WRITING REVOLUTION ACROSS THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
EDITORIAL
WAKE UP & LIVE!
Dr. Marva McClean
In this poetry edition of Sound the Abeng we experience the powerful hands of poets who write and speak with both conscience and revolution in their hearts. They are writing in the midst of a global cultural production of community and identity, pointing us towards the future. Their words strengthen and sustain us to stay strong in these broken places as we seek to ground ourselves in the new world which has emerged within our midst. They alert us that we must find and define ourselves in this global movement and as Bob Marley declares, we “must wake up and live!”
On the shoulders of our ancestors, we are crossing over into a world we are yet to write. What happens at this border site? How can we translate these changes we are experiencing into writing that sparks the revolutionary change that is so essential to our survival?
Through the rhetoric and rhythms of their verses, these poets author words that call us into action to subvert the status quo and assert good over evil. They write with fire that ignites us into action for the environment, human rights, cease fire, political justice, equity, gender justice, eco-sustainability and the rights of children. The waves of their words pull us onto the shores of our inheritance of Black culture and Black consciousness bequeathed to us by our ancestors and transported through genetic memories. Words remembered, spoken, written, shouted out loud, danced and performed. This is the daily poetic journey that pulls us into the conscientization of the revolution that is taking place all across the globe. Bob Marley called it fyah while James Baldwin boldly referenced it as the fire next time.
And here we all are in the heat of this moment of change.
WAKE UP & LIVE!
Dr. Marva McClean
In this poetry edition of Sound the Abeng we experience the powerful hands of poets who write and speak with both conscience and revolution in their hearts. They are writing in the midst of a global cultural production of community and identity, pointing us towards the future. Their words strengthen and sustain us to stay strong in these broken places as we seek to ground ourselves in the new world which has emerged within our midst. They alert us that we must find and define ourselves in this global movement and as Bob Marley declares, we “must wake up and live!”
On the shoulders of our ancestors, we are crossing over into a world we are yet to write. What happens at this border site? How can we translate these changes we are experiencing into writing that sparks the revolutionary change that is so essential to our survival?
Through the rhetoric and rhythms of their verses, these poets author words that call us into action to subvert the status quo and assert good over evil. They write with fire that ignites us into action for the environment, human rights, cease fire, political justice, equity, gender justice, eco-sustainability and the rights of children. The waves of their words pull us onto the shores of our inheritance of Black culture and Black consciousness bequeathed to us by our ancestors and transported through genetic memories. Words remembered, spoken, written, shouted out loud, danced and performed. This is the daily poetic journey that pulls us into the conscientization of the revolution that is taking place all across the globe. Bob Marley called it fyah while James Baldwin boldly referenced it as the fire next time.
And here we all are in the heat of this moment of change.
STRONG IN THE BROKEN PLACES: POETICS OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
Within the fire of the revolution, we create change
Poetry is the resistance to oppression and the response to trauma. It is the fire of the revolution that creates change. It is that zeal that pushes us to write courageously with the audacity to think that our writing can help to heal the world. We come together in spaces like Strong in the Broken Places in artistic fellowship to connect and support and elevate each other's voices. For we know that poetry is a proven healer. It takes us on a journey of discovery. It is a way to gain clarity. It speaks to the muddling in our hearts and becomes the rain that feeds our parched soul. For Black people scattered everywhere across the globe, out in the midst of Babylon, it is poetry that feeds our thirst from that reservoir of creativity; that eternal spring of hope. These are the words that continue to express who we are and our connection to the world.
In response to the sense of broken-ness we were all experiencing with the onslaught of the pandemic, a group of word warriors, connected and carved out a space of artistic fellowship and called each other out from the cold (Bob Marley). And this is it. Strong in the Broken Places: Poetics of the African Diaspora. This is what happens when you open up your writing to another mind. Activist writing evolves from the warrior spirit of like-minded individuals who use their words as the weapon to interrogate the historical trauma and are ready to write the truth into the unfolding history and celebrate our triumph over the evil of oppression.
IN THIS BRIGHT FUTURE YOU CAN'T FORGET YOUR PAST Bob Marley
Within the fire of the revolution, we create change
Poetry is the resistance to oppression and the response to trauma. It is the fire of the revolution that creates change. It is that zeal that pushes us to write courageously with the audacity to think that our writing can help to heal the world. We come together in spaces like Strong in the Broken Places in artistic fellowship to connect and support and elevate each other's voices. For we know that poetry is a proven healer. It takes us on a journey of discovery. It is a way to gain clarity. It speaks to the muddling in our hearts and becomes the rain that feeds our parched soul. For Black people scattered everywhere across the globe, out in the midst of Babylon, it is poetry that feeds our thirst from that reservoir of creativity; that eternal spring of hope. These are the words that continue to express who we are and our connection to the world.
In response to the sense of broken-ness we were all experiencing with the onslaught of the pandemic, a group of word warriors, connected and carved out a space of artistic fellowship and called each other out from the cold (Bob Marley). And this is it. Strong in the Broken Places: Poetics of the African Diaspora. This is what happens when you open up your writing to another mind. Activist writing evolves from the warrior spirit of like-minded individuals who use their words as the weapon to interrogate the historical trauma and are ready to write the truth into the unfolding history and celebrate our triumph over the evil of oppression.
