Category Archives: Ideas & Thoughts

it’s been a while, autumn 2025

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Bed-Stuy Brooklyn

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.

 

The world (whirls) are spinning April 2022

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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

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work

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” Havest moon 2021

 

 

Summer zooms along.

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Amina Claudine Meyers

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.

ZOOMED

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 Patricia post reading

Caitlyn and I read poetry and prose at VCCA

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.

too much is not enough or an American Sunrise

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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 2-11-2018, Captiva, Fl

sunrise Captiva Island, Florida 2018

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

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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.

St. Mark's Sanctuary, Giorno Memorial

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/