Train in da Water/How We Got Ovah 2/14/19

Graphic design Adam Turner

Train in da Water

"In the Atlantic ocean is a railroad of human bones...."--Amiri Baraka

Train came to ocean

riding water

bout to go under

sweet da waves

train under

Passing sharks sardines

How pleasant da train

Going down slow

space for peace

Let da ocean wash us with love

love bones of Baraka's railroad

August Wilson's Gem of Ocean

City of Bones

train down in darkness

no light needed.we  black

ocean same.

--Marvin X

--1/13/19

from the forthcoming poetic myth/ritual dance drama, written and directed by El Muhajir/Marvin X
Produced by Six Square, Austin, TX, September 2019

Can You Sing the Song of Paul Robeson?

Sing
song of Paul Robeson
sing
mighty world choir sing
hundred languages sing
Paul's song to global masses
sing
like Paul sang
strong baritone
old man river
keeps on rollin' along
sing like Paul Emperor Jones
Fuck you white man fuck you
sing fuck you white man nigga sing
weak ass nigga sing
scared of Paul's shadow
sing nigga sing
weak ass pitiful rap shit sing
nursery rhymes sing
beats rhymes
no bata drum beats
no war drums
pimp ho beats
no kill white man Paul Robeson beats
bass baritone beats
miller lite pasteurized homogenized beats
freedom to nothing beats
Sun Ra said
Marvin X
Stop teaching yr actors dat freedom bullshit
see how free day are
wild crazy ugly freedom
teach discipline I teach
no freedom
day born free
picked cotton free
lynching tree free
civil rites free
cemetery last rites free
Sunny say
you get rites last rites cemetery rites
civil rites
nigga please
Space is the place Sunny Say
Space is the place
if you find earth boring
Space is the place
Sing Paul sing
Othello sing
Iago devil sing
Desdemona white bitch lover sing
Othello duped by devil Iago
sing Paul sing
freedom songs
hundred languages sing
sing.
break nigga down sing
give nigga shock treatment
nigga survive sing
take nigga passport sing
take Muhammad Ali passport sing
deport Marcus Garvey sing
WEB go to Ghana sing
sing black african chorus sing
ancestors sing
African gods sing
--Marvin X
2/7/19

Door of No Return winner of Black Caucus of American Library Association Poetry Award

Door of No Return by Neal Hall, M.D. is the

Black Caucus of the American Library Association 2019 Best Poetry Award Winner !

BCALA Mission: To serves as an advocate for the development, promotion and improvement of library services and resources to the nation’s African American community and provides leadership for the recruitment and professional development of African American librarians

The awards ceremony will take place at the: 

Washington D.C. Marriott, Metro Center

Sunday, June 23, 2019; Time: 8pm – 10pm.

NealHallpoet.com

NealHallpoet.com/ebooks/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/911-24-7/1337138459 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDglEARkfFM

Door of No Return 

Newly Released

“Absolutely amazing! I have read most of Neal Halls works; have had the privilege of commenting and critiquing many pieces as he wrote them. But with ‘Door of No Return’, Doc Man, as I fondly refer to Neal, has exceeded himself! His perception of the human condition, in particular the plight of the white man’s creation, ‘the Nigger’, as described in these poems, is second to none

I had the privilege of first meeting Neal Hall in Nairobi, Kenya, at the Storymoja Festival in 2013. He read from his book, Nigger For Life, a collection of poems that challenged, in the most explicit and uncompromising of ways all who listened to him to think or re-think their perceptions of race, identity, acceptance and survival. Already there, Neal’s work stood out.

Because his poetry does not make you comfortable, does not reinforce the generically ‘acceptable’ and accepted state of affairs. It instead boldly and candidly questions, in the face of Neal’s real life experiences as a black man, the status quo – raw and painfully blatant. You are forced to open your mind to the fact, not ‘the possibility’, that what seems to be may not be as it seems.

Blatantly blunt, painfully honest and, as always, breathtakingly unapologetic. Neal Hall’s language is simple but intense, not sparing his readers, not compromising his delivery for the sake of a pretentious feel-good factor. Neal Hall is not on a quest for apologies, empathy, sympathy – and least of all, pity. Brutally descriptive, he writes simply to tell it as it is! No holes barred.

