MODERATING RACISM

By now you've probably heard about the string of racist comments that were posted at the Free Republic web site when the editors posted this photo of Malia Obama and invited visitors to offer captions. What has proved more interesting to me than the string of insane, racist invective Free Republic unleashed among their posse, though, has been the site's defenses of its response.

The first line of defense seems to be attack.. You know, along the lines of briefly acknowledging that these racist comments may have been "over the line" but then immediately leading to a lengthy diatribe about leftists who supposedly remained silent as Sarah Palin's children were viciously attacked by other leftists. That's the drill and we can't expect anything more original from those quarters.

But some times the defense is more revealing than it may intend. I just saw an official spokesperson for Free Republic appearing on MSNBC. Predictably, he started out by claiming that the posted comments weren't as bad as has been represented (google it; I think you'll find it difficult to exaggerate just how vile these people are). Then, defending the web site's "system," the spokesperson stated that this is a moderated site.

In other words, one or more of the volunteer moderators at the site had eyeballed these racist rants before they went live, and had thought they were just fine.

Ain't it great to live in a postracial society?!

KINDLE DX

Since getting my first Amazon Kindle, I've advised the curious who have asked me that unless they were likely to use a Kindle on a daily basis, it would be wise to wait for a second iteration of the device, likely to be both improved and less expensive. I was thinking of the anger many early adopters of the iPhone felt at the way they'd been suckered by Apple.

Amazon turns out to have learned both the good and the bad of product improvement and release from Apple. A while back they offered the Kindle 2, which was indeed improved, but was no less expensive. I held off, quite pleased with my original Kindle. Then Amazon released the larger format DX, shortly thereafter dropping the price of the standard issue Kindle.

Take that, early adopters.

But I made a quick calculation, realized that my first Kindle had already more than paid for itself just in the savings its electronic versions of my newspaper and magazine subscriptions had brought me over the hard copy delivery price, and so I put my name on the list to get one of the first DX devices.

Like the Kindle 2, the DX has a slightly improved e-paper system. It didn't seem to me that the page-turn was significantly faster. On the other hand, the device proper is faster; in particular, the download time for my newspapers, magazines and books is markedly imrpoved.

I really like the larger format screen -- It has been advertised as being specially designed for newspaper and magazine reading, but what I like is that it makes the book reading experience more like a "real" book -- reading on the first Kindle was not as annoying as trying to read a book on my cell phone, but it was still a mild annoyance to have to do a page turn every paragraph or so. Having just finished reading the Michael Thomas novel Man Gone Down in its Kindle version (which now keeps tab at the bottom of the screen on what percentage of the total text you have read so far), I can report that the reading experience is even more comfortable than on the earlier model. Further, when I am giving a lecture somewhere, I like to use my Kindle as a sort of teleprompter. This bigger screen is ideal for the purpose. I much prefer this to reading from a laptop perched on the lectern.

Here are the cons, in my view: Amazon is all too Apple-like in its approach to marketing and pricing. The prices of many of the books are creeping upwards. Likewise, the small price Amazon charges for emailing your documents for conversion to your Kindle is creeping up. It's insulting to early adopters to drop the price of the Kindle after just a few months (though I suppose early adopting has to be seen as its own reward any more). Also like Apple, Amazon has now sealed off the battery so that you cannot replace it yourself. While the new battery lasts longer than the original, this is still entirely unacceptable. With the original Kindle, I could carry a spare battery to switch out when I didn't have an opportunity to recharge the device. Truly heavy users will miss this option. It's true that the battery will last a long time if all you do is read -- but if you are using the download function at all you will drain the battery much more quickly. Amazon has also eliminated the memory card slot that was on the original (and let me add that the "cons" I am listing were all introduced with the Kindle 2). The memory of the DX is impressive; this thing can hold an entire library. Still, I miss being able to carry odd things on the memory card and poping it in and out at will.

Neither pro nor con, the feature that will "read" a book out loud to you. If your text has any sort of specialized vocabulary, you will get a good laugh from listening to Kindle's pronunciation. This thing is not going to replace audio books any time soon. But this won't be a terribly important feature to many people anyway. Though I hasten to add that I look forward to the day when an improved Kindle will read BEING AND TIME to me as I drive to the beach.

