Author Archive: admin
it’s been a while, autumn 2025
Macon Street, Brooklyn 2020
I’ve been fairly active on social media, but not here. However, we need to use all means possible to foster the imagination, to demand social justice, to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and elsewhere. Poets are doing their part as activists, translators, cultural diplomats. But we understand that progressive ideas, actions and people are under serious physical, legal, social and political assault. Some of us may try to run, but really no one can hide.
So yes, I recognize that dire straits is a good way to see these times. But also despite the madness, a time for us to make our own weather, to create our vision if we cannot create out version of the world we want to live in. We cannot get to the other side of these awful times if we do not have a vision of what we want. What is happening now has been decades in the making and if some of us live to get past it, they can begin to demolish this madness.
I am an elder at this point and I know that much of what is happening now is a direct response to a variety of serious societal gains in the 1950’s , 60s, and 70’s. The backlash to these gains is at its apex, which means it will tumble, how soon, how fast, who knows?
What I do know is that poets are fierce, courageous and we hate the poor use of any language. So I urge whoever reads this to read contemporary books of poetry there are some amazing writers in this nation and around the globe. And fight any attempt to close libraries and ban books. Fight this. Books don’t kill people, but IGNORANCE does.
I read a gazillion poets–here are a few names of living poets: Latasha N. Digges, Nicole Callihan, Cyrus Cassells, Tonya Foster, Marilyn Nelson, Marilyn Chin (love the Marilyns), John Keene, Brenda Hillman, Ricardo Maldonado, Peter Covino, Juan Felipe Herrera, Mark Doty, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, Andy Young, Kimiko Hahn, Willie Perdomo, Anne Waldman, Erica Hunt, Bob Rosenthal, Gregory Pardlo, Fady Joudah, Monica de la Torre, and Joy Ladin. There are many more. Find some poets to read, your sense of language will be lifted and you will have better word use when trolling idiots.
The roses are still blooming on Macon Street. Children have graduated from high school and college. Elders still try to rollerdisco to 80s hip hop. Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City.
LET US TRY TO LIVE AS BEST WE CAN WHILE THE MADNESS HAPPENS.
27th Poets House Brooklyn Bridge Poets Walk
I had the great honor to read in the 27th Bridge Walk, Poets House annual fundraiser and fun thing to do. The weather was delightful and I joined Rita Dove, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Adrian Metejka, and Brenda Shaughnessy at the start and dinner. Poets House interviewed each of prior to the event.
https://poetshouse.org/patricia-spears-jones-on-beloved-community/
Books by Bridge Walk Readers.
The world (whirls) are spinning April 2022
This morning a Black man in some sort of uniform wearing a gas mask pulled out a canister that temporary blinded people and then shot those within a subway car going into the 36th Street Station in Brooklyn.
The sun is bright this day. The air is crisp.
My neighbors and my landlord are doing repairs on buildings up and down Macon Street. The planet is spinning–there is so much rage. War in the West. War in the East. War on almost every continent on our globe. Wars in ourselves.
So how best to remember that like my neighbors hammering, good and useful things happen at the same time as catastrophes. Here’s a brief riposte.
So it is good to just say that I am grateful for all who celebrated with me this past Friday, April 8 when I was honored by The Poetry Project at its gala celebrating the Project’s 55th year–the other honoree was Rene Ricard who departed in 2014 after an often tumultuous but poetry driven life. Vincent Katz and Arden Wohl were the Gala’s co-chairs and Kyle Dacuyan, the Project’s ED set a generous and convivial tone to the evening. Here are a few notes from my part as honoree:
Jason Kao Hwang played a beautiful violin solo and it was definitely my part of the program. Lorraine O’Grady was filmed talking about my work in A Lucent Fire, and she read “The Perfect Lipstick”‘ a 3 minute reel about me included Cornelius Eady, Alice Notley, Maureen Owen, Guillermo F. Castro, and Charlotte Carter; and then Tyehimba Jess basically testified on my behalf and read “Love Come and Go”.It took just about everything in me to not cry. And then it was me and yes, i was on point. I found a poem I wrote back in 1974-75 as a way to show just how long I’ve been associated with the Project and then spoke about the importance of the Project and I ended the speech by reading “Seraphim” with the last line “And unto joy” which seems utterly apt. We see such horror, terror, rage, and we write about them-if there is one thing we can try and do as artists and writers and humans on this planet is remind ourselves that joy abides as well.
