IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND WHAT IS SET FORTH THEREIN

Thursday, January 31, 2013

NEW FROM BRENDA MARIE OSBEY

 Just out from Time Being Books in St. Louis.

from "Qu'on Arrive Enfin (a tale in-progress)"















 
1
and so we arrive at last in our native land —
the earth itself marked by slavery.
up there, in the open air, the stink, the hot funk of hot blood
the rowdy rebel-niggers of the past.
funny, no?
how we always return to this —
the city, the life
that slavery built,
tales altogether invented
as told by historians, founding fathers, the church.
but we are sick and tired of lies, dirty tricks and fraud,
we are sick of tales and of historians
sick of indigo, tobacco, rice and rum
we are sick of king-cotton and sugar cane
sick of it all
and can only wish hard-hard-hard
that the lakes, the bayous, swamps large and small
will have swallowed it all
flooded
erased it all.




Tuesday, January 22, 2013

A BRAND NEW BEGGAR - Now Available from Steerage Press



A Brand New Beggar is now available for order from Amazon, where you can also find a Kindle edition.

Click here for further info

The book will also be available from Small Press Distributing soon. 




Silence of the Iambs


Every now
            and again
I take my I
            out
For a walk and a rinse

I is a mother
            So say
                        My neighbors
In an obligatory
            Obligato
Of call and remorse

I tell them to
            Put it where
                        The pod don’t play

As the whether
            Or not balloons
                        Tear loose
From their subsidies

I hear voices
            From the other’s side
As if someone were
            Reading a poem












Tuesday, January 15, 2013

REDISCOVERED PLAY BY C.L.R. JAMES PUBLISHED

Long legendary throughout the diaspora, the first version of C. L. R. James's play about Toussaint Louverture finally emerges from the archives. This play is the production that united James with his friend Paul Robeson on the London stage. It was an extraordinary event at the time—witness the contemporary reviews added to this publication—and it is no less extraordinary today. In addition to reviews, this edition also reprints valuable early statements from James and Robeson. It is a singular, one might even say Olympian, volume with much to teach us all.


Wednesday, January 09, 2013

VIVIAN L. NIELSEN



VIVIAN L. NIELSEN
FEBRUARY 23, 1926 - JANUARY 4, 2013

Monday, January 07, 2013

MLA 2013



There was no off-site poetry reading during MLA's visit to Boston this year -- Hope somebody in Chicago will take it on for next year -- But we had a wonderful time all the same -- In addition to poetry division business, I was there to present another paper on the late Gil Scott-Heron on a panel with Carter Mathes and Margo Natalie Crawford, chaired by Anna Everett. My colleague Michael Berube was MLA president this year, drumming up support for the humanities and giving his usual witty performance in his address.  The MLA staff did their always exemplary job of herding professors and making a success out of such a disparate gathering.  Additional photos here from Richard Flynn, Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper and Laura Moriarty, who I thank heartily.