quiet – as long as we don’t stir up fuss – nobody will be mean to us. We can “pass”- we can blend in. If need be, our personal politics can be hidden behind our skin. We can always change the subject.

The fabulous late poet Jake Adam York writes about traveling near lynch sites in the South, hearing his own voice and seeing his reflection as “conspiratorial” – as “resembling the redneck at the end of a joke.” If he needs to avoid white racists, he says, he can blend back in, become a big white man.

He’s describing a bodily privilege I’ve taken for granted, too. I once spent a summer driving through the South with a friend with a middle eastern complexion, an Israeli name. We were visiting my family. He mentioned how uncomfortable he felt on rural roads. Something deep in him kicked in to say, “You are not safe here.” In the rest of the country, in California or New York, he was white enough. But in rural Virginia, he felt other. That otherness felt terrifying.

The poems in my book The Forage House try, in part, to trace subtle margins—where something dangerous, not quite said, governs and creates racialized experience.

I begin to feel that white people need to talk openly and among themselves, intentionally – about how they learn race, how they learn racism, how they experience it, where, why, what purposes it serves in their lives, and how to begin to unlearn it. I ask these questions in full realization that many white people have not really asked them of themselves. I wonder what might happen if we gave a soul-searching reckoning. I have a theory that white people are also traumatized by racism, but privilege allows us to exist in spaces where we don’t see racism at work. It’s almost as if we are in a zone governed by an invisible electric fence—touch the fence, get a shock, retreat again. But how can we find the fence, take it down?

Certainly not by not talking about it. We must learn to map and name these shocks. We must not be afraid to name them, even if doing so comes at a cost. “Don’t you doubt for a moment that your grandfather went through hell, baby,” said Lawrence Campbell, the black minister I interviewed. “Those white people—they can be mean.” 


Oral History 1963

.....Now you ladies won’t you please take warning . . .

Year of Granddaddy Leigh in Danville.
Sign still up, dead mill
still open. He sang “Wreck of the Old ’97,”

built trains in the basement.
Year my aunt M. saw colored girls at the white beach.
She wrote home “it’s ok I think—I didn’t tell”—

That June, for marching
in the Confederacy’s last capital,
50 black men and women were beaten.

Hoses, dogs, a raw violence
deliberately unreported in the Danville Bee—
even blocks away it was possible

“not to know” who had been hurt by what.
(It’s a mighty long road from Lynchburg to Danville.)
The paper they drove to Greensboro to get

did not record the demonstrator’s names. Of 50, 47
required hospitalization.
.....(Louise Pinchback, Cleveland Holt, Rev. Lawrence Campbell—)

When these were then sentenced to fines and labor
(the law dated from Nat Turner’s rebellion)
granddaddy wrote Judge Aiken

and said: “you have served to aggravate” the town’s situation.
And: “Petulant.” “Inane.”
And: “I thought you should know what some people were thinking.”

By Monday policemen
arrived at his office. Bench warrant.
His sentence: hard labor, double the fine.

White man, mill executive:
He made all the state papers.
Only later, standing court in his own town

he backpedaled.
Apologized.
Expressed fear for his reputation.

............................Judge Aiken:
“Mr. Taylor, you should have considered your wife & children”—

from The Forage House


TESS TAYLOR currently reviews poetry for NPR’s All Things Considered and teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley. Her first book of poems, The Forage House, was released this month by Red Hen Press. She lives in El Cerrito, California. Tess will be reading from The Forage House at Sunday Kind of Love, Split This Rock's series in collaboration with Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC, January 19, 2014.


Friday, August 16, 2013

Poem of the Week: Tyehimba Jess

Tyehimba Jess

Mercy


the war speaks at night
with its lips of shredded children,
with its brow of plastique
and its fighter jet breath,
and then it speaks at daybreak
with the soft slur of money
unfolding leaf upon leaf.
it speaks between the news
programs in the music
of commercials, then sings
in the voices of a national anthem.
it has a dirty coin jingle in its step,
it has a hand of many lost hands,
a palm of missing fingers,
the stump of an arm that it lost
reaching up to heaven, a foot
that digs a trench for its dead.
the war staggers forward,
compelled, inexorable, ticking.
it looks to me
with its one eye of napalm
and one eye of ice,
with its hair of fire
and its nuclear heart,
and yes, it is so human
and so pitiful as it stands there,
waiting for my hand.
it wants to know my answer.
it wants to know how i intend
to show it out of its misery,
and i only want it
to teach me how to kill.


-Tyehimba Jess
Used by permission.

Tyehimba Jess' first book of poetry, leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. A Cave Canem Alumni, he received a 2004 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, was a 2004-2005 Winter Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and won a 2006 Whiting Award. He exhibited his poetry at the 2011 TedX Nashville Conference. He is Assistant Professor of English at College of Staten Island.    

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.   

Monday, August 12, 2013

Workshop with Gayle Danley and Pages Matam!