‘why is a black man’s greatness greatly measured in how much shit he can peacefully endure, then forgive the white man for it’. NH

To call Neal Hall brave, even courageous, would be to undermine the power of his work. Because he is not out to save, absolve or convert the world. His work simply unashamedly and uncompromisingly calls a spade a spade!

There is nowhere to hide, nowhere to conceal ones guilty adherence to, and acceptance of the status quo of injustices and atrocities committed past and present. There is no no pretending that you have no part in it. Because at every twist and turn Neal Hall gets you, exposes you, and confronts you with countless revelations of the ways in which we fan the flame that burns us alive.

There is no respite, no relief in the reading. It is as it is. Up front and in your face, forcing you to reflect and question. So know that you cannot read Neal Hall’s work and not be affected by it.

To read Neal Hall is – whether you like it or not, to deal with it! And that is how it should be. I feel privileged and am honoured to give testimony to the work of the brilliant poet that is Neal Hall. His work is an invaluable contribution to world contemporary poetry. Asante Neal ! – Dr. Auma Obama, Founder, Director Sauti Kuu Foundation, Nairobi Kenya

Poets Marvin X and Dr. Neal Hall at Sacramento Black Book Fair. The Harvard educated ophthalmologist turned poet advises Marvin X on his eye condition.

Marvin X poem: Make Black Great Again

 Cover art by BAM Master Ben Caldwell

make black great again
beyond pyramids king tut
akhenaten's praise hymn
aboriginal monotheism
imperialism religion
negative confession
moses took ten
said thou shall not kill
then killed egyptian
kemit no mystery to us
resurrection theology
osiris isis horus seth
origin of jesus
sixteen crucified saviors
negro seventeen
strange fruit savior
crucified in the now
Travon Tamir Rice Sandra Bland
Oscar Grant Emmett Till Melvin Black
Nia Wilson Denzil Dowell
Lil' Bobby Hutton
Fred Hampton
many thousands gone
crucified on cross lynching tree
jesus in the now
make black great again
primordial hapi river travelers dwellers
beyond time
Sun Ra said
we other side of time
history his time
mystery our story
infinity 
make black great again
simple task teach  children
no matter condition yesterday now
is it difficult faya ancestor amiri baraka say
wanna pick cotton can't see ta can't see
git dat hunid pounds nigger 'fore I pull dis trigger
make black great again
seize tomorrow today
Even in his wretchedness Eldridge demanded me
do all things first class except nothing less
we da best
no shame stand demand
Jimmy Baldwin told me
ain't nothin' else happen here but you
make black great again

no weak kneegrows
shuffle dance imitation jim crow
no inclusion multi-cultural bottom rail
ancestors say bottom rail top
make black great again
no second class
we better'n white man
we the greatest
didn't Muhammad Ali say
equality with devil
what shit is this
chicken shit dog shit cow dung
stretch legs to sun leap run beyond time
no clocks work here no Apple watch
just be see
great black self
didn't michael j say man in mirror
remember da time
remember Sunny Blunt say beyond time
no survival we thrival of the greatest
no fluke
nina put spell on you
better ax somebody
dirty south say
mississippi goddam nina say
strange fruit billie say
make black great again
nothing can defeat you but you
lingering behind the vail
you not equal to nothing
master of all
no equality with evil
what madness is this
there is no test just be
and it is
you the man/woman and beyond
wave your majic wand
earth becomes dust
in black gods we trust.
--Marvin X
2/6/19

 A page from the Journal of Black Poetry, Guest Editor Marvin X, 1968

Marvin X edited this issue while underground in Harlem,

wanted by the FBI for refusing to fight in Vietnam

Black Arts Movement West at SF Apple Store

Marvin X and filmmaker Cheryl Fabio at SF Apple Store celebrating Black History Month. Cheryl'smother Sarah Webster Fabio (RIP) and Marvin X were co-founders of the West Coast Black Arts Movement. Cheryl produced the film Evolutionary Blues about the musical history of West Oakland.

