Author Archive: admin

Autumn in New York

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It is Moon Festival Day several Chinese friends tell me.  The Jewish High Holy Days have come and gone.  The toxic president continues to spew is bile. The weather is stunningly beautiful.  Yes, it is Autumn in New York.  Soon everyone will show photos of their walks with brightly colored trees. Or they will show photos of fleeing fires.  Or putting on snow tires.  Oh oh oh the weather in America, in the Northern Hemispheres is now framed, flooded, and flamed by climate change.

As a poet I do what I can to find as many ways as possible to not feel so isolated, anxious, depressed as the weather demands pure love.  On September 11, 2001 the weather was sparkling.  I do not trust sparkling weather anymore.  But it is beautiful.

As a poet, I am organizes workshops, writing post cards to get out the vote, organizing fundraisers for Democrats and curating programs.  Here’s one that helped me with my anxiety depression and isolation.  I thank The Brooklyn Rail for the opportunity to curate and present these amazing poets. oh and VOTE

 

Revulsion Revolt

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Bed-Stuy Brooklyn

Macon Street, Brooklyn 2020

When I returned to Brooklyn, the sun was bright, my apartment cleaned but utterly re-arranged. It was jarring, disturbing, it felt like a violation.  The kind person who stayed in my space for a couple of months had tried to make the space her own and that makes sense but she failed to put things back.  And all of this was while dealing with the extreme lock down in New York City.

The virus took a huge toll on the city and esp. Central Brooklyn.  At least two people in the neighborhood that I know (knew) were taken by the virus. Others buried many more.  All that grief, sadness during lockdown with few ways to physically connect have left people prepared to greet this extraordinary spring after a winter when the president and his advisors sent conflicting and often useless messages, but the main one was WE WILL NOT TAKE CARE OF YOU.  This to the now 100,000 plus citizens who have buried their loved ones.  People were prepared to walk into the sunlight,greet the spring. Little did we know what this spring would bring.

Six years ago, Eric Garner was killed by the police who were using an illegal choke hold in broad daylight.  A week or so ago, George Floyd was killed by the police who were using an unsanctioned choke hold.  Both men said as they were dying “I can’t breathe”.  That is an awful symmetry.

Helicopters are in the air over my neighborhood on this hot June Day. At 2 p.m. the Memorial for George Floyd will take place. Floyd’s murder on top of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor are what can only be seen as the last straw.  Thousands upon thousands of American citizens are taken to the streets from tiny towns to Minneapolis where Floyd’s last breath was taken.  Thousands upon thousands of citizens are expressing intense REVULSION towards the president and his henchmen; towards the widespread militarization of policing from small towns to major urban centers; thousands upon thousands of Americans of all shapes, sizes, abilities, sexualities,  gender identities, ethnicities, and races have expressed solidarity with Black Americans who have daily met with contempt and bias from police and who have born the deadly brunt of COVID-19.  This righteous revolt show that Americans are ready to change the narrative.

What is next is going to ask of us extraordinary work.  America has 400 years of creating systems of policing and oppressing people of African descent.  From enslavement; the Black Codes;  Jim Crow; discrimination and violence (night riders, lynching, etc,) Black Americans have fought to break down and demolish institutionalized racism, but we can’t do it alone.  Institutionalized racism serves White people and their allies with social, economic and cultural privilege(s).  The refutation of those privileges so that a more just , generous and caring society may truly develop is going to be hard for many to deal with.  It will take generations.  But it has started.

My dear friend, Soraya Shalforoosh,  a terrific poet from posted a poem by her son Dylan who is 11.  Dylan is Persian, Algerian, and Polish-American is still in elementary school and he is part of a generation who is anti-racist.   The children truly are beginning to perform that new world I and so many others have fought for and still seek.   Revulsion towards those who oppress, withhold justice and murder is so deeply felt.   This revolt may lead a place of societal transformation., at least we can continue to push push push for that change.  As Charlie Parker played when I was a child:    NOW IS THE TIME.

George Floyd 

When I first saw the video on tktok

I was scared but

I watched it again

I knew the video was real

But I felt so sad and also at the same time

I wanted to punch that cop

I sat with that feeling

Why is he racist?

Why did it happen?

Did George do something wrong?

Or no?