But there are many "pros" in addition to the faster download speed and the larger screen. You can load PDFs directly to the device and read them "natively" now. (And you can still email document files to the device that will be converted to Amazon's peculiar format.) The new arrangement of the keys and buttons makes it far less likely that you will change pages accidentally. Some users have complained about the smaller buttons on the keyboard, but I find them easier to use than the earlier buttons. The highlighting function is much improved now. You can highlight exactly the passages you want, rather than the boxes you were stuck making on the old one. And one of the neatest tricks the DX does is that, like the newer cell phones, you can turn it on its side and use landscape view. That is good for reading many graphs, but also, as you can see in the illustration, makes this a great device for reading, of all things, music. The cover that came with the original Kindle was pathetic, so they started selling the Kindles without covers! I had purchased a really cool leather cover for my old Kindle from a British company. Amazon now sells its own leather cover for the DX -- it's pricey, but it's nice. I would advise getting one, though I'm sure somebody will start marketing an even more impressive cover shortly.

Things Amazon needs to do for us:

Rejigger the audio book function. At present it only works with one proprietary audio book company's product. Anything else you have to put on the device as an MP3 and listen to the same way you'd listen to music.

Go back to a removable battery and memory card.

AND MOST OF ALL, work with the publishers and convince them they should not follow the disastrous path of the recording industry. Unlike files you put on the Kindle yourself, books you buy from Amazon come in a ludicrous proprietary format, which means that you can't read them on any other device. E-books need to be like MP3 files, readable on ANY device, transportable from one machine to another. Yes, this means that someone can give a copy to someone else, but they are going to be able to do that anyway. Anything can and will be scanned and passed around in time. People who buy Kindles are people who already buy lots of books. They will buy even more if the experience is as easy and as portable as what we have had with the sturdy codex format all these generations.

WILSON HARRIS - HEARTLAND

It was Gregory Rigsby who first put the name of Wilson Harris in front of me. Rigsby was the professor for the first course in Caribbean Literature I ever took, as an undergraduate at Federal City College. All of the names on the syllabus were new to me; all were artists I am still reading and studying these many years later.

The problem, then as now, was getting the books. The syllabus called for us to read PALACE OF THE PEACOCK by Harris. Even though Harris was published by so esteemed a press as Faber and Faber, it turned out that the book couldn't be gotten in the U.S. in those days, and so we didn't read that novel after all . But, already a haunter of used book markets, I turned up a used copy at a store over in Georgetown. Within pages, I knew I had to talk to Dr. Rigsby about what I was reading, and I knew I wanted to read everything Harris had published.

Thanks to C.L.R. James, who loaned me his copies (including those that were autographed presentation copies given him by Harris himself), I was able to read through all of the novels published up to that date. And thanks to book dealer Barry Alpert, I was eventually able to get my own copies of many of those early Faber and Faber editions.

Then, for a period of about a decade, a fair amount of Harris suddenly was on the shelves of American book stores. You could get the paperback GUYANA QUARTET, for example, which reprinted his first four books, and the most recent novels were also available. But that ended soon enough. The last one that I saw in stores was the incomparable JONESTOWN, which I reviewed for Nate Mackey's journal HAMBONE.

And then again, no Harris in the States. The more recent books have not been circulated at all here. If you want to read anything other than his non-fiction collection from Routledge, you have to import the book through Amazon UK or something. Even then, some of the older books are no longer available, even on the used book market.

Which is why it is such spectacular news that Wilson Harris's HEARTLAND, which had long been unavailable (unless you wanted to spend a considerable amount of money to get it from a rare book dealer) has now been returned to print by PEEPAL PRESS.

This new edition is part of the press' CARIBBEAN MODERN CLASSICS series and comes with a brief note from the author and an introduction by Michael Mitchell. In much the way that Harris's first four novels formed a GUYANA QUARTET, HEARTLAND is seen by its author as part of a trilogy that includes TUMATUMARI and THE SLEEPERS OF RORAIMA, and so its return to print is a boon for those (like me) who have had to read the latter two novels without ever having clapped eyes on their namesake predecessor.

The peepal Tree Press website is well worth a visit, so follow this link. You'll find available there such luminaries as Jan Carew, Edgar Mittelholzer, Earl Lovelace, Marion Patrick Jones, V.S. Reid, and many others. You'll also find there the announcement of a rediscovery, to be published next year: Elma Napier's A FLYING FISH WHISPERED, which is a 1938 Dominican novel featuring what the press terms "one of the most delightfully feisty women characters in Caribbean fiction." Perhaps a cousin of C.L.R. James's Maisie?!

Public/Private Option Explained

Q. DEAR NIELSEN:

What's all this I'm hearing about Republicans and a "public/private option"?

--Confused in D.C.

A.

Dear CDC:

Always glad to help out with the confusion.

For many years, conservatives both in and out of government circles, including such think-tanks as Enterprise and Heritage, have been lobbying heavily (and spending millions of dollars on the effort) to bring about a public/private option. The argument they have made as consistently as conservatives have ever argued for anything is that only competition between a public option and the private sector can bring about the improvements that we so desperately need. Only a healthy competition between the public sector and the private sector can bring into being the sort of market efficiencies that lead to the best results and the greatest savings. So strongly have Republicans in particular felt about this crying need that they have been willing to divert billions of dollars in tax payer funding to support public/private option systems. The conservative position has been that nothing short of tax-supported competition between a public option and multiple private options can save us from the current unsatisfactory dispensation.