IN THIS BRIGHT FUTURE YOU CAN'T FORGET YOUR PAST Bob Marley
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Our Purpose
Sound the Abeng is dedicated to exploring the profound impacts of colonization and slavery on the lives of our extended communities while highlighting their resilience and cultural contributions to the world at large. Through short articles, prose, and poetry, we shed light on the intricate tapestry of experiences and accomplishments that shape our shared humanity. Our intention is to reach out, collaborate with, and celebrate the work of writers, poets, and authors who reflect the beauty and complexity of our communities. By showcasing ancient traditions and their impact on emotional and mental wellbeing, we strive to foster connections and promote healing in our collective journey. Verses! Rhythms! Revolution! I believe we are in a new dispensation and we are writing it into reality. This is writing that activates and calls us to action. We are writing above marginalization. We are writing beyond oppression We are writing in love and in hope and we are writing courageously. We are writing to affirm that we are a “people who [can] fly” (Virginia Hamilton) Marva McClean |
"YOU NEVER KNOW HOW STRONG YOU ARE UNTIL BEING STRONG IS THE ONLY CHOICE YOU HAVE."
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Bob Marley
The People’s Poet! His Prophecy! His Spirituality! Why the World Needs Him Now Poetry and the imagination are the most important tools we have to transform the world and create that space of acceptance and love we all yearn for. Through his prophetic words and admonitions, Bob Marley has called us all to acknowledge our accountability in this movement towards change as we are all responsible to craft this “road of creation.” He does so with the beauty and magnificence of his spiritualty as he expressed it through the poetry of his songs, the wisdom of his poetic utterances, which so often read like proverbs, and the ecstatic trance dancing the entire world witnessed and continue to witness on stage through memories cast by digital media. Bob Marley sings songs of poetry that give us the grace to transcend the harshness of the moment in which we live. From Trench Town to the global stage, he has created that spiritual pathway into a transcendence and invites us all to come participate and feel the rhythms of these energetic vibrations. And this is why we need him so much at this time. We recognize that this system of individualism, competition over community, what Bob calls Babylon system sucking the blood of the sufferer, is falling apart for it cannot sustain itself, and we need an alternative. Poetry is what fills this space, replenishes that which we have lost, what we are dreaming of, that road into Mount Zion. In responding to Bob’s question, “Are you satisfied with the life you are living? the social justice- oriented among us, the conscious ones, answer no. The next step is to make that conscious decision to begin the journey towards repairing the damage we have made to this world and to ourselves. This is an invitation for us to step into the spiritual world of Bob Marley, sip from the gourd of his energetic vibrations and rise up in consciousness of how we can contribute to making this world a better place. Bob Marley has created music and offered nuggets of wisdom that have raised our historical consciousness and left us more human. His humility and his conversational tone-devoid of any pretense or power and status remind us of his common birth, struggles, challenging upbringing and the ways in which his heart was aroused to the suffering of the common man-the sufferer without status or name, or money -and how all of this was shaped by the oppression of slavery, colonization and imperialism. Bob reminds us that Black people have come from the darkest places in the history of the Americas. Yet, we have not lost our humanity and the will to survive and thrive. Through his music he calls us into the rhythms of our humanity and the energetic vibrations of the human race. And he asks us, quite simply, “Are you satisfied with the life you are living?” Who among can say yes? |
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STRONG IN THE BROKEN PLACES: POETICS OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoOs4rx07l-sFD_IS3c2aQw
Our purpose is to connect with poets, authors, researchers and activists across the globe and collaborate in ways that connect our stories, our history, our resilience and the wisdom of our ancestors in a magnificent tapestry of creativity and unity that is resistant to any oppression.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoOs4rx07l-sFD_IS3c2aQw
Our purpose is to connect with poets, authors, researchers and activists across the globe and collaborate in ways that connect our stories, our history, our resilience and the wisdom of our ancestors in a magnificent tapestry of creativity and unity that is resistant to any oppression.
BLACK POETS USE THEIR WORDS TO LIGHT THE FIRE OF REVOLUTION WITHIN THE LITERARY LANDSCAPE
Opal Palmer Adisa
THE WORLD OF OPAL PALMER ADISA
Opal Palmer Adisa writes with passion and humor. Agency and Conviction. She engages in feminist writing. Recording her observations and connecting them to genetic memories, holding us accountable to open us space for conversation. She makes it clear, “It’s you. It’s you, I am talking to” (Coming in from the Cold, Bob Marley, 1980).
a nameless return
dem sell me de damn wukliss people dem sell me out
she insisted from under the tarp at half way tree
from where she sold men shirts and underwear
her voice sirened as they shoved her in the police car
they said she grounded ackee seed then boiled it with oleander
invited him to her home then gave him the brew to drink from a china cup
serve him right she spat who tell him fi touch me girl child
the storyteller knew this story had in fact lived one aspect herself
she knew home was not always a safe haven for little girls
and mothers would have to reclaim their obeah to protect them
queen *kumina
i am she who heals dancing until my perspiration divines who needs a laying on of hands or to trash about on the ground twirling until the fever runs away or who needs rum spewed
into the face in order to see the worth of her own hands
or who needs a hand on their abdomen to open the womb
who needs an anointment to incise the arthritic knee
who needs a hex to drive away the husband whose fists are bombs
i am she who heals pour libation in four directions
let the sound of the drums ascend beyond the clouds then sink below the navel of the earth
let the voices chant slicing the night open
let feet shuffle in apology for hesitating too long
and let those who have belittled themselves hear me coming in
the wind and catch the spirit of my resistance in the swirl of my dress in the beads of sweat clinging on my brow
and laugh into the dance of liberation
i am she who heals dance with me
this place memory
home
my heart ignites the dawn dance and let our feet name ancestry freedom
*Kumina is a healing ceremony in Jamaica that has its roots in the Congo, Central Africa, and is also linked to Myalism. It involves drumming, dancing, spirit possession, ritual sacrifice and herbalism. Some conflate Pocomania and Revivalism with Kumina. Research suggests that Kumina might be derived from a few Ki-Kongo words, such as Kumina, and Kumu, which means to move in a rhythmical manner, and to mount up, respectively.