I skipped videos and saw people being peppersprayed

“ I can’t breathe”

That night i figured out how to change my profile to the Black Lives Matter fist

I was also thinking to myself if I was black, I could be next.

That made me worried for other people, especially my friends. who are black

I was worried for my cousin who is black .

a few moments at Hollins

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Zoom–online  teaching is  not my  forte,  but  as  with  my  colleagues  worldwide,  online  instruction  took  place. Since  I was  isolated  on  campus,  I decided  to  use  my  office  on  the  3rd  floor  of  the  hall  that  housed  the Creative  Writing  Department  offices.  Even  when  I had  to  walk  up  three flights  with  a cane,  I  am  glad  I used  the  office.   I  had  7 students–5   grad  students  &  2 undergrads–they  are  talented  and  they  worked  hard,  created  new  poems  and  presented  on  a wide  range  of  historical  and  contemporary  American  poets.  I am   glad to  have  work  by  them.

The grounds at  Hollins are lovely- hilly, green,  huge canopy of trees and on the grounds tiny and wondrous flowers.  It was great to see the redbud, dogwoods and lilacs.  Now the peonies are rose scenting the campus.

I will miss this place. But I am glad that I will be going home.

Zoom teaching

Far from Brooklyn

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It is strange to be far from Brooklyn during the coronavirus public health crisis.  My neighbors have called me or texted me to make sure that I am still breathing.  It’s like that —we really have to be vigilant.  The arts community has taken a huge hit: musicians,poets,filmmakers,choreographers, even a most famous drag queen all now gone.  And here I am on a small college campus in SW Virginia with few people around.  The residency at Hollins University has brought me wonderful students, time to read and yes time to write.  While not totally self-isolated, it almost feels that way.  I am grateful for this beauty and calm in the midst of a pandemic.  I pray  each  day  for  all  of  us  on  this  planet  and while  this  is  a time  of  great  stress,  it  is  for  some  a time  for  reflection,  creativity   and   thoughtfulness.  I know that many friends are finding ways to use this time for their work, but I know it is taking a toll on most of us.  And there is great grief across the city, the nation, around the world.

We  cannot  return   to  a society  that  can  so  easily  collapse  on  poor and working people.   20 million  people  out  of  work  in the U.S.  tells us  that  the  work   was  not working for  them.  We have to do different.  We have to take care of humans, creatures of the ground and creatures in the sky, the air, water and yes, violets.

the wind is LOUD, the wind does HOWL

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Selfie in b&W

Today is the Second Sunday After Ephiphany.  It started warm and misty.  The temperature dropped and dropped.  Now the wind is howling.  A full moon with a most poetic moon: The Super Wolf Blood Red Moon will be eclipsed in a few hours.  If the wind was not howling and the temperature not sooo low, I’d go outside and watch the lunar mass slowly disappear.

Today is the Second Sunday After Epiphany and here is my own little sermon:

Because of the weather the service today at Saint John’s did not have all the bells & whistles some in the Anglican tradition love–incense etc. Mother Shelley preached down in the nave on spiritual gifts. The choir was not there so we had to sing. I was today’s lector and had the great joy of reading First Corinthians. where St. Paul enumerates “spiritual gifts” always claiming they come, but from the “same Spirit.” I grew up in the Pentecostal Church, so I know about Speaking in Tongues. I’ve been to Quaker meetings so I know about waiting until the Spirit moves you (quake). I know that some friends are healers, others seek into the future, others are wise. Still others are

Impromptu bouquet, Captiva Island, FL

flowers & shells, Captiva Island, FL, 2018

adept at expressing joy.

We are in the midst of a great crisis, the Church for me is a ballast against the the volatility of these times. Without the love of God, my family friends and church community, I could not do half of what I do as a human being on this planet. I am not sure what my spiritual gift is. But I do know why peace is sought, Why quiet is necessary. Why those who scream loudest in the public sphere make the least sense. Do what ever you need to do to find space for your own being’s health and sustainability–the horrors of these times will continue. Find your place of peace and use it to fight for justice and love.  Find your Beloved Community.

Super Moon, Captiva, FL

Just before the solstice

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window lights–home base

The weather is December–bright some days, gray others–chill even when the temperature reaches in the 40s. The weather is December and now we stay inside and look inside.  One of my students titled her chaplet-Internal Struggles and yes, there they all are.  But out of that internal struggle, comes external personality–and with great hope, a good one.

