Preview #12, Journal of Pan African Studies, Poetry Issue

Preview #12, Journal of Pan African Studies, Poetry Issue

Deadline for submissions extended to November 12, 2010

We especially want to hear from hip hop poets, spoken word artists, conscious rappers

Send your submission to Guest Editor, Marvin X, jmarvinx@yahoo.com, include brief bio, pic, MS Word attachment

Submissions received from the following:

Askia Toure
Amiri Baraka
Rudolph Lewis
Al Young
Ishmael Reed
Mona Lisa Saloy
Gwendolyn Mitchell
Haki Madhubuti
Louis Reyes Rivera
Bruce George
Jeannette Drake
Lamont Steptoe
Devorah major
Phavia Khujichagulia
Ayodele Nzingha
Tureeda Mikell
Eugene Redman
Fritz Pointer
J. Vern Cromartie
Greg Carr
Kalamu ya Salaam
Jerry Ward
Mary Weems
C. Liegh McInnis
Ramal Lamar
Tariq Shabazz
Felix sylvannus
Susan Lively
Paradise Jah Love
Ptah Allah El
Itibari M. Zulu
Nandi Comer
Renaldo Manuel Ricketts
Anthony Mays
Dr. Tracey Ownes Patton
Dike Okoro
Hettie V. Williams
Kola Boof
Neal E. Hall, MD
Ghasem Batamuntu
Sam Hamod
Opal Palmer Adisa
Ed Bullins
Kamaria Muntu
L. E. Scott
Chinwe Enemchukwu
Mabel Mnensa
Kwan Booth
Rodney D. Coates
Ras Griot
EverettHoagland
Charles Curtis Blackwell
JACQUELINE KIBACHA
John Reynolds III
Gabriel Sharpiro
Darlene Scott
Jimmy Smith, Jr.
Amy ”Aimstar” Andrieux

Marvin X

Lamont b. Steptoe, Philadelphia PA

Chase The Wind!

The only way to live is to leave

Never stop leaving

Wherever you find yourself

Chase the wind!

Pretend it is a beautiful woman or a beautiful man

Glimpsed in an exotic city

That you must find again

Make your life depend on leaving

Wandering the world to find a place

Beautiful enough to die!

Chase the wind!

--lamont b. Steptoe

Lamont B. Steptoe was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is a graduate of Temple University's School of Communications and Theater. He is the author of twelve collections of poetry which include Uncle's South China Sea Blue Nightmare, A Long Movie of Shadows, Crowns and Halos and Oracular Rumblings & Stiltwalking. Steptoe has also edited two collections of poetry by the late South African Poet, Dennis Brutus. Steptoe is a Vietnam veteran, a father, publisher, photographer and globetrotter. In 2005 he was awarded an American Book award for his collection A Long Movie of Shadows. In 2006,he was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and inducted into the International Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent by the Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University. Steptoe has been featured in poetry readings in Managua, Nicaragua, Paris, France, Den Hague, Netherlands and Mumbai, India. His work is included in over one hundred poetry anthologies and he has read at schools, colleges and universities throughout the United States.

John Reynolds III, Detroit

Black Lights

I remember Detroit,

and a DJ named Tiger Dan,

who kept Detroit’s soul on the radio

in the daytime,

and in the Blue Chateau lounge

at night.

when a bad neighborhood meant

you might get your bicycle stolen

but not lose your life because of it.

I remember

a destination of desire,

where the blackness

of transplanted southerners

glowed like the gems they were.

where older boys taught younger boys

*Lorenzo Wright’s stride

during relays at after-school recreation.

I wonder if Detroit

will again be our promised land,

where lumps of African coal

reveal their true character as gems.

Precious, coveted

one-of-a-kind gems.

--John Reynolds III

*Lorenzo Wright, from Detroit, was a 1948 Olympic Gold Medalist.