key-man lock de door and gone*
key-man has locked another door issuing a plaintive call-and-response from the community
key-man key-man they lament and the leader confirms key-man lock de door and gone
no room to bargain the mirror held to the nose not a smear mirrors are covered with white lace her shoes put by the front steps
key-man death’s executioner came in the middle of the night just as she got into bed
he locked her door
and all the wailing of his name bitter as cerasee
on their tongues will not breathe back life but still they chant
key-man key-man the drummer counters
key-man lock de door and gone
they move cautiously aware sooner than later their door will be locked they cannot oppose him ready or not
when he puts the key into the lock but really they sing to key-man away from them for another day
only the living will sing you good bye hoping their dirge might keep him another year a little more time
feet stomp into the ground
the middle of their palms connect in a harsh clap
they hold each other around the waist and
twirl and bump their voices forever constant bewailing key-man key-man pleading don’t come around here anymore
the drum knows the truth and sends the message loud and clear into the air leaving
no doubt key-man done lock de door and gone
*Jamaican folk song in the Revivalist tradition and sometime included in the Ni-Night (Nine Nights) celebration, held to celebrate the dead and cheer up the bereaved, through suggestive dancing and music.
ancestors
when we learn the name of the nameless we will not be nameless [All echo
the storyteller is soaking in a metal tub under the tamarind tree [OPA
lavender basil and lemongrass perfume the water
she uses the loofah sponge to scrub and song her body
when we own what we know our knowledge cannot become unknown [ALL ECHO
the birds are watching the storyteller bathing outside in the evening air they gather on the tree branch chirping their assent but warning
mind yu catch cold yu nuh so young anymore yu know
before all that we have gets erased register your deeds
sweeten your yarns with condensed milk and feed it to your children disavow modesty be purposeful consistent unwavering
the storyteller uses the calabash to pour water on her head
she closes her eyes uses one hand to wipe the leaves that linger on her face
mother owl watching click-clicks her tongue
thinking she sees someone the storyteller calls out is duppy or living being no response she giggles but is not done me catch yu
the storyteller nibbles on jerk coconut-flakes allows the rhythm of the drums to transport her
she sure fi get cold now
sips lemon grass and mint tea surging through her body
every story has a ni-night and every gone-home happens in a yard
the storyteller stands up in the tub and kuminas home
i am she who heals dancing until my perspiration divines who needs a laying on of hands or to trash about on the ground twirling until the fever runs away or who needs rum spewed
into the face in order to see the worth of her own hands
or who needs a hand on their abdomen to open the womb
who needs an anointment to incise the arthritic knee
who needs a hex to drive away the husband whose fists are bombs
i am she who heals pour libation in four directions
let the sound of the drums ascend beyond the clouds then sink below the navel of the earth
let the voices chant slicing the night open
let feet shuffle in apology for hesitating too long
and let those who have belittled themselves hear me coming in
the wind and catch the spirit of my resistance in the swirl of my dress in the beads of sweat clinging on my brow
and laugh into the dance of liberation
i am she who heals dance with me
this place memory
home
my heart ignites the dawn dance and let our feet name ancestry freedom
*Kumina is a healing ceremony in Jamaica that has its roots in the Congo, Central Africa, and is also linked to Myalism. It involves drumming, dancing, spirit possession, ritual sacrifice and herbalism. Some conflate Pocomania and Revivalism with Kumina. Research suggests that Kumina might be derived from a few Ki-Kongo words, such as Kumina, and Kumu, which means to move in a rhythmical manner, and to mount up, respectively.
key-man lock de door and gone*
key-man has locked another door issuing a plaintive call-and-response from the community
key-man key-man they lament and the leader confirms key-man lock de door and gone
no room to bargain the mirror held to the nose not a smear mirrors are covered with white lace her shoes put by the front steps
key-man death’s executioner came in the middle of the night just as she got into bed
he locked her door
and all the wailing of his name bitter as cerasee
on their tongues will not breathe back life but still they chant
key-man key-man the drummer counters
key-man lock de door and gone
they move cautiously aware sooner than later their door will be locked they cannot oppose him ready or not
when he puts the key into the lock but really they sing to key-man away from them for another day
only the living will sing you good bye hoping their dirge might keep him another year a little more time
feet stomp into the ground
the middle of their palms connect in a harsh clap
they hold each other around the waist and
twirl and bump their voices forever constant bewailing key-man key-man pleading don’t come around here anymore
the drum knows the truth and sends the message loud and clear into the air leaving
no doubt key-man done lock de door and gone
*Jamaican folk song in the Revivalist tradition and sometime included in the Ni-Night (Nine Nights) celebration, held to celebrate the dead and cheer up the bereaved, through suggestive dancing and music.