Despite numerous independent studies that have shown few demonstrable benefits from such systems when they have been tried, conservatives cling tenaciously (one might say almost bitterly) to their dream of competition between a public option and public-financing for private options in K-12 education.

Does that help, CDC?

Q. Hey -- I was talking about health care, not schools!

A. Oh . . . so sorry. That's completely different, isn't it.

1/2 a Poem for David Bromige

(San Jose to Louisville -- 1989)

No one can tell you

Not to listen

With half an eye to fate

Another

Half occluded

Any one had

Half a heart

Would hear

What snow amounts to

Above a city's profits

An attendant

Face angled into light as

She lifts into heaven

Ahead

[She loves to hear him

Whisper "solipsism" in her ear]

Pressure we share

Attendant upon

Arising

A mother draws

Four of each for

Her two children

Who persist

In saying "seven"

Sentences take more time

As our shadow

Across snow

Flying etches

AMERICAN LITERATURE ASSOCIATION 2009

well . . . literal minded in Boston, I'd thought I'd stumbled into a place that worshiped jazz; turns out they just used jazz in their worship . . . but still . . . 

That made a fine backdrop to the meeting of the ALA.

Each year at the conference, the African American Literature and Culture Society presents the Stephen Henderson Award for contributions to the literary arts.  This year's award went to Elizabeth Alexander, who had read at an ALA panel in San Diego many years ago alongside Sherley Anne Williams, with a critical response from Marcellus Blount.  Elizabeth read at the Obama Inauguration back in January and we had the bilingual edition of her poem on hand for the eager readers of the ALA.  Back in 1986, Elizabeth was a winner of the Larry Neal Award.  The first Larry Neal winner for poetry, in 1983, was one A.L. Nielsen.  It was a distinct pleasure to share a podium with her on this occasion.

Among the new features at this year's conference, new author societies devoted to the works of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Pauline Hopkins.




An exciting development this year for those of us in poetry studies in addition to a Dunbar Society, the appearance of a new society that takes as its object of study the work of the New York School of poets.

DIG

More than two decades after The Music, the last major collection of Amiri Baraka's writings on jazz, comes Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music, from the University of California Press.  Taking its place on the shelf alongside Blues People and Black Music, this volume brings us Baraka's reflections, reviews and concert experiences from the late eighties to the late now.  In any such collection there is bound to be some repetition, and that is true here, but the book will introduce you to musicians you probably haven't heard before  (I had somehow missed Rodney Kendrick till reading of him in these pages), give you a new perspective on artists who have come to prominence more recently (Vijay Iyer) and offer surprising takes on music you thought you knew (check out Baraka's musings on the late music of Miles Davis).  And it is always rewarding to witness the evolution of Baraka's thoughts on these subjects.

The book also features a treasury of photographs, such as this cover illustration that shows Baraka at the front steps of the Black Arts Repertory Theater School in 1965. If you look closely, you'll see that the fellow at the top of the stairs wearing a white cap is Sun Ra.  

For all you bibliographers, here's an interesting twist.  Unlike so many of his books from the late 60s to just a few years ago, neither the cover nor the copyright page of this book makes any reference to Baraka's earlier name.  Where The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka splits his life around that act of renaming, this book is simply presented to us as written by Amiri Baraka.  (Though I note that he remains "Imamu" in the LOC catalogue data on the copyright page.)

Order the book here or pick up a copy at your local independent book store.  I got mine at Bridge Street Books in D.C. -- 

SIR PAUL

Another good colleague is on his way out of State College.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     One of the people I've been happiest to know since coming to Penn State is Paul Youngquist.  Long-time followers of this blog will remember seeing him playing with his jazz band in earlier scenes from around town.  Paul is a tremendous scholar and critic.  His essay on Amiri Baraka and Science Fiction in the special issue of African American Review dedicated to Baraka's work is a model of insight and instigation.  His two powerful books on Blake and on monstrosities (do I repeat myself?) are significant contributions to studies in Romanticism.  A few years ago Paul co-taught a graduate seminar on Free Jazz with Billy Joe Harris, which culminated in a performance of the reunited New York Art Quartet.  And his guitar playing was something I will miss almost as much as I'll miss talking to him every day around here.

Paul is off to another of my old stomping grounds, Boulder, Colorado, where he will join the English Department at U of Colorado, being a Romanticist under the Flat Irons, dropping by Naropa, enjoying the expanded opportunities for jazz that he will find in the Boulder/Denver region.