 Tureada the preacher/poet

 Adimu Madyun

BAM Master Poet Marvin X

Marvin X and Geoffery Grier

Co-founders of Recovery Theatre

 LtoR:Cat Brooks, Marvin X, Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, Geoffery Grier, Cheryl Fabio, Tom Bowden, Eric Arnold

 Saturu Ned and Marvin X

Moderator Eric Arnold, Black Panther Party member Saturu Ned and BAM/BAMBD co-founder Marvin X discuss the Black Panther Party and the Black Arts Movement

Marvin X, Geoffery Grier, Tom Bowden, Cheryl Fabio

BAMBFEST FEB. 2019 presents Marvin X co-founder Marvin X

Marvin X  Tour  2019

February 16, Sat
Alameda CA
Reading/ book signing
Back 2 Nature Wellness Salon
and Barber Shop
475 Central Avenue
3-6pm

 

February 20,  Wed. 6pm
BAMFEST Oakland 

Blue Dream

1300 7th Street

 Reading/book signing
  Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter

February 22, Friday
Reading book signing
Hunters Point, San Francisco
5:30-7:30
901 Fairfax Avenue


March 2, Saturday
Reading/book signing
Philadelphia PA
Brothers Network
TBA

May
Reading/book signing
Seattle WA
Host Hakeem Trotter
TBA

August 
National Black Theatre Festival
Winston-Saleem, North Carolina
TBA

October
Austin, Texas
How We Got Ovah 1619-2019
A poetic myth/ritual dance drama 
by El Muhajir, aka Marvin X

Marvin X 
Now Available 
Speaking and Reading Engagements 
Coast to Coast
send letter of invitation to
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
510-575-7148

Marvin X reading at Charles Wright Museum, Detroit MI, December 15, 2018

photo Leona McElvene

The Low Information Vibration Mentality; Marvin X speaks today, 4pm, KPFA Hardknock Radio, Davey D interview

Breaking News: Davey D interviews author/historian Marvin X on his latest book Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X. Discussion includes his views on Harlem Renaissance, Black Arts Movement, Hip Hop, Afro-futurism, and growing up in West Oakland. 4PM. 

https://kpfa.org/program/hard-knock-radio/

The Low Information Vibration Mentality

The low information vibration mentality is a mind steeped in abysmal Ignorance, religiosity, dogmatic ideology and other isms and schisms that keep people wandering in darkness, constitutionally unable to see the light even when the sun of truth shines brightly in their eyes. When the sun is shining, they "believe" it is raining, they swear there is thunder and lightning outside. They are like  Walt Whitman's Learned Astronomer who needs to leave the classroom and go outside to view the stars!

The supreme irony of the low information vibration mentality is that the supplicant has a device in hand, literally, to transcend his condition, I.e., the cellphone. He can ask Becky any question on any topic and be enlightened. So there is no excuse for the low information vibration mentality except laziness, sloth and intellectual niggardliness, I.e., too anal to open the brain cells to new information, stingy, chickenshit. Those who persist in the low information vibration mentality should consider the Biblical dictum that the people were destroyed for lack of knowledge, not lack of money, lack of Civil Rites, lack of love, what Tina say,"What love got to do wit it?"

The low information vibration mentality persists because it is perpetrated by politicians who are puppets of lobbyists on the Right and Left for their master's agenda, not the people's agenda. If politicians rule at the consent of the governed, all policies should reflect the interest of the people. For sure, the people need national security. How can the government spend a trillion dollars on the defense budget yet allow every hateful, unclean bird to cross the US border freely? How many globalists have walls around their compounds? Do you leave the door of your domain unlocked so every hateful, unclean bird can enter your house? I recall during the Crack era whenever weak brothers and sisters allowed the Crack gangs to enter their homes, soon after their homes became the headquarters of the Crack gangs. Come on, national security is the first priority of every nation on earth. Security is the priority of every family. No woman'wife wants a man who cannot secure her and her children!

Simultaneously, as per the Left on the political spectrum, if and when the people decide they want a redistribution of wealth from the hands of the 1% who have the 99% in wage slavery, who are one check away from homelessness as we saw with government workers during the government shutdown, again, the government exists at the consent of the governed, not at the consent of the capitalist bloodsuckers of the poor. If the people demand a living wage, free health care for all, e.g., give the people the same level of healthcare the politicians receive, after all, the people's tax money pay for the politicians welfare so how do the politicians become superior to the people? If and when the people's consensus is for free education, this is their right as taxpayers. The politicians serve the people, not the reverse. The capitalist bloodsuckers of the poor with their media of fake news that perpetuates the low information vibration mentality and the concomitant  world of make believe and conspicuous consumption (Frazier) must be forced to understand it is the will of the people that must rule, not the rule of bloodsuckers and their political sycophants. 

