Friday, June 28, 2013

Plato Negro's Academy of da Corner at Berkeley Flea Market this weekend

Catch Marvin X at the Harlem Book Fair, July 20, 2013, at the National Writers Union Booth

Poet/teacher Marvin X in front of his Academy of da Corner booth at Berkeley Juneteenth, with librarian Ayiba (Linda) Jolivet and UC professor emeritus/novelist Cecil Brown, who will release his latest work PRYOR LIVES (How Richard Pryor became Richard Pryor), a study, memoir and biography rolled into one. photo Princess O. Davis

This weekend, Berkeley's Flea Market at Ashby BART (the crossroads of North American African culture), will feature Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner. "Plato Negro" is Oakland's philosopher, poet, playwright, producer, teacher, aka Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland (Ishmael Reed); the USA's Rumi (Bob Holman); a master teacher in many fields of thought; one of America's great story tellers; I'd put him ahead of Mark Twain! (Rudolph Lewis). Look for him at booth #600, first row. He will be autographing his many books, including his latest The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables, fables, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 2012, How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy and the most requested title Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality, BBP, Berkeley, 2006.

This book is an encyclopedia of knowledge. He's a griot if there ever was one!
--Mumia Abu Jamal, Live from Death Row

Marvin X has done extraordinary mind and soul work in bringing our attention to the importance of spirituality, as opposed to religion, in our daily living. Someone�maybe Kierkegaard or maybe it was George Fox who�said that there was no such thing as "Christianity." There can only be Christians. It is not institutions but rather individuals who make the meaningful differences in our world. It is not Islam but Muslims. Not Buddhism but Buddhists. Marvin X has made a courageous difference. In this book he shares the wondrous vision of his spiritual explorations. His eloquent language and rhetoric are varied�sophisticated but also earthy, sometimes both at once.

Highly informed he speaks to many societal levels and to both genders�to the intellectual as well as to the man/woman on the street or the unfortunate in prison�to the mind as well as the heart. His topics range from global politics and economics to those between men and women in their household. Common sense dominates his thought. He shuns political correctness for the truth of life. He is a Master Teacher in many fields of thought�religion and psychology, sociology and anthropology, history and politics, literature and the humanities. He is a needed Counselor, for he knows himself, on the deepest of personal levels and he reveals that self to us, that we might be his beneficiaries.

All of which are represented in his Radical Spirituality�a balm for those who anguish in these troubling times of disinformation. As a shaman himself, he calls too for a Radical Mythology to override the traditional mythologies of racial supremacy that foster war and injustice. If you want to reshape (clean up, raise) your consciousness, this is a book to savor, to read again, and again�to pass onto a friend or lover.
�Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones: A Journal

Marvin X is available for readings, lectures and performance. jmarvinx@yahoo.com
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

Catch Marvin X at the Harlem, NY Book Fair, July 20, 2013, National Writers Union Booth!

Marvin X interviewed at the, March, 2013, Black Power Babies Conversation, Philadelphia, PA., event produced by his daughter Muhammida El Muhajir, Sun In Leo.com

He also participated in the Black Love Lives Conference (produced by Nisa Ra), University of Penn, reading with Philly's living legend, pianist Alfie Pollitt, at the Cleft Jazz Club.

Eldridge Cleaver: My friend the Devil, a memoir

by Marvin X, Black Bird Press, Berkeley CA

2009

Marvin X wrote his memoir of Eldridge Cleaver in three weeks, posting a chapter per day on the internet. See www.nathanielturner.com.

The Wisdom of Plato Negro

parables/fables

"Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland."--Ishmael Reed

His most recent book is The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 2012. President Davis and Reginald James, students at Marvin X's Academy of da Corner, Oakland.
President is now at Howard University, Reginald at UC Berkeley. Pictured at Sankofa Books, Washington DC.

Muhammida el Muhajir produced this event at Oakland's Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. Daughter hired him to write a poem dedicated to Oakland native Keyshia Cole. Marvin X opened for Keyshia Cole with the poem, accompanied by Academy students Aries Jordan and her sister, Toya.