SEVERAL GRAVITIES

Clearly one of the most beautiful books of the year, Keith Waldrop's Several Gravities combines Waldrop's distinctive writings with a collection of the collage work he has been producing for years, mostly visible till now on the covers of a series of poetry volumes from Burning Deck Press.

            Perfection

demands images at

strategic intervals, something

steady on which to

map the random. My world

is in disorder. Like-

wise my schedule. I

live within 

acceptable 

tolerances. At the

intersection of innumerable

fantasies. Irreconcilables

point me to

my orient. Ambiguous

suns. A shower of

elementaries. Venus rising

from the nutrient broth.

Accidents of sensual

logic. Fringes of

interference. That

doorbell.

Browse your way over to Siglio Press for more information on this book.

FRANCISCO ARAGON

Last night Francisco Aragon brought his poetry to town, with a reading at Foster Auditorium.  Francisco is the author of  PUERTA DEL SOL, from Bilingual Review Press.  

He is also the editor of THE WIND SHIFTS: NEW LATINO POETRY, perhaps the most far-reaching such anthology since Ray Gonzalez's AFTER AZTLAN.

One of the poems Francisco read was dedicated to Jack Spicer, one of the many subjects swirling around the table when we had lunch earlier in the day.

Love Poem

by Francisco Aragón

Just let the San Andreas stay put, keeping this tunnel intact, enough to amble out of it, past Louie’s Dim Sum a Saturday afternoon, breeze detectable off the bay—visible in the distance, carrying with it the smells of open air markets: crab freshly caught and seahorses piled in bins along Stockton... or Jack, strolling out of the tube connecting Polk Gulch and North Beach—on his way to Aquatic Park to spread the Sporting Green on his favorite patch of grass... He is ferrying the portable radio to his ear listening for the count in the bottom of the ninth at Candlestick, begins to smooth the pages with his palms before he sits to keep it dry: the split seat of his pants for Jack Spicer (1925–1965)

Francisco is on the staff of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies, working out of their office in D.C.  Check out Francisco's work with the Institute at the Letras Latinas blog site.

CLICKAPHONICS: RAINA LEON READING

RAINA LEON'S RETURN

One of the first people I met when I came to Penn State University was poet and educator (but then she was a poet and student) Raina Leon.

We've remained in touch since she moved on to North Carolina and Nevada and Germany and I was pleased to get word that she was going to be in town this past weekend reading from her first book of poetry, Canticle of Idols, which has been published by Word Tech.  

I hadn't been to Websters Book Store for quite a while and was surprised to find a used vinyl store added to the books (a bit disconcerting, looking across the room during the poetry reading and seeing a record of my musical history spread out for sale), but all else, including a certain amount of disorganization and incomprehension (vital elements of any successful book emporium -- far more important than cats) was as I recalled from earlier readings.  In the past this venue has hosted Erica Hunt, Ed Roberson, Evie Shockley, Duriel Harris, Susan Wheeler and Jeffrey Renard Allen, so Raina (who had come years ago to the reading Alfred Arteaga did at Websters) was following an estimable tradition.

Raina brought with her poet/friend DeLana Dameron, whose own book, How God Ends Us, you can read about here.  A forward by Elizabeth Alexander . . . not shabby . . . 

Raina will be reading elsewhere as follows:

April 8
7:30pm 
Quail Ridge Bookstore
quailridgebooks.booksense.com
3522 Wade Ave
Raleigh, NC 27607
(919) 828-1588
reading and book signing with DeLana Dameron and Lenard D. Moore

April 9
9pm
Busboys and Poets
http://www.busboysandpoets.com/
Busboys @ 14th & V.
2021 14th St, DC
reading and book signing with DeLana Dameron

April 10
4pm
Green Line Cafe
4239 Baltimore Avenue
Philadelphia PA 19104
Informal poetry discussion and coffee 

Be sure to check her out -- you can order her book here.

Raina's work also appeared in the Ocho 15 edition of the MiPOesias project, edited by Francisco Aragon.  You can read about that here.  And you can hear Francisco read from his own poetry at Penn State on Wed., April 8.  Watch for a blog entry on that one soon.

COLLAPSIBLE POETICS THEATER

Don't tread on you? Entity. Of the expansive accumulative. Society. Inalienable? Dysynchronous. Siempre. Torn up and tearing. Sacred and profane. Silly and sublime. Ascendant. Techne. Of what's oppositional, of what's not. Of what's recuperative, of what's not. Walking tall. Life and death. Power and grace. Alienable Dividuals. Entities. Seek a freedom in, not from. Alienable Dividual. Sees the diff, bears the brunt, speaks the sum. A sliver of your own self, striving. Siempre.

