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.

ORDER IT HERE.

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

click to navigate to Steerage Press for more fine books by contemporary authors:

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.

Click here to find it on Amazon.

VIVIAN L. NIELSEN

VIVIAN L. NIELSEN

FEBRUARY 23, 1926 - JANUARY 4, 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.