ancestors
when we learn the name of the nameless we will not be nameless [All echo
the storyteller is soaking in a metal tub under the tamarind tree [OPA
lavender basil and lemongrass perfume the water
she uses the loofah sponge to scrub and song her body
when we own what we know our knowledge cannot become unknown [ALL ECHO
the birds are watching the storyteller bathing outside in the evening air they gather on the tree branch chirping their assent but warning
mind yu catch cold yu nuh so young anymore yu know
before all that we have gets erased register your deeds
sweeten your yarns with condensed milk and feed it to your children disavow modesty be purposeful consistent unwavering
the storyteller uses the calabash to pour water on her head
she closes her eyes uses one hand to wipe the leaves that linger on her face
mother owl watching click-clicks her tongue
thinking she sees someone the storyteller calls out is duppy or living being no response she giggles but is not done me catch yu
the storyteller nibbles on jerk coconut-flakes allows the rhythm of the drums to transport her
she sure fi get cold now
sips lemon grass and mint tea surging through her body
every story has a ni-night and every gone-home happens in a yard
the storyteller stands up in the tub and kuminas home
Opal Palmer Adisa: Bio
Author, poet and cultural activist, Dr. Adisa is renowned for her work on gender justice. She utilizes the power of her rebellious hand to create literature that celebrates the legacy of the Black Diaspora and calls for an end to gender violence. Through poetry, prose and performance Dr. Palmer Adisa engages the public and political forces in the path towards transforming the way women are treated and celebrating our literary legacy. Dr. Palmer. She advises that our ancestral heritage is pivotal in moving us forward into the future.
WHERE ARTISTS CREATE: ADISA ANCESTRY ARTIST RESIDENCY
Dr. Palmer Adisa asserts the importance of an artist finding that space of belonging and affirmation; a space where the writer can hang free and move with the flow of creativity. In response to a long- held dream, she has put her agency into action by creating such a space for writers and visual artists to enjoy that indispensable gift of uncluttered time and create. Her words are strong and evocative, filled with emotional appeal, “Start with what you have! Do not wait on any special circumstances or time. It has always been my dream to give back.”
(See Announcements below)
Author, poet and cultural activist, Dr. Adisa is renowned for her work on gender justice. She utilizes the power of her rebellious hand to create literature that celebrates the legacy of the Black Diaspora and calls for an end to gender violence. Through poetry, prose and performance Dr. Palmer Adisa engages the public and political forces in the path towards transforming the way women are treated and celebrating our literary legacy. Dr. Palmer. She advises that our ancestral heritage is pivotal in moving us forward into the future.
WHERE ARTISTS CREATE: ADISA ANCESTRY ARTIST RESIDENCY
Dr. Palmer Adisa asserts the importance of an artist finding that space of belonging and affirmation; a space where the writer can hang free and move with the flow of creativity. In response to a long- held dream, she has put her agency into action by creating such a space for writers and visual artists to enjoy that indispensable gift of uncluttered time and create. Her words are strong and evocative, filled with emotional appeal, “Start with what you have! Do not wait on any special circumstances or time. It has always been my dream to give back.”
(See Announcements below)
THE HYBRID WORLD OF ANDREW MOSS
Andrew Moss dreams of a better world. He shares his poetry across the globe. He writes the poetics of history and calls us to bear witness to the intersection of the past and current realities, reminding us that “until the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior, is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war, me sey war” (Bob Marley, War , 1979).
Andrew Moss dreams of a better world. He shares his poetry across the globe. He writes the poetics of history and calls us to bear witness to the intersection of the past and current realities, reminding us that “until the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior, is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war, me sey war” (Bob Marley, War , 1979).
Tchaikovsky’s Keys Play Obibini Obroni
For John Agard
You jeer at me out of cars, ‘Black Bastard!’
in the cathedral city of my father’s
You follow me babbling obroni,
Up my mother’s lush green escarpment
Whether in Salisbury or Obo, Goulburn or Ghana
similar palavers cast their half shadow
Tchaikovsky’s keys confuse the tone deaf
monochrome: the irony and ebony
Scales and arpeggios, cascading
the flats and sharps in your myopic eyes
The tragedy of the mulatto
After the storm, watch the golden rainbow.
Duafe – Coil Patterns
Black plastic fingers tickle, slip
back across lost Akan jungles
Baden scouts to steal axemanship
British armies lost and humble
Double helix DNA zig zags
Coded genetic memory
African pattern strands
survive buckra’s brutality
Coils of hidden History twist
and elevate by duafe
Slavery braids secrete seeds
The ancestors praise Gye Nyame
Diaspora's messages map freedom
in secret slave message systems
Plaits number roads to thwart bondage
Hieroglyphs and adinkra symbols
In scalps sewn since Kemet and Nok
coconut palms shine cornrows
Wheat from chaff, release our cash crop
drought-stricken ghettos irrigate
with butter braid and goose fat
Axle grease dyes and straighten
Kerosene and cornmeal cleanse scalps
Slavery to Great Migration
Oil, egg social conditioner
Wool card tricks conjure and detangle
Tactical plantation victors
Break loose Massa's iron shackles
Seventies moves-meant, Black Power
Afros blow out hidden History
I’m Black & I’m Proud jams James Brown
Haley’s roots retrace mystery
Trench town rocks to shoe polish
on Garvey’s Black Star Liner
Bob grows Rastafarian, unlocking
Akan gold mines
Babylon chanted down in song
Dreadlocks wrapped circular in tams
Flash mature confluence Congos
Remind I & I who I am
Caribbean & African
Rivers at a crossroads meeting
Nyabinghi drum iambic
Neo-colonies defeating
To nappy kinky reggae skank
twists & turns protected with do-rags
Free form instrumental slaves
on gold stools and palaces
Bobo Shanti pentameter measures
across Black Atlantic waves
curl the Earth’s diameter
Flavor Flav clocks a Fearful Planet
History revisits full circle
from Africa to plantations
From Atlantic flaws re-emerge
Bantu knots & Fulani braids
Black plastic fingers tickle, slip
back across lost Akan jungles
Black Panthers pounce leather-fists
Atop podiums pound our muscle.