Always something new out of Rodrigo Toscano -- this is one of the opening passages of "Truax Inimical," described here as "A trans-modern masque for four voices," which leads off his new book Collapsible Poetics.  The book was selected by Marjorie Welish for the National Poetry Series and was pubished by Fence Books.  Use Amazon to look inside the book, and order a copy while you're there.

NEW from MICHAEL GIZZI

I've been reading Michael Gizzi's poetry for three decades now, ever since I got a copy of his early Burning Deck book Bird As, which was the subject of one of my first book reviews.

Now, some sixteen books later and again from Burning Deck Press, comes Gizzi's latest, New Depths of Deadpan.

Here's one poem from the new collection:

AN OLD-FASHIONED

A good teacher instructs by swatting flies.

An elephant never forgets an excuse.

What made the tick choose anthropology?

Try this: repair a hubbub.

Studies suggest people who speak in tongues never eat with you again.

And that pieman once thought to be a berry (now a wooden boat) died of seahorse strokes.

He used to baby-sit Leadbelly.

Music--the conduit through which you blindly come into view.

Listen: your initials on the moon.

You can find Burning Deck's web site and catalogue here.

Burning deck editions are also available from Small Press Distribution.

CELEBRATING CHESTER HIMES

Just before Spring Break, Penn State hosted a centennial symposium on the life and works of novelist Chester Himes. Like all too many of my generation, I hadn't known of Himes until movie adaptations of his works began to appear, movies like Cotton Comes to Harlem. Those movies, along with Himes's autobiographical works, brought about a late life resurgence of interest in his novels. I still remember the irremediably cool Himes being interviewed on educational television (that's what we called it back in the day) wearing a turtleneck sweater and an attitude.

The Penn State symposium was organized by Jonathan Eburne and brought to campus a group of scholars and writers that included Steve Cannon, Norlisha Crawford, Tyrone Simpson, Christopher Breau, Will Turner, Justus Nieland, Pim Higginson, Kevin Bell, Wendy Walters and Lisa Fluet.

Watch for a publication to emerge from this gathering in the future.

New from Abigail Child

Laura Hinton's Mermaid Tenement Press has just released this new chapbook from Abigail Child.  (I love the name "Mermaid Tenement" for the vision it summons of a mermaid flopping around in one of those kitchen bathtubs with feet I used to see in older New York buildings.)

The chapbook, Counterclock, is described as the first part of "An Experiment in Autobiography" which Child read at the St. Marks Poetry Project and the Bowery Poetry Club in 2007 and 2008.  The cover image you see here is from Child's film The Future is Behind You.

The work starts:

Start here. Uncompensated tongue. Pressure point mortality periodicals linking the present to earlier structural loves.  Read forward, sharp reds. The words take off. Think. It starts. Evaporation of certain volatiles stitched unto space hurtling forward. Hunker present to left stickling pins in a back hammer pile. Enrich the feeling. Elixir. Lucked Structure with which to

You can find more information about Tenement Press publications here.

CLICKAPHONICS: ED ROBERSON AUDIO

Click in title area to hear Ed Roberson read "The Motorcycle Crossing."

LOUISVILLE SLUGGERS

I'm not sure what this guy was doing there, but I was at the university of Louisville to hear poet Ed Roberson.

It was time for the conference formerly known as the Twentieth Century Literature Conference. Rumor has it that as the 21st century unfolded, a select committee considered this unpronounceable symbol of a symbol as a conference logo, before settling finally on "The Conference on Literature and Culture after 1900."

In any event, the event began with Roberson's understated but powerfully read statement, including work from two new books that will be published in the coming months.

Spontaneous Bop T-Shirt




The final speaker of the conference, holding down the slot I filled at last year's meeting, was Cinema Studies Professor David James, who detailed the early stages of Rock 'n Roll film.



At the after party we played a rousing game of "guess which poet belongs to these socks."






Also among the featured readers was Los Angeles novelist Percival Everett, who presented passages from I AM NOT SYDNEY POITIER.

STERLING BROWN -- AFTER WINTER

This striking portrait of Sterling Brown by Jack Coughlin graces the cover of an indispensible new book just out from Oxford University Press.  After Winter: The Art and Life of Sterling A. Brown, edited by John Edgar Tidwell and Steven C. Tracy, makes a powerful follow-up to the recently published A Negro Looks at the South, also from Oxford and edited by Tidwell with Mark Sanders.  Quite some time separated these volumes from the earlier collection of Brown's essays, edited by Sanders, and so this veritable flood of Sterling's work and responses to it is even more than usually welcome.

