Wednesday, October 13, 2010

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.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Senator Barbara Boxer--In Search of My Soul Sister



In Search of My Soul Sister

After a lifetime of fears, doubts, ambivalence and general paranoia (my essential mental state) about the feminine gender, I recently concluded, based on six decades of interaction, that the black woman was, after all is said and done, my friend, and that she has never wanted to be anything other than my friend, helper, lover and mate, really, for eternity, if I could have ever been shackled to her that long. Yes, after thinking about my most wonderful Mother, an even more gracious and loving Grandmother (Oh, Grandma’s hands!), and after reflecting on my six sisters who probably more than anyone else helped form my ambivalence and maybe paranoia too, since I was so traumatized by their constant chatter and feminine intrigues that I would find it a simple matter upon adolescence and adulthood to ignore any words from the feminine gender, especially simple advice or wisdom, which cost me greatly on the road to success, including several failed marriages and a kind of psychic distance from my three lovable daughters.

If truth be told and certainly it is time to tell the truth at this stage in my life, I must admit that all the women in my life have been absolutely wonderful, not one ever treated me wrongly or without tenderness and unconditional love, yet my response was to dog them to no end, or rather until the end when they departed broken hearted and disgusted.

This new recognition on my part was made even plainer when my actor/singer J.B. Saunders presented me with a wonderful song “Don’t Bite The Hands That Feed You.”

J.B., also a dogger of women, perhaps even worse than myself since he had a career of pimping, had also had a revelation that it was time to reconcile with the feminine gender, or least stop the abuse, whether physical, mental or emotional. Perhaps old dogs actually do learn new tricks! J.B.’s lyrics said that our woman was indeed our friend and supporter, not someone to be dogged at every turn, for in the end we become the victim, or as another song told us “the hunter gets captured by the game.”

Of course, one truth about love is that love is a game of victims, for by its nature, love makes the beloved victim of the lover, for love is that state wherein we willingly accept to be victimized for we submit and declare to all who need to know and to some who don’t need to know that we are helplessly under the power of the beloved.

Moving from the personal to the political, we now clearly recognize that love for the Black woman had to move from the romantic to the critical in deciding who or what she represented on this stage of life. How is she connected to us and we to her—a question we had to answer about men as well, with the same if not more degree of political acumen because few men allow another man to do to us what we allow women to do, after all, women have the unique skill to get anything from us with a smile, a glance of the eye, a stride. During my brief academic career, my female students knew they could get almost any grade from me, especially if they came at me right, or simply talked right, it wasn’t always about sexual favors. And two of my students convinced me to marry them, so much for the wisdom of the professor.

But in the politics of love, we matured to the point of understanding a black face, even of the feminine gender, was not sufficient to gain our allegiance and respect. We came to recognize that politics was not about color, contrary to what we “believed” during the 60s, especially with the call for black power. Forty years later, however belatedly and detrimentally, we came to see blackness was about consciousness not color and had much to do about class as well, since class very often determines consciousness, although not always, after all, we know of several instances in our history when “house Negroes” plotted slave revolts, but generally speaking, the house Negro is not to be trusted, since he/she is more determined to preserve the house than the master.

We are reminded of that scene in the film Amistad where the Africans are being marched into town for mutiny. One African sees a Negro carriage driver and remarks, “He is our brother.” An African replies, “No, he is a white man.”

And so it is the class nature of things that must be examined with respect to loving or not loving Dr. Condi Rice—to be or not to be our sister—that is the question! Having transcended our gender fears, having made every determination to reach out in sincerity to embrace our sister in struggle, who endured with us all the horror and terror of the centuries, we must sadly reject her and everything for which she stands, for we find her political consciousness an abomination, a betrayal of our racial heritage of resistance in the face of suffering, in short genocide. Clearly, she came from us, but is no longer us, she has graduated from victim to victimizer—while some, perhaps her “classmates” on the right will call this progress and a point of pride for the “race.” Well, I remember Elijah Muhammad describing UN Undersecretary Ralph Bunche as “A Negro we don’t need,” and this most surely applies to Condi, who graduated from oppressed to oppressor. She stands at the pinnacle of imperialism, the most powerful woman in the world, yes, even more powerful than the Queen of England, for Condi literally has the world in her hands. In assuming to Secretary of State, we are humbled at her meteoric rise from the slave pit of Alabama to steering the ship of state.

