The world (whirls) are spinning April 2022

Posted on April 12, 2022September 24, 2023 by admin

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

Posted on September 23, 2021September 23, 2021 by admin

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.

Posted on September 3, 2021September 3, 2021 by admin

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

Revulsion Revolt

Posted on June 4, 2020June 4, 2020 by admin

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

Posted on May 16, 2020May 16, 2020 by admin

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.

Far from Brooklyn

Posted on April 24, 2020April 24, 2020 by admin

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.

too much is not enough or an American Sunrise

Posted on February 11, 2020February 11, 2020 by tai

that was the motto on top of a Texas-themed bar on Fifth Avenue back in the late 70s, early 80s. There was a giant Armadillo on the roof. sometimes I think we are in the too much is not enough era for real. Too much lying, not enough truth telling Too much male preening not enough acknowledgement of women–mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, lovers, friends. Not enough.

But then again there can ever be too much fun and not enough laughter. So on my birthday, I posted a silly picture of me at end of my first full week in Roanoke, Virginia, far from Brooklyn, even farther from my Delta based home town. It’s very green here. The highways are very wide. There are creeks and creeks flood. Birds are making noise. Spring comes a little earlier in the South–even so there has been too much rain and not enough infrastructure to handle climate changing. There are bills in the Assembly to remove RACIST LAWS that have been on Virginia’s books since 1913, but many Republicans refuse to repeal hem –like it would take an hour. There are people fighting to keep mountains mountains and rivers unpolluted, but greed is more than enough to fight for short term gain forgetting the long term damage. The lies are killing us. Greed is killing us. I for one am not interested in this grabbing of every resource for the profit of a few. But too many people are like that armadillo on top of a bar: armored, exposed and frankly too scared to listen to their own truth.

It’s my birthday and I want us to grow our moral selves–demand truthtelling; mitigate greed; protect mountains, rivers, streams, land; proffer JUSTICE for all; sing beautiful songs; dance wonderful dances; watch ourselves flourish instead of just survive. I guess this is a kind of prayer. But hope is always a kind of prayer.

sunrise Captiva Island, Florida 2018

It’s been a while but my energy is getting louder

Posted on January 30, 2020January 30, 2020 by tai

My apartment is a swirl of piles: clothes, toiletries, documents—the stuff you need when you take a big trip. And I am about to take a big trip, to Virginia for 4 months. I have been appointed the Louis D. Rubin, Jr. Writer-in-Residence at Hollins University. Dara Weir, whom I met at Hollins when I was a visiting poet; Natasha Tretheway, whose father taught there and other poetic luminaries are past appointees. This is a big deal and it comes on top of many expected and unexpected professional achievements since 2014-15. I am getting used to being a 4 decades overnight success.

Of course, these opportunities do not come helter-skelter. I’ve been published as a poet since my early 20s and have worked to become the best poet I can be and yes I am still growing as a poet and thinker and activist, and as I have grown, the opportunities have come. I am glad I stayed the course.

And that is is something I hope that many of us do as we are daily assaulted with lies particularly from the political right –you know the people who create Middle East Peace Plans that don’t exactly include all of the people who would have to make it work; the people who are now making legal immigration more difficult; the people who claim they can’t bake a cake for same sex couples because it’s against their religion (there’s no such prohibition in the Bible, there’s no Cake commandant. And everyone is tired because the briber in chief constantly tweets stupid, mean and occasionally important stuff. It really is hard to live in a morally corrosive time and have like a desire for truth, beauty and justice. But hey, think of it as being against the mainstream which is corrupt. The Right is running all but the House of Representatives (thank you Nancy Pelosi) and a few major institutions that think liberal and democracy are good things. So we poets and artists have a very important role to play outside that mainstream. And we ought to play it loud and louder.

Over the past two weeks, I went to 2 memorials (there could have been 3, but I could only do 2)-Jan. 19 for Kwame Shaw, whom I may have met in passing while hanging out in the experiemental jazz world of the 80s–I know his adopted daughter Klare and so I went for her and her mother, his ex-wife. The event at St. Mark’s Church was all about music and remembrances. Henry Threadgill, Amina Myers and during the repast, David Murray made us all understand why for Shaw, Jazz was a religion. Then on January 26, what seemed like the entire downtown art world came out for John Giorno’s Memorial. An elegant and beautifully staged event from the rose petals on the sanctuary stage to the perfect video loop and the musical offerings by Meredith Monk, Michael Stipe, Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye. Linda Yablonsky, Penny Arcade, Lynne Tillman, Bob Holman were a few of the writers who read from Giorno’s memoirs. The Black activist Jazz freak and the gay Buddhist poet had this in common: a powerful desire to make a difference in the world and the energy and ideas to make that difference happen. Shaw brought the powerful music of the AACM and other Black creative musicians to a larger audience as a way to build up the foundation of Black intellectual acuity. Giorno worked tirelessly to bring gay eroticism into the mainstream, to allow poetry to examine his sexuality and explorations. Both were activists, serious activists–Shaw organized for SNCC, open doors for Blacks in the media, created JazzTracks and Giorno started a fund in support of the first victims of HIVAIDs–he literally saved lives or allowed those dying a measure of dignity. He was a serious practioner of Buddhism. Both men left behind unlikely and loving partners. The memorial I could not make it to was Steve Dalachinsky who like his best friend and frequent nemesis Steve Cannon came to symbolized bohemian New York. and from what a year turned into a huge carnival of poetry, anecdote, music and cheer. These men all were bohemians in NYC. A New York that is quickly slipping away under the huge condos and corporate logos of these corrosive times. These men all lived LOUD lives and well we need to start matching that largeness with our own. June Jordan would so agree with me.

Sanctuary, St. Mark’s Church, Giorno Memorial

So I will take my NYC energy South and do my best to do good work and maybe just maybe bring some ideas and provocations to bear in and out of the classroom. Because when poets stop telling the truth, we all suffer. I am a poet and I don’t like suffering.

https://www.hollins.edu/academics/majors-minors/english-creative-writing-major/louis-d-rubin-jr-writer-in-residence/

the wind is LOUD, the wind does HOWL

Posted on January 21, 2019February 3, 2019 by admin

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

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.

Just before the solstice

Posted on December 20, 2018February 3, 2019 by admin

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.

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.

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, 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