Pastries & Poetry: 
An Intergenerational
Writing Workshop

with Gayle Danley & Pages d. Matam
 Saturday August 24
2-5pm

1112 16th St. NW
Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036

Gayle1 Pages1  
5 Steps to Slam Poetry - by Gayle Danley
Watch Gayle Danley's
"5 Steps to Slam Poetry" 
 ~



In the TED Ed animated video "5 Steps to Slam Poetry," author, educator, and internationally acclaimed poet Gayle Danley describes the process of creating a "slam poem" with narration by Pages d. Matam. What is slam? Slam combines movement, voice, drama, and the written word for an unforgettable spoken word experience. It is a competitive poetry event in which the audience plays a central role. Join Gayle and Pages for pastries and poetry as they facilitate an inter-generational writing workshop that expands on the "5 Steps to Slam Poetry" - from writing to editing to reciting - and delves deeper into what ingredients are essential in baking the perfect poem. In this experiential workshop, participants will share their stories, engage in writing exercises, and discuss both the technical and emotional aspects of creative writing and performance.  

All levels welcome! Limited to 25 participants.  
All participants must register.  

$25 registration fee
Scholarships available -  
contact Elli Nagai-Rothe for details  

Registration Deadline: Thursday August 22 




About Gayle & Pages 

Gayle Danley's explosive style combines movement and emotion as she performs her magic on the audience, sweeping them up in her words as she addresses and explores contemporary issues. In addition to her motivational speaking and college performances, she has maintained a constant tour of elementary and secondary schools, helping students with traumatic experiences and teaching workshops on Slam poetry to all age groups. A multi award winning international Slam poet originally from N.Y., but now residing in Baltimore, her accomplishments as an artist, educator, and author are but a small part of her riveting mastery in fusing her poetry with the ability to touch her audience through real life experiences, leaving a lasting emotional message.

Pages d. Matam is a multidimensional creative writing and performance artist, residing in the D.C. metropolitan area, but originally from Cameroon, Africa. Author, educator, activist, playwright, host, event organizer, Award Winning slam poet, and his greatest accomplishment, being a father. A proud gummy bear elitist, bowtie enthusiast, professional hugger and anime fanatic, be prepared to be taken on a journey of cultural and personal discovery unapologetic in its silly, yet visceral and beautifully honest in its storytelling. 

Friday, August 9, 2013

Poem of the Week: Lauren May & Asha Gardner

"Insane" by Lauren May
and Asha Gardner
 

The DC Youth Slam Team uses spoken word poetry to teach and empower teens to speak up about issues of social justice. With free weekly writing workshops, monthly open mics, poetry slams, and annual travel to regional and national competitions, the team provides training and a platform for District youth to develop their poetry and public speaking skills with guidance from mentors and peers.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.   

Friday, August 2, 2013

Poem of the Week: Saul Landau

Saul Landau        
                                 
The Living Need a Poem   
    

The Cold War is over
why aren't we having fun
I have destroyed my internal Timex
kicked an innocent dog
stiffed four ratty beggars
my team has triumphed over
the incarnation of wickedness
I etch acrid sarcasm
on a child's mind
can I pull a poem from shrapnel
fashion words of beauty
from shrill shrieks of falling bombs
submerge the laments of those
with investments
in times of need
the living need a poem

 
-Saul Landau 

Used by permission.  

From My Dad Was Not Hamlet (Inst. for Policy Studies 1993)


Saul Landau is an internationally known scholar, author, commentator, and filmmaker on foreign and domestic policy issues. He has been a fellow at IPS since 1972 and at the Transnational Institute since 1974. He has written 13 books, thousands of newspaper and magazine articles and reviews, and made more than 40 films and TV programs on social, political, economic and historical issues.

Among his numerous accolades, Saul received the George Polk Award for Investigative Reporting and an Emmy for his 1980 film, "Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang" (with Jack Willis), as well as the Letelier-Moffitt Award for his human rights work. He won a Golden Apple award for "The Sixth Sun: Mayan Uprising in Chiapas" as well as first prizes in many festivals with films about Fidel Castro, Salvador Allende and Subcomandante Marcos. He is Professor Emeritus at Cal Poly Pomona University.  

Saul's newest film is "Will the Real Terrorist Please Standup" (2011). It is now available on DVD.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.   

Thursday, August 1, 2013

August Sunday Kind of Love: The DC Youth Slam Team


 August
Sunday Kind of Love
Featuring


The DC Youth Slam Team
   DCYST AUG
   


Sunday August 18, 2013


5-7pm



Busboys & Poets


2021 14th St. NW


Washington, DC 20009



Hosted by

Sarah Browning & Katy Richey
$5 online or at the door

As always, open mic follows!

Co-Sponsored by Busboys and Poets &
Split This Rock

Not local?
Live Stream the event at home!



The DC Youth Slam Team uses spoken word poetry to teach and empower teens to speak up about issues of social justice. With free weekly writing workshops, monthly open mics, poetry slams, and annual travel to regional and national competitions, the team provides training and a platform for District youth to develop their poetry and public speaking skills with guidance from mentors and peers.