Black plastic fingers tickle, slip
back across lost Akan jungles
Baden scouts to steal axemanship
British armies lost and humble
Double helix DNA zig zags
Coded genetic memory
African pattern strands
survive buckra’s brutality
Coils of hidden History twist
and elevate by duafe
Slavery braids secrete seeds
The ancestors praise Gye Nyame
Diaspora's messages map freedom
in secret slave message systems
Plaits number roads to thwart bondage
Hieroglyphs and adinkra symbols
In scalps sewn since Kemet and Nok
coconut palms shine cornrows
Wheat from chaff, release our cash crop
drought-stricken ghettos irrigate
with butter braid and goose fat
Axle grease dyes and straighten
Kerosene and cornmeal cleanse scalps
Slavery to Great Migration
Oil, egg social conditioner
Wool card tricks conjure and detangle
Tactical plantation victors
Break loose Massa's iron shackles
Seventies moves-meant, Black Power
Afros blow out hidden History
I’m Black & I’m Proud jams James Brown
Haley’s roots retrace mystery
Trench town rocks to shoe polish
on Garvey’s Black Star Liner
Bob grows Rastafarian, unlocking
Akan gold mines
Babylon chanted down in song
Dreadlocks wrapped circular in tams
Flash mature confluence Congos
Remind I & I who I am
Caribbean & African
Rivers at a crossroads meeting
Nyabinghi drum iambic
Neo-colonies defeating
To nappy kinky reggae skank
twists & turns protected with do-rags
Free form instrumental slaves
on gold stools and palaces
Bobo Shanti pentameter measures
across Black Atlantic waves
curl the Earth’s diameter
Flavor Flav clocks a Fearful Planet
History revisits full circle
from Africa to plantations
From Atlantic flaws re-emerge
Bantu knots & Fulani braids
Black plastic fingers tickle, slip
back across lost Akan jungles
Black Panthers pounce leather-fists
Atop podiums pound our muscle.
WAR, BOB MARLEY, 1976: Rastaman Vibration album.
Bob Marley created this song based on the words of a speech delivered to the United Nations General Assembly on October 4, 1963 by Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.
Bob Marley created this song based on the words of a speech delivered to the United Nations General Assembly on October 4, 1963 by Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.
A Brief Biography of Andrew Moss: Planetary(me)
I’m a two-tone Ska suedehead, former dread Marley rocksteady revivalist, an indie shoe-gazing kid participant observing anthropologist revising limited narratives, Maangamizi non-apologist, a missile heat-seeking reparations yesterday for post-traumatic slavery syndrome hanging in limbo Anansi. I’m an unapologetic haibun hybrid-syncretic lyrical individual part of collective genetic memory, prose poet cup twice full, magic mulatto, every ready Duracell, Brer Rabbit plantation tactician shattering shackles, shapeshifting Anansi spanning Ghana, Japan, the UK and Australia in short circuitry. A transformer escaping torture, para-normally moved by Kamau’s tidalectics, pulled by Asase Yaa’s Jupiter moon, Dogon saucer high-flyer on a Starship Black Liner steered by Garvey, wearing Yinka’s obsidian helmets in batik spacesuits verse-a-tile in the polysemic tailoring of William Cuffay and Nicholas Daley, clad in ACF all-weather, all-planet Blackpacker Gypsy spacefit worn by Afropeans Afronauts like Johny Pitts, stitched with invisible Don Letts safety pin pulled grenades, bobbing like exotic Black Russian molotovs, from Hannibal to Pushkin. I’m an Afrofuturist searching AI adinkra algorithms to replace radiating raciology with infra-red planetary humanism. I’m a Drexciyan Survivor, Harlem Renaissance Man breaking down pseudo-scientific ladders of evolution, Nyankopoxyican Revolutionist floating in a Sauútiverse.
I’m a two-tone Ska suedehead, former dread Marley rocksteady revivalist, an indie shoe-gazing kid participant observing anthropologist revising limited narratives, Maangamizi non-apologist, a missile heat-seeking reparations yesterday for post-traumatic slavery syndrome hanging in limbo Anansi. I’m an unapologetic haibun hybrid-syncretic lyrical individual part of collective genetic memory, prose poet cup twice full, magic mulatto, every ready Duracell, Brer Rabbit plantation tactician shattering shackles, shapeshifting Anansi spanning Ghana, Japan, the UK and Australia in short circuitry. A transformer escaping torture, para-normally moved by Kamau’s tidalectics, pulled by Asase Yaa’s Jupiter moon, Dogon saucer high-flyer on a Starship Black Liner steered by Garvey, wearing Yinka’s obsidian helmets in batik spacesuits verse-a-tile in the polysemic tailoring of William Cuffay and Nicholas Daley, clad in ACF all-weather, all-planet Blackpacker Gypsy spacefit worn by Afropeans Afronauts like Johny Pitts, stitched with invisible Don Letts safety pin pulled grenades, bobbing like exotic Black Russian molotovs, from Hannibal to Pushkin. I’m an Afrofuturist searching AI adinkra algorithms to replace radiating raciology with infra-red planetary humanism. I’m a Drexciyan Survivor, Harlem Renaissance Man breaking down pseudo-scientific ladders of evolution, Nyankopoxyican Revolutionist floating in a Sauútiverse.
GEOFFREY PHILP’S PILGRIMAGE
embrace love and do not forget about justice
Geoffrey Philp admonishes us to find the courage to step out of the context of our lives and look back into the broader world, beyond the fences and the borders, looking inwards and seeing our own ignorance and weakness and yes, our complicity. His poetry tells us we must embrace love yet not forget about justice. In the words of Bob Marley, his poetry shouts out: Set the captives free! (Exodus, Bob Marley, 1977).
embrace love and do not forget about justice
Geoffrey Philp admonishes us to find the courage to step out of the context of our lives and look back into the broader world, beyond the fences and the borders, looking inwards and seeing our own ignorance and weakness and yes, our complicity. His poetry tells us we must embrace love yet not forget about justice. In the words of Bob Marley, his poetry shouts out: Set the captives free! (Exodus, Bob Marley, 1977).