This has been a year of travel, teaching, keynotes and risks.  Many risks.  I am glad to making them at my age–most of my friends are retired and doing interesting things: new kinds of jobs; more artistic work; volunteering; more travel.  Many are grand parents now.  As an unmarried woman with no children, I do my best with my nephews.

Two residencies kept me from New York City for a total of 9 months!  First, thanks again to Rauschenberg Residency in January and February this winter.  Captiva Island is a place of great beauty, serenity and a wonderful place to make art.  Then later in July and August I went to France-to my first international residency.  Both places were on the ocean–the Gulf in Florida; the Mediterranean in France.   Even though I live in New York and see the Atlantic on occasion–just go to Coney Island, there was something truly transforming about the coast of France.  It may have been the light.

And light has been so needed–the light that illuminates, that sparkles, that bring out the best.  There are other kinds of light that appear to do these things, but we all know that’s not even close to true.  And we also need the darkness that allows the sight of stars, the moon, the myths of the sky–and this year I got to see many celestial light sky un illiuminated.

Super Moon, Captiva, FL

The Super Moon, Captiva Florida

And in France, I saw the lunar eclipse.  It was magical.  And there were shooting stars. I can only say how thankful I am to the BAU Institute for the opportunity and the Camargo Foundation for housing us.  The time in France was also time away for the U.S. and I started in Paris with a visit with my good friend Margo Berdeshevsky.  She wined, dined and walked me about the city and I finally got to see Shakespeare and Company where I was able to buy Margo’s book for the large and diverse poetry section.  While there, my poem “Seraphim” was about to be published by The New Yorker and there was no place to get an actual copy of the magazine there.  The French really know how to put we English speaking, English using people in our place.  But my poem had been recorded and is at   https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/30/seraphim.  Last night in Paris, we dined with Alice Notley, the perfect way for a poet to prepare for the morning train ride from Paris to Marseilles.  During the residency–I got to travel to Marseilles and to Aix-en-Provence where I was the perfect tourist.

Bookstore in Marseille, France, August 2018

In France I stayed in the Panorama Building at the Camargo, Foundation on the 3rd floor with a huge terrace and the light was bright.  .  On a day as gray as this one I so miss that light and the heat–which could be oppressive except for the French families cavorting in the sea.

Terrace, Camargo Fdn, Cassis France

my terrace at Panorama Building, Camargo Fdn.
Cassis, France

I am glad to have gone to Chicago, Denver, Tampa, St. Petersburg,  Rutgers, New Brunswick, Winston-Salem, Provincetown, Connecticut Circuit sites, and Buffalo. And it was great to read at The Schomburg for the Pauli Murray Book Launch, Poets House for the Fay Chiang Tribute, CUNY Grad Center for the June Jordan conference, at the Poetry Foundation with Kimberly Lyons, and for Belladonna.  Moreover, via Patricia Nicholson Parker and Art for Arts/Vision Festival, I performed with Jason Hwang at Roulette and Luke Stewart at Weeksville Heritage Center.   These were amazing experiences.  I want to thank all of the hosts for conferences, workshops and reading series.  The people who develop these programs work very hard to bring a range of poets and writers to their audiences so all of these fine people are in my Angels Book List.

The Vision Festival, Roulette

The Vision Festival, Jason Hwang Duo Roulette, May 2018

This year took away some seriously important voices esp. women’s voices:  Barbara Barg, Ntozake Shange, and then Meena Alexander, whose struggle with cancer I knew about.  We were to have read together with Kimiko Hahn for Meen’a newest book, Atmospheric Embroidery–alas her final hospitalization took place the day before that reading.  I miss her. I miss Barg, who grew up in our mutual hometown of Forrest City, Arkansas. And yes, I am one of those people who happened to be at the premier of For Colored Girls at The Public Theater before it went to Broadway–all who were there saw the stage levitate.  We did. For that, I salute Ntozake who navigated fame’s stormy seas –sometimes well, sometimes not.  So glad she left quietly because she was not quiet in life and for that every woman poet should show gratitude.   On the shortest day, remember those who brought you inspiration, joy, challenge or opportunity and thank them.