I am thankful to have friends and family who encourage me. I know that readers when they find my books are pleased to have done so. Over the past 10 years, there has been a growing look at my work and greater interest. I have lived long enough to gather some applause. I know that this is not always the case. Good friends joined me at Table 5: Willie Perdomo, Charlotte Carter and Marie Brown–Black and Brown literati. We are here and we are working and know the world is spinning, but writers are always about dancing on the whirls.
new season new reason to learn new things. aka AUTUMN in New York
FAWC BROCHURE
Today is the first full day of autumn in New York and I am humming Vernon Duke’s tune with Sarah Vaugh’s lush voice in my mind’s ear. It is also John Coltrane, Ray Charles, Louise Nevelson’s paradisal birthday. While I believe that Trane is in heaven, where those delicious sinner, Charles and Nevelson–well who knows? I have been printing and re–reading poems to start off the first asynchroous workshops I’ve ever offered. I hope I do it well. I love teaching poetry workshops, mostly for the dialogue within the classes. I love working with fellow writers–knowledgeable and passionate and open to trying new things. And for whatver reason my workshops work for poets–new poems emerge or old ones get refurbished. And many new books start or morph in my workshops: Renato Rosaldo, Jordan Franklin, Metta Sama, Meghan Dunn are a few of my former “students” with books out or that are coming out. But the best thing is that poets write new poems. So I hope I get a good crew for the 9 Living Women Poets workshop. https://fawc.org/24-pearl-street-program/
********I will also be teaching for the 92nd Street Y. I’ve taken classes and I know how rigorous and vigorous they can be. DEADLINE SEPTEMBER 24. Guidelines and Info at https://www.92y.org/class/adv-poetry-with-patricia-spears-jones
Yes it is autumn in new york-and it feels like “home” 
Summer zooms along.
Vision Fest salute to Amina Claudine Myers
I am so pleased to have performed on the night of performances and tributes to the amazing musician and composer, Amina Claudine Myers. Amina has been making important music for 4 decades–piano works, works for the organ and choral music. On July 23, her artistry was on full display at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, in Brooklyn. The Vision Festival 25th year was a powerful and poignant one–it included an elegaic program for the now late Milfred Graves. But the second night belong to Amina, glorious singers, and yours truly, the poet. Amina and I grew up in Arkansas–so it felt very homegirl. Plus Amina’s relatives flew to NYC for this honor. There are many women making music in jazz and improvisational music, but there aren’t as many as there should be, just saying Amina was one of the few women musicians accepted into the AACM back in the day and she’s done much to make the scene more inclusive. Progress is often too damn slow. But progress has been made. I was glad to be up in front of the audience and Jason Hwang, with whom I’ve done several programs was there too. Amina received great applause, many bouquets and the adoration of her fans.
Teaching from home
This has been a busy summer of readings, workshops ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM: Gemini Ink, HWVC, Hurston-Wright ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM so reading before actual human beings in a large, fairly open space–Pioneer Works is huge was a mixed blessing. And with the Delta variant & whatever other mutating viruses arrive, I see ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM in the near and possibly far future.
Whatever and however we can, we must continue to make ceremony. We must celebrate the creativity and staying power of artists, elders and younger ones. We must work hard to be as good as we can be because so much that surrounds us is nasty, violent, evil (see Texas Republicans as an example). Summer with its heat, rains, hurricanes, tornadoes is almost gone. And I must say I am pleased to be at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts with a fully funded Richard S. and Julia Louise Reynolds Poetry Fellowship. First week here I read with a wonderful prose writer–we really had a blast.