Her brother Colin Powell whom she replaces for the simple reason that he was found disagreeable to the imperial throne, perhaps even in his conservatism too uppity with thoughts slightly to the left of Pharaoh, had to be replaced by Condi who shares a more amicable relationship with boss man sah, to the tragic extent that Senator Barbara Boxer voted against confirmation, saying “…Your loyalty to the mission you were given…overwhelmed your respect for the truth.”

In the darkest days of my gender fears, I never forgot the teachings of my mother’s Christian Science religion with it’s emphasis on the centrality of truth in all matters.Indeed what has gotten me in trouble with women even more than physical and mental abuse is being truthful, especially in regard to my sexual improprieties.

Condi Rice stands condemned before the world for being a liar and murderer, a person completely and utterly devoid of truth, thus her elevation to Secretary of State must be a great embarrassment to our ancestors, and her reply to Senator Boxer that her credibility and integrity was being impugned is without merit. Boxer pointed out how she contradicted the president and herself with respect to weapons of mass destruction as the cause for war against Iraq. Contrary to Dr. Rice, Saddam was not a threat to his neighbors in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Jordan and Syria. He was contained and therefore not a threat to the “American people,” who, as Nelson Mandela pointed out, are the greatest threat to world peace. There was nothing to fear from Saddam but fear itself, quite similar to my gender fears I harbored for decades when I imagined female friends, mates, lovers were somehow my enemies, and were, in my tortured mind, out to get me, when in reality, I was out to get them.

Condi’s advice to President Bush has, at this point, caused the death of 1,366 Americans,10,372 wounded, also over 100,000 Iraqi dead. As Boxer noted, this is no light matter but a deception of the most despicable kind that has brought America’s credibility in the world to a new low, yet, like the President, Dr. Rice is totally unapologetic and stoic in maintaining her stance that contravenes reality.

I cannot in the name of our shared Africanity go there with her, for she long ago crossed the line of propriety. She cannot have my respect and sympathy in her dutiful defense of Pharaoh and his meanderings throughout the world in the name of global capitalism. Imagine, in the midst of the Iraqi quagmire, they are now contemplating an invasion of Iran. This American arrogance has no end except The End.

As between Senator Barbara Boxer and Condi Rice, if I had to choose my soul sister, I would rise above color in favor of consciousness, thus claim Senator Boxer as my sister.

This is no time in history to be starry-eyed idealists and continue with romantic notions about blackness. Sadly, we live in a world where what appears to be black is white and what appears white is black. Get over it and march forward into the new millennium. I shall never forget how we banned interracial couples from attending our black nationalist parties in the 60s. Amina Baraka loves to tell the story of when she and her husband were at the Black House cultural/political center in San Francisco in 1967. Amina observed my lady friend Ethna Wyatt (Hurriyah Asar) tell a white woman she couldn’t come in. The lady replied she was part Indian. Hurriyah replied, “Well, the Indian can come in but the white got to go.”

At another party with revolutionary black nationalists, a brother tried repeatedly to convince us his white woman was in fact black in consciousness, therefore should be admitted. We rejected his pronouncement, but in consciousness his woman was black and should have been admitted, especially since there were sisters at the party who harbored thoughts, if only subconsciously, similar to Condi Rice’s. As a matter of fact, I was recently told of one sister who was at this particular party who is now such a right wing fanatic that her in-laws banned her from their house, even changed their telephone number to avoid her right wing ranting.