Haiku
Amber waves of grain
bend your ears to the children
starving in Gaza.
Monster Mash
They always blame the monsters, don’t they?
As if creators don’t share any blame for whatever
happens. Like in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,”
when Victor, grieving over his mother‘s death
from the most “irreparable evil” creates
an “abomination” that he abandons, and the monster
avenges himself by murdering the good doctor’s
brother—a child, really. Or when Victor destroys
the creature’s companion out of fear “to inflict
this curse upon everlasting generations,” the monster
vows to destroy the rest of the good doctor’s family.
Or even Hamas, which Yasser Arafat called
“a creature of Israel,” for the divide-and-rule game
in the Occupied Territories, despite Avner Cohen’s
warning, “to break up this monster before reality
jumps in our face,” that went unheeded until Hamas
murdered over 1,400 Israelis. So, this good nation must,
as Netanyahu declared, “Remember what Amalek
did to you,” echoing Samuel’s commandment, “ Smite Amalek,
and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not;
but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep,
camel and ass,” --a sacrifice for Israel’s “original sin.”
Is there no prophet
who loves justice and mercy
in Jerusalem?
If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem
“C’mon, join us,” my office mates complain
at our annual Christmas party in the cafeteria
as they dance around the tree in a conga line
and the DJ plays for the nth time, “Jerusalema,”
the viral dance song with a beat so catchy
it had us chanting along during the lockdown
to its message of joy and hope for the holy city
where one day we’d gather at the gates of Zion.
But how can I sing your praise, O Jerusalem,
called from the wilderness as a light among the nations,
when 5000 children are buried under the streets
of Gaza’s rubble, and parents mourn the innocents,
refugees in their own country, seeking safe haven
mercy and justice from the followers of Hashem?
As the facts about Israel’s involvement in the creation of Hamas and their continued support of Hamas in 2019, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s government transferred over $1 billion to an organization that Israel labeled as a terrorist organization in 1997, it has become increasingly clear that Israel can no longer claim the moral high ground and that its divide and rule strategy in the Occupied territories has been an abject failure, which has resulted in death and destruction on both sides of the conflict.
Amber waves of grain
bend your ears to the children
starving in Gaza.
Monster Mash
They always blame the monsters, don’t they?
As if creators don’t share any blame for whatever
happens. Like in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,”
when Victor, grieving over his mother‘s death
from the most “irreparable evil” creates
an “abomination” that he abandons, and the monster
avenges himself by murdering the good doctor’s
brother—a child, really. Or when Victor destroys
the creature’s companion out of fear “to inflict
this curse upon everlasting generations,” the monster
vows to destroy the rest of the good doctor’s family.
Or even Hamas, which Yasser Arafat called
“a creature of Israel,” for the divide-and-rule game
in the Occupied Territories, despite Avner Cohen’s
warning, “to break up this monster before reality
jumps in our face,” that went unheeded until Hamas
murdered over 1,400 Israelis. So, this good nation must,
as Netanyahu declared, “Remember what Amalek
did to you,” echoing Samuel’s commandment, “ Smite Amalek,
and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not;
but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep,
camel and ass,” --a sacrifice for Israel’s “original sin.”
Is there no prophet
who loves justice and mercy
in Jerusalem?
If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem
“C’mon, join us,” my office mates complain
at our annual Christmas party in the cafeteria
as they dance around the tree in a conga line
and the DJ plays for the nth time, “Jerusalema,”
the viral dance song with a beat so catchy
it had us chanting along during the lockdown
to its message of joy and hope for the holy city
where one day we’d gather at the gates of Zion.
But how can I sing your praise, O Jerusalem,
called from the wilderness as a light among the nations,
when 5000 children are buried under the streets
of Gaza’s rubble, and parents mourn the innocents,
refugees in their own country, seeking safe haven
mercy and justice from the followers of Hashem?
As the facts about Israel’s involvement in the creation of Hamas and their continued support of Hamas in 2019, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s government transferred over $1 billion to an organization that Israel labeled as a terrorist organization in 1997, it has become increasingly clear that Israel can no longer claim the moral high ground and that its divide and rule strategy in the Occupied territories has been an abject failure, which has resulted in death and destruction on both sides of the conflict.
GEOFFREY PHILP: BIO
I am a recipient of the Silver Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica and the author of "Archipelagos," a book of poems about climate change. Recently, I discovered my Jewish ancestry and was invited to contribute to "New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust." During my research, I wrote a collection of poems, "Testimonies," about the Shoah. In the summer of 2023, I traveled to Israel, where I visited several religious sites, including the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, and witnessed firsthand the conditions under which Palestinians were living.
Inspired by my experiences, I have written about my time in Israel using the haibun form, a style that combines prose and haiku. These reflections are titled "Ten Days in Israel": https://vocal.media/poets/ten-days-in-israel.
As someone who lived among Rastafari during my formative years, this journey has been profound and transformative. My background has instilled in me a deep sensitivity to oppression in all its forms, and it compels me to bear witness to injustice wherever I encounter it.
1Love,
Geoffrey
I am a recipient of the Silver Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica and the author of "Archipelagos," a book of poems about climate change. Recently, I discovered my Jewish ancestry and was invited to contribute to "New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust." During my research, I wrote a collection of poems, "Testimonies," about the Shoah. In the summer of 2023, I traveled to Israel, where I visited several religious sites, including the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, and witnessed firsthand the conditions under which Palestinians were living.