John Reynolds III’s poems are from my manuscript entitled Freedom Blues. I have a Master's degree in English from Marygrove College in Detroit, MI, and am currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Howard University in Washington, D.C., also in English. I am a longtime supporter of the Broadside Poets Theatre in Detroit, which is affiliated with Broadside Press, an early black-owned publisher that, as you doubtless know, was at the forefront of the Black Arts Movement.

JACQUELINE KIBACHA, Tanzania, East Africa

From one border to the next

From one border to the next

My feet graze, eating the soil.

Red, sticky mud

Sandy grains

Stone pebbles

My toes curl, digging deep

My eyes to the horizon

As the equator draws her line

A taunt.

Trying to force me to make a decision,

To make a claim.

Though my heart is free

To wander from border to border with my feet

Its heaviness keeps me rooted.

My roots from the grassroots

Kilimanjaro cries, with arched back

Calling me back.

And I hear her, even through the heavy dialect

The voice of my mother

Sing song speaking.

Not every word is clear to me

But somehow I know she’s directing me,

And I sing song back.

Though not my mother

Her tongue extends through me.

I carry her voice across each border

Over each horizon

Across each shore

Until I know that I am home.

--Jacqueline Kibacha (2010)

Born in the ‘haven of peace’ Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, this Poet enjoyed and excelled in creative writing from a young age, choosing it as her course of study. Gaining star grades in literature was just part of it, Jacqueline discovered a talent for performing the written word and so studied to gain awards in speech and poetry presentation as well as gracing the stage in plays and musicals.

A Fine Art graduate who spent much of her university life involved with music, she began to experiment with sounds and words in the form of poetry. Drawing on her experiences and observations of growing up in 3 continents, Africa, Asia and Europe ,and exploring the dynamics of relationships, with self and others she began to put together a collection of works - both poetry and prose. She was recently featured on BBC World Service and is currently working on an album of poetry with French producer Dominique Lepine.

Everett Hoagland, New Bedford MA

from A BIG B.A.M. THEORY OF CREATION

We have broken free

of imposed forms, from

the outrages of being bound

in formal and informal cages. “Sympathy's”*

caged broken-winged song

birds now fly more freely than even

Bird's bop. They broke bad

with break-

dancing and hip/hop all over

spoken word's poetry perches

and beyond the lovely, dark, and deep

paper woods and pulp trees some think

they shall never see as lovely

as freed people's

poetry. Free

to be whatever

it wants to be,

what it is or is be-

coming. And what we have been

through entitles us to

tell it like it

tiz of thee

and say “it be's

that way” if that is what we want.

What makes a poem

Black with a capital B

among those of us in the U.S.

descended from ancestors who

used to be the capital in capitalism’s

centuries of “free market” slavery

and share-

cropping? History!

What makes a poem Black?

it ain’t no mystery: ancestry, legacy,

politics, class, culture,

style. Confluence

of the mass mixed

things that come to mind out

of a “consciousness of kind.”

Mixed-in out of mouth things

like ring shouts, refrains, signifying, jive,

blues, jazz songs, scat, the dozens, r&b, break-

beats, rap. All that

black mouth evolved

north, east, west,

first hybrid down

south of what

we used to say is

where it’s at. Free

poetry, free

of the slave ship’s choke hold,

free of the slave-breakers' silencing

iron bit. Freed

from verse cages of poesy.

Free to be what comes out

of its own history.

Be it penned declaration

or improvised oration

as affirmation of its own

nation within

a nation. Recite it,

or write it, or hear it,

or read it like holy writ

because it

is. So

be it.

*Paul Dunbar's poem, "Sympathy"

--Everett Hoagland

Everett Hoagland's poetry has been regularly published in prominent periodicals and anthologies since the late 1960's. He has given poetry readings all over the USA and in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and his most recent books are ... HERE ... New & Selected Poems, and JUST WORDS?. Hoagland lives in New Bedford, MA, and was recently inducted into The International Literary Hall of Fame For Writers of African Descent.