The richest nation in the world should provide housing for all citizens with a life estate title for the least of us, thus eradicating homelessness overnight, immediately ending wasteful billions spent on administering sham and scam programs to end homelessness. Give the homeless the necessary case management to help them recover from the trauma of mental illness, drug abuse, sex abuse and partner violence.

--Marvin X

1/27/19

Poem for Soledad Brother John Clutchette

Poem for Soledad Brother John Clutchette

Brother John came by my Academy of da Corner today

14th and Broadway

Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza

We honor Frank Ogawa and Oscar Grant

Citizens of Oakland

Made a difference

and you don't even know

Frank Ogawa or Oscar Grant

Fine gentleman

Asian African

Oakland

Along came John

Soledad Brother

like no other

survivor 

John

made it out belly of beast

american gulag

John

Comrade of George Jackson

Slayer of the Dragons

kill or be killed

Soledad Prison mantra

My brother there too

read Flowers for the Trashman

Brother Ollie killer too

he told me

kill or be killed

guard kill honky kill we kill three

Kumasi say

Kumasi master griot of American Prison Movement

Kumasi say you guys had revolution outside

we had revolution inside prison walls

down in dungeon

belly of beast

Kumasi say for every one of us

we take three of you 

devil white boy supremacist honky

John Clutchette came by today

John say can't stay

gotta report in for one year

thank you Marvin X for your literature

shared with brothers

Marvin X I have twenty six dollars

let me donate six

Don't give me nothin' 

let me donate today

John went his way.

Soledad Brother

Warrior Supreme!

--Marvin X

1/23/19

"Soledad Brother" John Clutchette stops by Marvin X's Academy of da Corner, Oakland

John said we must free Ruchell  McGee! And I agree. I suggest when Kanye West meets with your President Trump tomorrow, he suggest giving a general amnesty to all incarcerated in American prisons. John was paroled in July, 2018. He's wearing an ankle monitor and getting adjusted to the cell phone. Marvin told him, "Just stop any five year old and they will tell you how to use it. Just be ready for them to call you stupid and dummy." When John tried to give a donation for a collection of Marvin's books, the poet refused to take the money.
--Marvin X

10/10/18

‘Soledad Brother’ John Clutchette granted parole – will California Gov. Jerry Brown reverse the decision?

January 19, 2018

Brothers Network bringing Marvin X to City of Brotherly Love, Philly

Gregory Walker, Founder and Creative Director of the Brothers Network and Poet/essayist/activist Marvin X. Gregory is holding Marvin's latest book Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X, Introduction by Dr. Nathan Hare, Black Bird Press, Oakland, 2019. While in Oakland, Mr. Walker met with Marvin to make final plans for the poet to read and sign books in Philadelphia during Black History Month. Marvin X is living Black history! "He's the freest Black man in non-free America!" says James Sweeney.  "When you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express black male urban experiences in a lyrical way," wrote James G. Spady, Philadelphia's master literary critic. Oakland's Fritz Pointer, scholar and brother of the Pointer Sisters, says of Marvin X,"Supreme, Courageous, Relentless, Eloquent, Prolific, Unstoppable, GRIOT."

Philadelphia literary critic James G. Spady on Marvin X

"Marvin X has been teaching for a long time. He has established his tenacity. As one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement (BAM), he became a teacher in an emerging field called Black Studies. Like Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal, Askia Toure and others, Marvin X both contributed to and later taught those pivotal courses that constituted a new discipline.

Marvin X at the St. Louis Mo. Book fair of Akbar Muhammad

For the last thirty years, this gifted poet, journalist, dramatist, oral historian (he appears to be the only participant in the Black Arts Movement that conducted intensive and extensive oral interviews with the key participants, as well as international political, cultural and educational leaders)and teacher, has established an unusual record. Marvin X has taught at the University of California at San Diego, Mills College, San Francisco State University, Fresno State University, Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland, University of Nevada,Reno, and the University of California at Berkeley....."

Copyright James G. Spady, 1997,
Philadelphia New Observer

Marvin X turns 75, May 29, 2019. We urge you to invite him to share his wisdom, even if you don't agree with him. After all, he talks about the life he lived, not theory! When you lived the life, you don't need footnotes!

photo Adam Turner

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Marvin X: The Philadelphia Negro

A brother now living in the Bay Area told Marvin X, "Marvin, I heard more about you in Philly than here in the Bay. You are well known and well loved in Philadelphia."