What can we do to keep going to doing bad times, we do our work and with style. Caitlyn Myer and I did at VCCA.
Caitlyn and I read poetry and prose at VCCA
Another chance to sing a Black Girl’s Song
Mariposa Fernandez and her colleagues at Lehman College reached out to me to join her and Latasha N. Diggs in one more reading from African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song. The anthology, edited by Kevin Young has become an instant classic(wow). I am honored to be a contributor and I was honored to perform in this reading. We were able to get two fabulous ASL interpreters so that the hearing impaired were able to join in.
Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SH4IThHMIc&list=PLB4i8n78Nlt8zkw-7GlQP47CX2LdWBQ4W&index=3
SPRING and the “normal” is not new
Macon Street, Brooklyn 2020
My neighbors on Macon Street are laughing and chatting. Dogs are being walked and dinners are being picked up at nearby restaurants, delis, bistros. Most of my neighbors wear their masks with a kind of fierce stylishness that I totally admire. Like, yeah there’s a vaccine and all but Covid is out and about and infecting people.
I was not in New York City last year when everything but “essential services” shut down. I can’t know how disorienting and frightening that was–I watched endless episodes of CNN and PBS and read notices on Facebook. I was in Virginia in “faculty housing” on an almost deserted college campus. I really got to know birds and a variety of critters, mostly squirrels, but rabbits, even foxes and one day people were riding horses. Oddly, I did not see deer. And in its own way, it was also frightening. Wearing a mask while walking across campus to online teach my class was odd but necessary. So much of the past year has been about the odd but necessary. And so much of it gave our planet a chance to sort of re-calibrate. Fish returned to rivers and streams. Cougars showed up. Shocking how much humans disrupt until you see what happens when we walk lightly on the planet.
Now we have a new President, who does not tweet and is not particularly entertaining. This is now reflected in ratings loss for cable television. So glad President Biden stands up, talks directly and then gets back to the actual business of governing.
But the nation he so loves and has wanted to lead for a long time is a wounded nation. Close to 600,000 people have died from Covid and it is only now that the nation because of Biden is seeing this as a national tragedy. Many of those deaths were hastened by the poor policies of the Trump administration and Republican governors who yanked away public health requirements and opened up states before the virus could be reduced. I despair for family and friends in Texas, in Florida, and Tennessee. These same governors make getting vaccinated a bloodsport. But let’s be real, this pandemic has shown just how bad many political leaders really are. When any of them actually do what they are supposed to be doing for the public health, it’s like a miracle.
But everyone wants to get back to normal like my neighbors. They want to dance like its 1999. They want barbecue like it 2005. It’s 2021 and normal is not new. And yet, some things have returned with a vengeance: race hatred and misogyny in the killings of 8 people (7 women, 6 of whom were Asian) in Atlanta and 10 people in Boulder, Colorado, one of whom was a police officer, father of 7 children! Mass killings are back. Assaults on BIPOC remain vicious. Refusal to deal gun regulations are back.
Oh how I hope this not all that new normal does not persist. Because in many ways the past year has given many of us a serious lesson in how to handle a sustained crisis; how to grow in spirit; how to truly self-reflect; how to make community in different ways (zoom anyone); how to be patient; how to fight (social justice protests) and how to start a serious conversation on a future differently lived. We have this amazing opportunity to go beyond visions into the concrete. We do not need to return to “normal”. We need to recognize that the ways in which most people are governed (brutal and anti-democratic); how we care for this planet (lot of talk, little action) and how difficult it is to end inequities (capitalism is a problem) must change. It is that how, and in that I have not one answer.
RR Crossing Forrest City, Arkansas
OMG 2020 IS ALMOST OVER!