"After Winter" is the title of one of Brown's most moving poems, one he often liked to use to close readings.  It's a poem that looks back to his childhood days on a farm near Laurel, Maryland, a retreat from the Brown family's busier days in D.C.  After Winter is also the title of Haile Gerima's too-seldom screened 1985 documentary film about Sterling Brown in which you can see him read the title poem and identify himself as the "little feller" of the poem.  If you'd like to arrange a screening of this important film you can find details here.

In addition to new essays on Brown, this volume collects such crucial earlier responses as Alain Locke's piece on Brown as New Negro folk poet, James Weldon Johnson's original introduction to Southern Road, Charles Rowell's Callaloo interview with Brown and Lorenzo Thomas's essay on Sterling Brown's theory of the blues.  The book also offers such useful materials as a short Brown chronology, an annotated bibliography and a discography that not only lists recordings of Brown, but details recordings relevant to individual poems by Brown.  For one example, lovers of the Slim Greer series can supplement their readings of "Slim in Atlanta" with the song "Negro Got No Justice" on a Rounder Records compilation identified in the discography.

It's always the poetry itself that brings us back to Brown, though, and this book also brings us two "lost" sonnets Brown published in the 1920s that were not collected in any of his subsequent books.

Like C.L.R. James, Sterling Brown's life encompassed the greater part of the twentieth century, and After Winter is a treasure of a book that will help us understand much of the transformations Brown lived through and impelled.

November 1963

I took this photo in November of 1963.  I had just turned thirteen and took this with a Brownie Starflash camera my parents had given me.

This photo was much on my mind yesterday as I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama, and not only because I was standing on the grounds of the capitol when I took it.

This camera man was standing vigil on the scene as John Kennedy's body lay in state.  My family and I had been among the thousands lined up along Constitution Avenue just hours before as Kennedy's funeral cortege marched solemnly up the street to the accompaniment of muffled drums.

The Civil ights Act had not yet been passed.  The Voting Rights Act was still to come.  The nation faced uncertainty, dread and unspeakable loss.

Yesterday the crowds were again lining the streets and filling the mall in D.C. -- In so many ways, I felt that our nation had finally turned a corner that had just come into sight in November of 1963.

INAUGURAL POETRY

Today belonged to the crowd.

and who among our poets wrote more powerfully of our own powers in the crowd than Whitman?

Here's my idea of a good inaugural poem:

The sum of all known reverance I add up in you whoever you are,

The President is there in the White House for you, not you who are here for him,

The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them,

The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you,

Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the

going and coming of commerce and mails, are all for you.

--Walt Whitman, A Song for Occupations

Justice Roberts Flubs the Oath

I thought it sort of cute, a symptom of his eagerness to get on the job, that Obama began repeating his oath as Chief Justice Roberts was still speaking -- but then an odd thing happened -- 

In the days leading up to this, some journalists had commented on the good interchanges between Roberts and Obama, given that Obama had opposed the Roberts nomination.

Now, suddenly, Roberts, who is reputed to be an expert on the Constitution, changed the word order of the oath.  This is how the oath is specified in Aricle  II Section 1 of our Constiution:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

In Roberts' version, the "faithfully" went wandering.  There was a pause as Obama, clearly recognizing that something was amiss, didn't respond.  Roberts then reprompted, still incorrectly.  Obama did his best to repeat -- and the somewhat unconstitutional deed was done.

I suppose this was just a case of nerves on Roberts' part, but I can't help reading it as an omen.

Let's hope that President Obama will find nominees for the Supreme Court who will prove more careful readers of the Constitution of the United states of America.

We Are One

One of the first things I was to witness when my family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1963 was the March on Washington.  Though I was too young to comprehend the full dimensions of what took place that day, the vision of all those people coming together on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the cause of justice and freedom stayed with me for the rest of my days.  Not too long after, Sam Cooke composed his song "A Change Is Gonna Come," which I first heard sung by Otis Redding.

Today I saw an incomparable coming toether of generations as Bettye LaVette and Jon Bon Jovi met before Lincoln's gaze and a nation's . . . four decades on, with President-Elect Obama before them, they sang for all of us, "a change has come."

They leave it to us to make that true . . . 

INAUGURATION

and speaking of Lorenzo Thomas, here's his still timely "Inauguration," from The Bathers.

The land was there before us

Was the land. Then things

Began happening fast. Because

The bombs us have always work

Sometimes it makes me think

God must be one of us. Because

Us has saved the wold. Us gave it

A particular set of regulations

based on 1) undisputable acumen

2) carnivorous fortunes, delicately

Referred to here as "bull market"

And (of course) other irrational factors

Deadly smoke thick over the icecaps,

Our man in Saigon Lima Tokyo etc etc

Clickaphonics - Ishmael Reed Introducing the 2008 American Book Awards

Clickaphonics - Al Young hosting the American Book Awards

Clickaphonics - C.S. Giscombe reads from Prairie Style at American Book Awards

Clickaphonics - Aldon Lynn Nielsen at American Book Awards, Introduced by Al Young

AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS 2008

That was Ishmael Reed kicking off a Duke Ellington tune at Anna's Jazz Island in Berkeley last month, with Carla Blank taking the lead on violin.