Ntozake Shange and Patricia Spears Jones 2016

Ntozake Shange and Patricia Spears Jones photo by Coreen Simpson

What we need and who has provided UPDATED

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Ntozake Shange and Patricia Spears Jones 2016

Ntozake Shange and Patricia Spears Jones photo by Coreen Simpson

UP DATE:  Earlier this year, I recorded my favorite Gwendolyn Brooks sonnet for the Library of Congress.  It was supposed to have been posed in April, but there were some issues with approval from Ms Brooks’ Estate. Finally, that happened and the poem is posted.  Like Pauli Murray, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Margaret Walker, Alice Walker, Ms. Brooks’ work looms large in my psyche.  And it is great to see the generation that I am part led by the now late Ntozake Shange, Thulani Davis, Akua Lezli Hope, Marilyn Nelson, the late Monica Hand, Elizabeth Alexander, Claudine Rankine, Erica Hunt have continued to explore the power and poignancy of Black women’s lives and examine Black women’s thought.   In my post, I include my elegy, meditation on Akilah Oliver, who was an extraordinary poet.  Where straight or queer, we are poets of imagination, innovation, and cultural constancy.  I thank Gwendolyn Brooks for her fierce foundation for us and Akilah Oliver for her experimentation and her joy–both are truly misssed.

http://www.loc.gov/poetry/poetry-of-america/american-identity/patriciaspearsjones-gwendolynbrooks.html

 

Gwendolyn Brooks-book cover

Gwendolyn Brooks-The Whisky of Our Discontent

Early October I gave a keynote at LIT TAP and and it allowed me to think about culture, privilege, power and how we as Black women poets often provide import ways to think in words. The link is at the end of this post.

Now two powerful women writers and thinkers and innovators in this culture: Ntozake Shange and Maria Irena Fornes have passed.  Shange was an extraordinary writer and performer.  She perfected the use of choreopoem, a performance trope that was in full sway at the start of the 70s esp. by women poets and dancers.  As a member of the audience at the premiere of For Colored Girls at the Public Theater with my best friend Debbie Wood, who knew the composer, I can always claim being at what was truly a new and powerful moment in the theater and for Black women.  And we needed something new.  We needed that play.  We still do.  Not everything Shange wrote is as distilled and life altering, but her work in total is now part of world literature and she gave every Black woman poet an idea of what it means to be so terribly successful and how difficult it is to maintain artistic vision, integrity and health.  Maria Irena Fornes was a queer Latina who created her own version of theater.  She also taught two-three generations of theater artists including my good friend Lenora Champagne.  She was 88 and had had Alzheimer’s for several years.  At least the downtown theater world has continued to produce her work and watched over her.  Zake was only 70 and she had been ill for several years.  Even so, she recently published a new bilingual collection to much acclaim.

Women writers, artists, poets, thinkers are often overlooked, neglected, misrepresented or dismissed.  And yet, we persist because we have voices and we just gonna sing.

https://electricliterature.com/the-poetry-of-queer-black-women-shows-us-how-to-move-forward-9a01ef66f32c

 

VOTE 2018 as if your life depended on it

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Mural-San Antonio

Everyone laughed at the impossibility of it,
but also the truth. Because who would believe
the fantastic and terrible story of all of our survival
those who were never meant
to survive?

Joy Harjo  “Anchorage”

Sort of quick update and an even more sense of urgency:  Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, the backlash and out right lies made towards her and about her. The elevation of a mediocre jurist to the Supreme Court are shocking but not surprising.  Power and privilege by wealthy white people are on full display.   The presidency which was a minority election means that all of the people making policy for this nation were not elected by the majority of voting Americans. We are really in an awful state.  But as Joy Harjo’s poem reminds us we “survive.”  Indeed, we can thrive, but we gotta fight for that nurture.

This is a very crucial year for this Republic.  We have a chance to put into place new and different Representatives, governors, et al in the Congress.  But that will not happen if people are not registered or do not vote.

I am from Arkansas and I still remembered the many roadblocks placed in way of voting by Black people.  Folks died across the South trying to exercise a right of Citizenship, the right to vote.  It is also telling that once acquired, Blacks begin to exert serious political power and once that happened the Republicans began to use every trick in the book to undermine that power.  We are where we are now because Black and Brown people have been “legally” removed from voters’ rolls. Voter suppression is a wound in this nation’s governance.  A serious one.  Russians have not done as much to harm the electorate as state legislators from Wisconsin to Georgia.