Teaching Hollins University, Spring 2020
A sunny Monday morning in Brooklyn. The air goes from chilly to warmish back to chilly–a good winter day in the metropolis. Quiet too–that post Christmas quiet when friends and family are satiated, gifts opened and delighted upon. Or they are returned for that refund. But this year’s Christmas was already quiet. Few people traveling and those that do under extreme circumstances as in a neighbor saying he was driving to Florida to wave at his grand children there. New strain of Covid is keeping him masked up and off airplanes. That kind of Christmas. But along with all kinds of caution, my neighbors have gone all out with lights and decorations–with the exception of Our Lady of Victory a RC church, no one has times for creche but oh those lights. I do miss the blow up Santa and elves, but the family that put them up each year have left.
Indeed, this is a year of departures: the awful and shameless deaths of people from COVID19. The predatory and stalking deaths of Black Americans by police officers from the North to the South with the death of George Floyd added an horrible symmetry as it recalled the death of Eric Garner-both claiming their loss of breath: “I can’t breathe”. Indeed the loss of breath from the police, from the virus, from a variety of environmental accidents, episodes, intentional destruction. And BIPOC (not my favorite acronym) bore the brunt because of systematic and sustained structural issues: racism, sexism, poverty, economic stress. The loss is huge and how it will be balanced remains an issue.
But, a great fight has been joined this year. More people voted in the national election for the first time since the 1960s! Democracy really was on the line and yes, it still is. But the BidenHarris ticket won and by a solid majority. That Trump and is supporters continue the fiction of voter fraud show just how much work we will have to continue to do. The Trump people like to blow up city blocks, kill unarmed protestors and drive cars into people demonstrating for justice. Whether you say defund the police abolish the police or reform the police, you are saying that current policing across this nation is poor and THINGS GOTTA CHANGE.
So this year many things changed for me. I lived in Virginia for 4 months on campus at Hollins University where I was the Louis D. Rubin Writer in Residence. I was prepped to do amazing things: teach, write, read, socialize, explore Virginia and maybe even East Tennessee. And well I taught a really great course with a terrific group of graduate and undergraduate students. I went to JMU at Harrisonburg for a Furious Flower book launch. Before the shutdown I got to eat and drink at interesting restaurants in Roanoke. And then it stopped. And while my Brooklyn friends locked down; I was left isolated. It was challenging but I learned to trust my instincts while living on an almost deserted campus. I learned to listen to the birds, watch the squirrels, rabbits and on Mother’s Day in May, foxes. People helped me get through the residency, but all of those glorious plans remained unfulfilled.
Much is riding on the coming year, but despite many things that did not happen; many things did in 2020. I published important new work both prose and poetry. Two prose works: memoirs–were published, the most recent at https://www.pangyrus.com/category/essay-memoir/. The New Yorker published two poems: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/16/nia
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/30/betye-saars-mystic-chart-for-an-unemployed-sorceress
I curated a Radical Poetry Reading for The Brooklyn Rail New Social Environment https://brooklynrail.org/events/2020/09/16/radical-poetry-reading-with-patricia-spears-jones/
and am pleased that CA Conrad asked me to join an experiment as part of The Poetry Project’s Annual New Year’s Day Fundraiser which goes virtual. https://www.poetryproject.org/events/the-47th-annual-new-year-s-day-marathon
huge moon huge dreams
And finally like many of you I did what I could to keep in touch with family and friends; to support social justice; remove Trump; and stay healthy. None of this is easy. But nobody’s bored. I know I am not.
Keep these words in mind in coming year: CREATIVITY, GENEROSITY, KINDNESS, INTELLIGENCE, LOVE. We will need all of these things to keep our minds and bodies whole and prepared to struggle for a just world where human dignity is standard, not neglected. Where art is exalted not exhausted. Where we will be able to hold each other again. Yes Black Lives Matter. Yes, the environment matters. Yes, disarmament matters. Yes, the struggle for peace continues.