Inspired by my experiences, I have written about my time in Israel using the haibun form, a style that combines prose and haiku. These reflections are titled "Ten Days in Israel": https://vocal.media/poets/ten-days-in-israel.
As someone who lived among Rastafari during my formative years, this journey has been profound and transformative. My background has instilled in me a deep sensitivity to oppression in all its forms, and it compels me to bear witness to injustice wherever I encounter it.
1Love,
Geoffrey
Celia A Sorhaindo
Celia was born in The Commonwealth of Dominica. She migrated with her family to England in 1976, when she was 8 years old, returning home in 2005. Her poetry collections are Guabancex (Papillote Press), longlisted for the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, Radical Normalisation (Carcanet Press) and ABiYA. She is also co-compiler of Home Again: Stories of Migration and Return (Papillote Press). Her poetry focuses on themes of home, migration, self- care, mental health, spirituality and the cathartic and healing values of writing.
Celia was born in The Commonwealth of Dominica. She migrated with her family to England in 1976, when she was 8 years old, returning home in 2005. Her poetry collections are Guabancex (Papillote Press), longlisted for the 2021 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, Radical Normalisation (Carcanet Press) and ABiYA. She is also co-compiler of Home Again: Stories of Migration and Return (Papillote Press). Her poetry focuses on themes of home, migration, self- care, mental health, spirituality and the cathartic and healing values of writing.
Poetry is a sacred and courageous act of introspection and connection; first with various aspects of self, and through self, hopefully connection and communication with others. Even though the “I” in my work is never wholly autobiographical “Me”, or not me at all, or the poems not necessarily from personal experience, my poetry seeks to investigate through words, my authentic or imaginary voice(s); my curiosities, my questions, my truths/delusions; whatever I observe from where I stand or want to investigate through my lens. I believe writing and reading poetry can be radically transformational acts.
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Arrival][After Life (from collection ABiYA)
After Petőfi Sándor/Alexander Petrovics (Hajamnak egy fürtjét levágom ...), William Butler Yeats (When You Are Old) and Derek Walcott (Love After Love) (RIPE) ...come home unlock then open your own door put down your bags take off your shoes clothes all jewellery do not take down any books or love letters from shelves do not cut off any lock of hair listen unhook the phone that has been ringing longtime look over through][rightupcloseinto gilt edge [mirror] of obsidian dot <0> ask what is the only thing known to be true reflect there beloved][beloved then lie down close all pane eyes . 🙂 then Xit... Poet's Notes After ruptures caused by events like migration—including the brutal, forced, ‘Middle Passage’ mass migration of people—after trauma, after injustice, after grief…after (or in the midst of) life’s pangs and pains, can we ever make our way back, or forward, to an X that marks a spot of healing; find fractal moments of peace, joy and love in the home of our (r)evolving, entangled, individuated, naturally connected, complex light and shadow selves?” ABiYA, is my starting point quest into exploring these themes, through the medium of poetry. |
STasis As Revolutionary HEalin (From collection Radical Normalisation published by Carcanet Press)
For Patrice Malidoma Somé 01.30.1956 to 09.12.2021 (RIPE) healing is a revolutionary stance that you take… stayin in bed a few extra hours isnt exactly revolutionary. i understand. wont burn the whole place down. setoff the necessary reset. but its what i want to do against whispers outside and inside my head. my husbands phone is ringin somewhere inside the house. wakeup. wakeup. there are things you need to do right now. i hear loud crackles and pops outside. from the farmers field behind. she is preparin the land for plantin. clearin with a fire i hope is under her control. some smoke wisps into the bedroom. air carryin the burnin. i turn over into a death pose. pull covers over heart. over my mouth nose ears over my eyes. over. my. head. hands rest crossed over chest. still. unmovein. mind is unwindin stillin alight deep breathin |
H2.5AZ (Strong Ties, Galvanized) (From collection Guabancex published by Papillote Press)
They are building me a new roof since the old one went with the wind—category 5 +. I have learnt a whole new vocabulary—purlins, rafters, wall plates, hurricane ties. It is chaos on top of chaos—the necessary brutal breaking down to build back better, stronger—mitigate against future blows they say will come more frequently—ferociously unpredictable. I look up—sturdy wet new treated pine above my head, see the thicker rafters—bird beaked—sitting tied down on edge of anchored plate. They say you must have such cuts and ties to firmly lodge onto ledges-- the price to be secure—to be more—permanent; more knowledgeable? |
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POETS IN THE NEWS: BLACK POETS USE THEIR WORDS TO LIGHT THE FIRE OF REVOLUTION WITHIN THE LITERARY LANDSCAPE
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Byron Armstrong
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We Are Music
by Byron Armstrong
by Byron Armstrong
Calloused hands cleave sugarcane
outstretched to Caribbean sun.
Fires of resistance forge
weapons from master’s tools.
Exiled from tribes and gods,
through slave castles to plantations,
we revolt to revel in a history
hidden within outlawed drums.
Onyx angels trouble the water
under a voiceless ocean.
Down by the riverside,
Water breaks like hearts leaping from slave ships.
We sing Soul into existence by
freeing our holy ghosts.
In America, voices rise
above lies hiding gospel truths.
Sarah Baartman is a woman in a zoo.
Her captors have forgotten their mother.
Proud buttocks attached to hips
that birthed nations, an oddity on display.
Josephine Baker is Sarah’s reckoning,
Impundulu’s plumage electrifying crowds.