Who knew that in addition to being a novelist, essayist and poet, Reed could take a turn at the keyboard?

The occasion was the 2008 American Book Awards of the Before Columbus Foundation.  Reed was instrumental in the creation of the foundation back in 1976, and they've been giving these awards since 1978.  This year's honorees included Douglas Blackmon, C. S. Giscombe, Nikki Giovanni, Moustafa Bayoumi, Angela Jackson, Fae Ng, Maria Mazziotti Gillian and J.J. Phillips.  Also honored was the posthumous volume by Lorenzo Thomas, Don't Deny My Name, that I edited and introduced, published earlier in the year by the University of Michigan Press.  I was out in Pennsylvania when word of the award reached me, but it transpired that the ceremony in Berkeley was to be held during the time the Modern Language Association was meeting in San Francisco.  So I took some time out from the MLA Poetry Division and other sessions, and jumped on the BART to get across the Bay in time for the festivities.  Seeing Reed at the piano was surprise enough; finding Taj Mahal there in the audience, a musician I have been listening to since I was fifteen, was all the award I needed.

Afterwards, Cecil and his family along with colleague Paul Youngquist joined us on the BART trip back to San Francisco and the Yerba Buena Center where we joined the MLA Off-Site reading, already in progress.  Cecil ran into one of his students on the BART train.

This year's Book Awards were hosted by poet Al Young.

[principal photography by Anna Everett]

DAVID HOROWITZ LIES TO THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION

I wasn't able to make the MLA panel that featured David Horowitz, having commitments to attend other sessions having to do with, er, modern languages, so I've had to rely on subsequent reports to learn what happened.

The CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION recently ran a column on the event.  In that column they reported on objections to Horowitz's presentation from the audience, highlighting remarks made by Barbara Foley and Grover Furr.  According to the CHRONICLE, Furr said that he objected to Horowitz's presence on the panel not because of Horowitz's ideology, but "because he is a liar."

In his usual thoughtful and temperate way, Horowitz responded by bragging that he "was in the Civil Rights Movement before Barbara Foley was born."

Without outing Barbara's birth certificate, suffice it to say that Horowitz thereby proved Gordon Furr's point.

Tan Lin, Too

The latest volume from Manuel Brito's incomparable and long-running Zasterle Editions is Tan Lin's plagiarism project, which I hereby dutifully copy.

Find information about the press at this link.  Zasterle Editions can also be found at Small Press Distribution.

GAZA

"Are Palestinians and Israelis condemned to destroy each other physically and morally for years and for decades? Real agreements for peace and coexistence, like the ones reached by Mandela and de Klerk in South Africa, show how the bitterest struggles can be resolved by generosity, forgiveness, and a sense of history. Years ago, in my 1988 Palestinian diary, I quoted the words of an intellectual from East Jerusalem about the double dream of descendants of Isaac and Ishmael: the disappearance or nonexistence of the other. But the problem, he concluded, 'as much for ourselves as for them, rests in knowing whether we are prepared to accept something less than our dream.'

"After Oslo, the Israelis cherished the hope that they had realized their dream at the expense of the Palestinians' nightmare. This hope can now be seen to be totally illusory. Only recognition of Palestinian identity and the Palestinian right to an independent, democratic state will one day put an end to the tragedy in the Middle east."

--Juan Goytisolo

Goytisolo wrote these words for the newspaper El Pais a decade ago; they remain sadly timely.

Every day I hear news people on my television insisting that the problem is the refusal of Hamas to admit the right of Israel to exist.  I seldom hear this paired with reminders of such things as Golda Meir's statement that "there is no such thing as a Palestinian."  What can be more clear than that Israel refuses to permit the existence of an independent Palestinian nation with contiguous borders and autonomy. (Not to mention control over its own water and electricity resources.)

Twice I have heard David Shuster on MSNBC insist to his interlocutors that four-fifths of the deaths in Gaza are Hamas fighters, a number contradicted by absoultely every independent source.

The Israeli forces devastated the Jenin refugee camp at the beginning of the Bush administration, pursuing an absolute orgy of destruction in which they even went out of their way to destroy private cars parked along the roads and desktop computers in education offices.  Bush did nothing.  When the IDF invaded Lebanon and again pursued a policy of rampant murder and destruction, Bush again did nothing.  Now the official position of the Bush administration, with no comment from Obama, is that a cease fire from the waves of death in Gaza would be "premature."

