WHICH ONE OF THESE GUYS WOULD YOU ELECT PRESIDENT?

POST-SOUL?

The long-awaited "Post-Soul Aesthetics" issue of African American Review is now out, and as you can see here, the issue is as beautiful as it is provocative.  This cover art is by Ron Davis.

I was asked to write a prefatory piece for the collection, titled "Preliminary Postings from a Neo-Soul."  The guest editor for the special issue was Bertram Ashe, who also convened a discussion, reproduced in the issue, featuring Mark Anthony Neal, Crystal Anderson, Alexander Weheliye and Evie Shockley.  Contributing essays to the issue were Paul Taylor, Richard Schur, Crystal Anderson, David Jones, Marlo David, Malin Pereira, Brian Reed, Michelle Elam and William Ramsey.  Almost two decades have passed since Trey Ellis published his controversial essay on "The New Black Aesthetic" in Callaloo, and this  issue of AAR may be the most substantive response to the phenomena outlined by Ellis in the intervening years.

JAYNE CORTEZ - THE BEAUTIFUL BOOK

Jayne Cortez has published another of her beautiful books, eponymously titled this time.

If by some chance you don't see it at your local book bodega, contact:

Bola Press

P.O. Box 96

Village Station

New York, NY  10014

USA

from POCKET TRUMPET

(for Don Cherry)

I dreamt I lost my magnificent pocket trumpet

I left it in the airport X-ray machine

I left it in a taxi cab

I left it on a street corner in Paris

I dreamt I said goodbye to my pocket trumpet

I kissed it I hugged it  I dropped it

I picked it up then dreamt

it was locked in jaws of a bloodhound 

. . . 

POETS CORNERED

Mary Karr got off to a rough start when she took over the WASHINTON POST BOOK WORLD'S column "Poet's Choice," making an egregious factual error that any college student in American Literature would have recognized.  Today she has managed to outdo herself.

In an otherwise unremarkable retrospective on the otherwise remarkable work of poet Bill Knott, Karr recalls a poem of his she first read when she was in high school.  I gather from the context of her comments that she must have been in high school around the same time I was.  The Knott poem was a response to the war in Vietnam:  "The only response / to a child's grave is / to lie down before it and play dead."

But how does Karr begin the sentence in which she reminds us of this poem?

"As American bombs were accidentally killing children . . ."

This is, if anything, worse than the language of "collateral damage."  When American "surgical strikes" rained bombs on Vietnamese targets, the deaths of those on the ground were no accident.

tribute to American ingenuity

it's only one day after the event, and there is already a "Thatone08" shirt on the market -- I just ordered mine.

McCaniacs and Their Reading Practices

I was all set to write an entry about last night's presidential "town hall" (which was in a hall and in a town, but unrecognizable otherwise) when I was brought up short by a letter in our campus newspaper this morning.  Today's Daily Collegian includes a letter to the editor from a self-described member of our local chapter of YOUNG AMERICANS FOR FREEDOM.

Here's the breath-taking logic that seems to characterize Republican representations of the Obama campaign these days.

Our correspondent begins by describing several pieces of Obama "propaganda" he'd spotted posted around campus.  Then he writes: "What makes me even more nervous is that some of the flyers depict Obama looking to the left with the word 'Hope' underneath.  It is very reminiscent of a 1930s Stalin poster.  It seems that Obama wants to 'change' America into a communist state.  . . . So, when voting, remember to vote for the candidate that represents traditional American values, not a comrade that does not have your best interest in mind."

What are we to make of the numerous Obama posters that depict him looking straight ahead, or to the right?  How does the mere fact that someone is shown looking to the left while expressing hope become translated into evidence of communist intentions?  What are we to make of the innumerable campaign posters and ads that show McCain looking off to his left?

Hey, come to think of it, Obama was positioned on the left side of the stage last night -- But that also meant that McCain was often seen looking to the left.  But that was his right.  Obama was to the right of McCain --- 

This letter was signed by a senior in political science, which would have been an even greater cause for concern had I not met so many bright and thoughtful political science majors at Penn State, liberal and conservative alike, who can actually read and reason.

Palinography

arrrrgggghhh!

My television is bringing me Sarah Palin's campaign appearance from Florida -- She, of course, started out with a few proud references to last week's Vice Presidential debates -- 

A few minutes later she was repeating her usual riff on Obama's tax proposals -- Then, she complained that the Obama campaign is "never asked" about how they will pay for their proposed programs -- "They never ask 'em," Palin asserts.

I guess she assumes that none of us remember the debates last week that she referenced just minutes ago -- In that debate, both sides were asked what programs they might have to dispense with.  Like me, you probably found that one of the more memorable moments in the debate, since Plain refused to answer -- She told us that she had only been campaigning for five weeks, and thus had no promises she might have to take back -- 

They do indeed "ask 'em," but some times the candidates tell you point blank that they won't answer.

("Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher") LIFTING BELLY HIGH II

In the last of the small hours, we who love to be astonished sank into the hotel lobby, too wide awake with some 72 hours of poetry and conversation to go right to sleep.


The last night had culminated in, what else, a bar reading -- One Duquesne student encountered at the bar remarked on what a bounty it was to have an honest-to-god bar right there on campus -- Not wanting to act my age, I didn't tell him of the old days when every campus had its Ratskellar.

The crowd was primed by the days of the conference -- and each poet was greeted volubly, cheers that even drowned out the sound of the game on the big screen in the back.

The subject of the conference had been women's poetry after 1900.

It was pretty clear from this last night that women's poetry after 2000 could justify a conference all on its own.

Click here for Kathleen Fraser

Claudia Rankine Reads at the University of Pittsburgh

click to hear Mei Mei Berssenbrugge

A CALL IN THE MIDST OF A CROWD -- Elizabeth Willis & Lisa Samuels Duet

clickaphonics - Dawn Lundy Martin

LIFTING BELLY HIGH

This is the stunning sight that came into view when I drew back the curtains in my hotel room in Pittsburgh just two weeks ago. Since I was in town to speak on the subject of the visual in poetry by African American women, it seemed somehow fitting that I found myself greeted by Saint Benedict the Moor. St. Benedict presides over Pittsburgh's Hillside District, and appeared to be welcoming all of us who had come to town for the LIFTING BELLY HIGH conference, hosted at nearby Duquesne University, a conference on poetry by American women after 1900. My own talk was to address poetry considerably after 1900 -- mostly after 2000.

This was yet another chance for me to touch base with the traveling colloquium of poetry people I've gotten to know over the years, but it was also an opportunity for me to hear poets I'd been reading for quite a while but had never seen read from their work, such as Dawn Lundy Martin, who read the first night, and Claudia Rankine, who read in a mutlimedia performance across town at the University of Pittsburgh on the second evening of the conference.

Also on hand were poets whose works I'd been reading and whose public performances I had attended often over the years: Kathleen Fraser, Elizabeth Willis, Mei Mei Berssenbrugge, the list goes on and on. I had missed both the landmark Page Mothers conference at U.C. San Diego years before (I was supposed to speak there but decided to have heart bypass surgery instead) and an important, related conference at Bard (that one I had not even heard of till too late to attend) -- There was no way I would have missed this one.

In days to come I will post sound files from the poets, along with additional photos.

The one photo here that was obviously not taken by me comes to us from Tom Orange.