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

What we need and who has provided UPDATED

Posted on November 2, 2018February 3, 2019 by admin

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-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

Posted on September 30, 2018February 3, 2019 by admin

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.

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

Getting back in the groove

Posted on September 14, 2018February 3, 2019 by admin

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.