In Lebanon, the IDf fired on UN observer posts, claiming that Hezbollah fighters were firing from that area, a claim refuted by multiple independent observers.  In Lebanon the IDf deployed antipersonnel weapons in civilian areas, in open violation of international treaties.

In Gaza, the IDF attacks UN schools where civilians have sought refuge.  The IDF uses mass deployments of white phosphor weapons, with predictable consequences.

Is there any one who truly believes that these tactics will put a halt to the Hamas rocket attacks.  Is there anyone who believes that this will lead to peace?  Is there anyone who believes that the political leadership in Israel sees this as a pathway to peaceful relations with an independent Palestinian neighbor?

clickaphonnics - Duriel Harris at MLA off-site reading

clickaphonics - A.L. Nielsen at MLA off-site reading

MLA Off-Site Reading Part II

There were a few changes at this year's off-site reading:  People wore masks, Walter Lew's two minutes only took ten minutes, and I didn't wear a tie.

MLA OFF-SITE READING 2008

Cecil Giscombe and I arrived late by BART after attending the Before Columbus Foundation event in Berkeley (which I will report on in a later blog entry), so I have no photographs from readings of poets with last names beginning A through F -- I got to the Yerba Buena Center just in time to catch this shot of Cecil, whose name was announced as we walked in.

[PSYCHEDELIC EAST BAY MYSTERY POETS' MASQUE]

I'll be back with the rest of the Alphabet shortly.

"These cordless electric angels can go anywhere."

and you thought the music industry was backwards

[this note appeared in the electronic version of the Washington Post]

POET'S CORNER

By Mary Karr

Sunday, December 21, 2008; Page BW12

(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company has permitted Book World to reprint "Journey of the Magi" by T.S. Eliot, but only in print; as the Eliot Estate does not permit Internet or electronic use of the poem. Please find and enjoy the piece in our newspaper.)

Thank you.

-- Book World

DON'T DENY MY NAME Wins American Book Award

2008 AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS — December 28th at Anna’s Jazz Island

Sunday, December 28th
4 pm – 6:30 pm
Anna’s Jazz Island
2120 Allston Way
Berkeley, CA (USA)

    Clickable

The Before Columbus Foundation announces
Winners of the Twenty-Eighth Annual

2008 American Book Awards

Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America (The Penguin Press)

Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (Doubleday)

Jonathan Curiel, Al’America: Travels Through America’s Arab and Islamic Roots (The New Press)

Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Richard Dauenhauer, and Lydia T. Black, Anooshi Lingit Aani Ka, Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 and 1804(University of Washington Press)

Maria Mazziotti Gillian, All That Lies Between Us(Guernica Editions Inc)

Nikki Giovanni, The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968-1998 (HarperCollins)

C.S. Giscombe, Prairie Style (Dalkey Archive Press)

Angela Jackson, Where I Must Go:  A Novel(TriQuarterly)

L. Luis López, Each Month I Sing (Farolito Press)

Tom Lutz, Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)

Fae Myenne Ng, Steer Toward Rock (Hyperion)

Yuko Taniguchi, The Ocean in the Closet (Coffee House Press)

Lorenzo Thomas, Aldon Lynn Nielsen (editor), Don’t Deny My Name:  Words and Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition (University of Michigan Press)

Frank B. Wilderson III, Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid (South End Press)

 Lifetime Achievement Award
J.J. Phillips
Author of Mojo Hand: An Orphic Tale

 

 

Oakland, CA — The Before Columbus Foundation announces the Winners of the Twenty-Eighth Annual AMERICAN BOOK AWARDS. The 2008 American Book Award winners will be formally recognized on Sunday, December 28th at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way in Berkeley, CA. The awards will take place from 4 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Authors attending will read selections from their works and sign copies of their award-winning books. A reception and book signing will take place following the ceremony. This event is free to the public. For more information, call (510) 681-5652.

California Poet Laureate (2005-2008) Al Young will host the event. Al Young was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger, who has said of Mr. Young: “Al Young is a poet, an educator and a man with a passion for the arts. His remarkable talent and sense of mission to bring poetry into the lives of Californians is an inspiration.”

The American Book Awards were created to provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community. The purpose of the awards is to recognize literary excellence without limitations or restrictions. There are no categories, no nominees, and therefore no losers. The award winners range from well-known and established writers to under-recognized authors and first works. There are no quotas for diversity, the winners list simply reflects it as a natural process. The Before Columbus Foundation views American culture as inclusive and has always considered the term “multicultural” to be not a description of various categories, groups, or “special interests,” but rather as the definition of all of American literature. The Awards are not bestowed by an industry organization, but rather are a writers’ award given by other writers.

– Javier Huerta