I am not promoting interracial relationships, rather, in the tradition of my Mother, I am promoting truth and honesty which is the least we should expect from human beings with consciousness, no matter their color. But we understand that class has a way of stretching truth beyond reality, where it becomes an exercise in arrogance and sick pride, the stuff of classic tragedy. I am not into hating human beings, especially my distant sister Condi Rice, whom we must allow history and God to judge—may they have mercy on her soul.

At least Colin Powell was man enough to apologize to the world for his United Nations pseudo lecture justifying the war. Shall we await the day when Condi will admit her sins? Let us hope she is not made to do so before the World Court for crimes against humanity.

Black ain’t black

White ain’t white

Beware the day

Beware the night.

--From Wish I Could Tell You the Truth, Marvin X, BBP, 2005. Reprinted in Mythology of Pussy and Dick, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, Marvin X,BBP, 2010, $49.95.

Black Bird Press

1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley Ca 94702

jmarvinx@yahoo.com

Monday, October 11, 2010

Hussein al-Shahristani, Iraq's Minister of Oil, Marvin X's Teacher


Iraq's oil windfall


By Teymoor Nabili in
October 4th, 2010.

"Iraq Proven Oil Reserves Rise Significantly " declares the Wall Street Journal, echoing a number of other news sources.

But are they "proven"?

So far, we have only assurances from the Iraq's oil minister Hussein al-Shahristani*:

These aren't random figures, rather they were the results of deep surveys carried out by the ministry's oil reservoir company and international companies which signed contracts with Iraq.

But a few people are voicing scepticism, probably because we have seen this kind of sudden good news before.

Higher proven reserves should eventually mean a higher production quota from Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), and theoretically more revenue.
__________
* Dr. Hussein al-Shahristani was a student at the University of Toronto, Canada, in1967. While a draft resister exiled in Toronto, Marvin X met Hussein at Juma prayers at the University. Hussein and Marvin X became friends. He invited the poet to his apartment for Arabic and Islamic lessons. Hussein was president of the Muslim Students Association of the US and Canada. He explained Shia Islam to Marvin X, declaring his ideas were similar to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He appreciated Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam because that is what he wanted. He later became a nuclear scientist who was persecuted under Saddam Hussein because he refused to work on Saddam's nuclear weapons program.

He declined the position of Iraq's prime minister but accepted the Minister of Oil's portfolio. Hussein is a close associate of the Grand Ayatollah Sistani who refuses to meet with the American infidels.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Wish I Could Fly Like a Hawk


Wish I Could Fly Like a Hawk


Wish I could fly like a hawk
just soar above earth
silent
gliding smooth
no noise
silent
observing all
madness below
rats scurrying
snakes in the grass
wish I could fly like a hawk
sometimes in motion still
wings frozen in flight
yet moving
wish I could be hawk
above the madness of it all
the meaningless chatter
cell phone psychosis
talking loud saying nothing
why are you breathing
jogging
without meaning purpose
no mission beyond nothingness
absorbing air from the meaningful
who subscribe to justice
let me fly above the living dead
let me soar
let me dream
imagine
another time and place
another space
this cannot be the end game
the hail marry
let me soar above it all
wings spread wide
let me glide
ah, the air is fresh up here
did I make it to heaven
did I escape hell
come with me
do not be afraid
the night is young
let us fly into the moon
see the crescent
so beautiful
let us fly into the friendly sky
wings spread wide
we are strong and mighty
the hawk.
--Marvin X
10/10/10

Obama Drama



Obama Drama
You lied, nigguh
no change
no hope
no dreams satisfied
more lies
more greed for wall street
no relief for the poor
middle class
workers
North America Africans
no mention their name
except at the black carcass (caucus) dance into oblivion
no peace
more war in Iraq Afghanistan Pakistan Yemen Somalia
war in da hood
more prison doors locked on the brothers
and sisters
no job program at all
a sham
jobs for terrorists
education for terrorists
housing for terrorists
not terrorists in the hood
who can believe such duplicity
innuendo
circumlocution
are you black are you white
to be or not to be
problem or solution
you decide
your sycophant negroes
the other white people
in black face
let them decide with you.

--Marvin X
10/10/10