On 9-29-2018 I joined women poets including a trans woman to read in an event to raise $$ for the Democratic Party.  I tend to see myself as independent, but I am a registered Democrat and this year that makes me know that I am on the side of civil and human rights; gender equality;  environmental protection; education; and health and the protection of Social Security.

There is little poetry in politics, but if the political culture changes even more, and sooner or later poetry will be at the core of politics–why not dream.

VOTE as if your life depended on.

Anthology from Pam Ushuk,et al

Cutthroat Journal pub this amazing collection 2-2017. Proceeds go to ACLU

Getting back in the groove

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Schomburg Center twitter feed

September 18—I and Kevin Young will read poetry byPauli Murray, the acclaimed lawyer, activist, Episcopal priest (she’s a saint in the church) as part of The Startling Life of Pauli Murray at the Schomburg Center. The main people will be the great scholars Patricia Bell-Scott and Brittney Cooper. 6:30 p.m.www.nypl.org/events/programs/schomburg. Free.
September 29—as part of 100,000 Poets for Change, Larissa Shmaillo has organized a Women’s Reading at the Cornelia Street Café -the proceeds go to the Democratic Party.We join Lee Anne Brown, Elaine Equi, Trace Petersen and Rachel Hadas.29 Cornelia Street. $20 cover. 6 p.m
This is what I sent to my email list on September 11.  It was a way of getting back in the groove.  I am still amazed that I was away from my home base here on the 3rd floor of a tenement building in Bed-Stuy.  And at every place, I was on the water: Florida, Massachusetts and then the South of France.  I’d never done an international residency, but the BAU Institute organizers were really helpful and my fellow residents are “old hands” at residencies so they were super helpful.
It has taken me time to get used to American food again.  I ate such amazing vegetables and fruits while in France and so inexpensive was the food (other than cheese, cheese was pricey) that the sticker shock at the KeyFood took my breath away.  Oh the peaches oh the apricots, oh the melons.  Oh Oh Oh.  We did several potlucks and I have to say, the visual artists were the best cooks.  Cassis was craggy and the Mediterranean sparkled and I loved the light house. It was fun watching the French vacationers–whole families and their dogs walk up and down the hills, hang at the beach and listen to the dj’s boring disco selections for the young people.  ABBA will never go away Never.
But I am back.  I am teaching a poetry workshop at Hunter.  I have a range of readings and events but not as much out of city traveling as done earlier this year.  So I will participate in a reading for Barrow Street Press, Belladonna Collaborative, etc. and will participate in tributes to poets who were also good friends:  Fay Chiang, Bill Kushner and Lorenzo Thomas.  October is always the month of ghosts.
Yesterday I voted for Cynthia Nixon.  I knew she wasn’t going to win, but I just wanted the party establishment to know that there really are a third of the party that questions the manner and policies of the establishment.  I am pleased that Leticia James prevailed over 3 other candidates for AG.  I have been a supporter since she ran for City Council representing the district I lived in.  I so hope she prevails.  Walking around on a rainy, foggy day and seeing folks going to vote in the primary was sobering and encouraging.  There were definitely more people voting and it turns out 23% voted which is twice as many people as done 4 years ago.  And progressives are starting to make serious inroads.  This lifts my spirits.
Spirits and ghosts–it feels like I am working with spaces that limn the living and the dead.  Years ago, this would have terrified me, now it seems as if those deep into language, into observation are working the lines between the many worlds we may inhabit.  Ancestral memory is a real thing. Conversations with the dead are powerful and useful. And calling the names of those we love clothes us in compassion.  That is why I loved the movie, Coco.  For years I have talked abut calling names and so the names of Fay, Bill and Lorenzo will be called.  And it has been a joy to learn about Pauli Murray–her life of service, study, writing and organizing is a HONORABLE LIFE.  If I can do half of what she did, I’d be more than proud.  Next Tuesday, we give her props.  I am honored to have been asked.
The city is loud and every time I go to Hunter I plunge myself into the land of the Young (loud) and the last stubborn roses always amaze me.  But I miss the terrace of the Panorama Building at Camargo Foundation.  Loved drinking wine and looking at the stars.  Loved looked off to the beaches and hills during the day.  My last look before I left makes it hard for me to get back into the groove.