 Keyboard genius Elliot Savoy Bey works with Marvin X coast to coast.

After listening to Marvin X interviewed on Laney College Radio, http://www.9thfloorradio.com/…/1/22/yakety-yak-with-marvin-x his Philly musician friend, keyboard genius Elliot Savoy Bey said "Marvin X must be read and listened to like one is at a buffet--don't take too much at one time, just a little, then go back for more. Don't pile the plate--too much will make you sick, you will have a nervous breakdown." After listening to the interview, another Philly brother said, Marvin X is the Clifford Brown of spoken word. He put on a Clifford Brown album for Elliot Bey to
hear. 

 Pam Africa

Philly's Harriet Tubman, i.e., Pam Africa, told Marvin that he needs to come set up shop in Philly, especially if he wants to do the Philly leg of his Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour.  Philly poets told Marvin don't bring all them West coast poets to Philly, we can handle this! 

Marvin X and Philly's legendary musician/philosopher Sun Ra. Marvin worked with Sun Ra coast to coast. Marvin's mythological extravaganzas reveal Sun Ra's influence as well as Amiri Baraka's. Sun Ra and Marvin taught in Black Studies at UC Berkeley until the entire faculty was removed for being too radical. More pliant Negroes were hired.

Sarah Lomax Reese, owner of WURD Radio, Marvin X, Muhammida El Muhajir and Mrs. Amina Baraka. WURD sponsored Muhammida's production of Black Power Babies on Philly's Theatre row.

Marvin X reading at Black Love Lives, accompanied by Philly pianist Alfie Pollitt. Event was produced at the University of Penn by Nisa Ra.

Michael Shoatz, Jr., son of imprisoned Black Panther, Michael Shoatz, Sr., and Marvin X

Philadelphia's Queen of Poetry, Sonia Sanchez, co-founder of the Black Arts Movement

"Marvin, just the idea of a 27 city tour makes me tired."


Greg Corbin, founder of the Philly Youth Poetry Movement


 Philly Professor/poet/editor Ewuare Osayande

Philly native, Muhammad Ahmad, aka Max Stanford, during the 60s, he was  one of the most dangerous men in America as leader of RAM, the Revolutionary Action Movement. RAM was headed by exiled revolutionary Robert F. Williams, author Negroes With Guns.

Dr. Tony Montiero, ousted Temple University professor. Dr. Muhammad Ahmad was ousted as well in a conspiracy with the administration and the Afro-centric Negro Dr. Molefe Asante.

 Marvin with the Philadelphia Poets Award Ceremony produced by Maurice Henderson. Marvin was given a special award as an honorary Philly Poet.

Marvin X and Sarah Lomax Reese, owner of WURD Radio. She was in Oakland for A Conversation with Angela Davis and Sonia Sanchez, which she produced. She told Marvin X, "Don't think about coming to Philly with your BAM 27 City Tour and not have WURD as a sponsor."

Philly comes to Oakland: L to R: Sarah Lomax Reese, Angela Davis and Sonia Sanchez

 Marvin X, accompanied by David Murray and Earl Davis at the Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland, May 17, 2014

 The Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra, University of California, Merced, Feb/Mar, 2014. A Kim McMillan/Marvin X production

The BAM Poet's Choir and Arkestra Divas: Tureada Mikel, Mechelle LaChaux, Dr. Ayodele Nzinga and Tarika Lewis on violin. They performed at the 80th Birthday Party for Dr. Nathan Hare, father of Black and Ethnic Studies, founding publisher of the Black Scholar Magazine. He will be at the Laney BAM celebration, facilitating a mental health peer group: How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy.

 Dr. Nathan Hare, PhD sociology, PhD clinical psychology

Fired from Howard University--too Black; fired from San Francisco State University--too Black!

 Hare was a professional boxer while teaching at Howard. They didn't like that either. As Paradise Jah Love says in his classic poem (which he will read at the BAM celebration at Laney College), "They like everything about you but you."

 Marvin X with BAM co-founder Danny Glover. Danny may show.

photo South Park Kenny Johnson

 "Oh, how I miss my drinking buddy." "Marvin, you get drunk and say the damnest things."

 Philadelphia's Muhammida El Muhajir, creator of the Black Arts/Black Power Babies Conversation, now living in Ghana. Right: Samantha Akwei visited Ghana during the holidays, connected with Muhammida, Marvin and Nisa Ra's daughter.