Tureeda Mikell, Oakland CA

ANCESTRAL SPEAK

Chile, you do what you s’pose too

Pay dem no nebah mine, you hearah

Deys ribbon ain’t yo’s to have ebah

Yo’ tongus goes back befoe’ deys do

Just you study yo passion, you light

Shine baby, come time it’ll be alright

You listen careful now, we ain’t dead.

Fly baby, go on, you know how

Stop fretin’ you mine wid dey trouble

We watchin’ ova you whilst you sleep

Tell yo stories to ones that need

Leave dem no accounts to they failins

We see whey you got to walk

Carry some soda for that acid stomach

Tureeda Mikell (C)

Tureeda Mikell – Djeli Musa, Story Medicine Woman

With 35 years combined experience in nursing, language science, songwriting and the paranormal synchronistic occurrence, she weaves blood memory to mend our story. Tureedas’ stories reveal then seal to heal. An activist for holism, her works have been found in South Africa, Japan, and Sweden. Recent publications, ‘Temba Tupu’, Africa World Press, and ‘Sparrows Eye’, Bay Area Writing Project, Digital Paper, U.C. Berkeley.

Kwan Booth, Oakland CA

Modern Medicine

See blood posted up over there

In the shadow of that black block.

Up way past the hour of reason?

Mouth full of cracked, small stars?

That’s the doctor.

See sis braced ‘tween streetlight

And hydrant, fingers chapped round that burnt butt,

Hawking fifteen minutes of her burnt butt?

For anyone with a few dollars,

And nowhere to spend it-

She heals.

See, it comes down to that at this hour in this

Dark slice of city, this apothecary

Of street salve and mood medicine.

This is for the lifers,

The sho nuff sick.

Prescriptions ‘round these parts don’t come

Prescribed

But they efficient.

Guaranteed to make the pain go.

See, these two got fine brewed elixers

For every ache from your head to your ass.

Bring your sick and your wallet

And get to know the place.

Sit a spell.

See those little bags rocked up under his tongue?

Cook’em up:

The result of hours of alchemy.

Dreams, baking powder, and nightly news churned in a scum pot.

Kept in the mouth for quick release.

Just like what that girl got up

under that dress. When she opens up

What she been tryin' to keep closed,

The whole day melts

Into those Washingtons and Jacksons

There in your pocket.

So that you can’t wait till it’s away from you.

She takes your money,

Because you ask.

See, her job is taking what you don’t want

In exchange for what most people ain’t willing to give.

She’s generous with her healing.

Gives it out as long as there are people

Who possess the talent

To turn their hurt green.

--Kwan Booth

Kwan Booth is a slam champion and journalist in Oakland.

Rudolph Lewis, Maryland

Far Away from Bliss

The full moon is soft

around the edges:

this white indefiniteness stretches

out across the purple heavens:

there’s no clarity of starlight:

no confidence which turn is right.

The peoples of these swamps

are sad with backwater misery.

A cat listens to the silence:

a train blows at the crossroads

rushing to port; an old man

with ax splinters boards

on a chopping block

for the morning chill to come:

a bird awakes with a shrill cry

swoops down: a cat pounces

ready for crisis and opportunity:

silence returns: an aging black woman

with family sleeps in a parked car,

pleads for a kitchen

and a bathroom: a young Hispanic

college student who works

at MacDonald’s, his fourth year,

is touched by the magic hand of fate.

Thank God and the president:

all are not dead like 39 in cemeteries.

In this warm mist three young deer

in the garden munch moonlight and silence.

Our pains are softened by prayers,

hope, and grace mounted up: from the ruins

many will reach Obama heights, riding

on the uplifting coattails of vultures.

--Rudolph Lewis

Rudolph Lewis is an educator who has taught at several universities including the University of New Orleans (UNO) and Coppin State in Baltimore. He has also been a librarian at Enoch Pratt in Baltimore, St. Mary’s Seminary and University, and at City College High School in Baltimore. He is also the founding editor of the popular ChickenBones: A Journal, which has been online since 2001 with both a national and an international audience.