Snaking hips now become an infatuation.
J’ai deux amours, both Black and women.
Black magic invokes ancestors
speaking through us in tongues,
code-switching suffering into
chariots coming forth to carry us --
home is Jim Crow incubating culture in the stuff of nightmares.
This seed bears strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Big Mama’s hound dog howl
shakes cobwebs off Elvis’ pelvis.
Long tall Sallys go tutti frutti
for rock’s white king.
Blue-eyed soul’s sleight of hand
makes King Richard feel Little
but say it loud Mister Brown,
‘I’m Black and I’m proud!’
Soul power plants seeds
for Black Power now.
Funkadelic spectacle brings
one nation under a groove.
If Paris is Burning,
The House of Baldwin has set it aflame.
Let Joseph Bologne compose a melody
with the fire next time as muse.
Punk meets Rudeboy
in old Brittania,
a London calling that doesn’t Clash
With gangsters in a ghost town.
Oku Onuora’s reflections in red
migrate colonial class struggle.
Linton Kwesi’s dread beat an’ blood
is chocolate magic hidden in ganja mist.
We are moving culture people
even after our forced exodus,
we get up, stand up for our rights,
to sing redemption songs.
Tonight Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou
will cut a rug.
Uncle Jimmy will catch a vibe as Aunty Toni
stalks the dance floor.
Earth-toned limbs and elastic bodies
vogue into Harlem living rooms.
“We will house you,” says Mother at the ball
like Madonna with child.
We paint the message of our plight
like hieroglyphics on new pyramids.
white lines blow away, but
redlining remains a sign of the times.
As public enemy number one, it would take
a nation of millions to hold us back.
Within this terror dome, we fight the power
and try to shut em’ down.
This lemonade is bittersweet
yet quenching our thirst for a renaissance.
Tina was simply the best
So Beyonce had a suitable prototype.
Come forth Orishas through our ancestors as ebo.
Write Sonnets in Adinkra on our minds so we remember,
we are music rooted deep as the foundations of a nation
where our bones are bricks for monuments to liberty once denied.
Sunrise Symphony
A cacophony of cooing birds chirp daybreak through shuttered windows.
Rhythm rides sunlight scattered between curtain slits in situ.
Sza croons smooth awakening with soulful aplomb, and I
connect consciousness to the chaos of kids clomping on concrete.
Rubber soles squeak step and scratch slide across sidewalks,
with wanton abandon these careless kids collect scuff marks on new kicks.
The elongated beep of garbage backing up bellows a beware.
Gears grind dust while mechanical movement swallows detritus into itself.
The gaping maw mashes solid matter made malleable as
an attentive mama bird regurgitates food into chirping chicks.
Scared mice scramble, skittering behind thin walls,
my loquacious feline scratches plaster, mewling feral discontent.
Gravel-throated exhalation punctuates the ceremonial performance
of fluttering wisp of blanket announcing serene shedding of twilight.
Uncovered extremities crack while crawling from their extraneous cocoon.
Mattress warbles a spring-loaded whine as I shift lumbering mass out of idle.
Flat feet creak the floors of this venerated Victorian,
as I trod tenaciously toward toothbrush territory.
Turning bathroom taps triggers pressure tremoring pipes,
evacuating an element essential to eliminating the end of existence.
I hack up phlegm to emancipate lungs from belabored breath,
a primordial brew like one-celled organisms ovulating through osmosis.
Shaving my epidermis with unskilled precision that slits skin,
bleeding a truth that betrays the solipsism of lighter shades,
A denial of equal existence disassociated from the divine.
A skin displayed in human zoos and prisons perceived lesser.
My mirror meditation doesn’t reflect what bluer eyes have shown
through white knuckle-clutched purses and locked car doors upon approach,
The spritz of pink spray tans around plastic plumped lips,
Stealing features like African masks pilfered for Picasso paintings.
While Kardashians run through Black men like O.J. fleeing the police,
carving away ethnicity under the knife to live anew in Black women’s bodies.
Black men run from the police to flee the cries of Black women grieving,
high-pitched siren wails drowning out muffled gasps and lovers’ mourning.
A symphony muted by screaming teapots, the clink of a swirling spoon,
and the pin-drop drizzle of honey in a steaming cup of the blackest tea.
(Reposted from Decolonial Passage)
Byron Armstrong has been awarded literary grants from the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for The Arts. He was longlisted in the Top 100 of the 7th Annual Launch Pad Prose Competition. His work is published in Heavy Feather Review and The Malahat Review. A son of Jamaican immigrants, his feature writing exploring sociopolitics and art has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Whitehot Magazine, and Arts Help, amongst others. The recipient of a 2022 Canadian Ethnic Media award for best online article, he resides in Toronto, Canada (Tkaronto) with his family.
outstretched to Caribbean sun.
Fires of resistance forge
weapons from master’s tools.
Exiled from tribes and gods,
through slave castles to plantations,
we revolt to revel in a history
hidden within outlawed drums.
Onyx angels trouble the water
under a voiceless ocean.
Down by the riverside,
Water breaks like hearts leaping from slave ships.
We sing Soul into existence by
freeing our holy ghosts.
In America, voices rise
above lies hiding gospel truths.
Sarah Baartman is a woman in a zoo.
Her captors have forgotten their mother.
Proud buttocks attached to hips
that birthed nations, an oddity on display.
Josephine Baker is Sarah’s reckoning,
Impundulu’s plumage electrifying crowds.
Snaking hips now become an infatuation.
J’ai deux amours, both Black and women.
Black magic invokes ancestors
speaking through us in tongues,
code-switching suffering into
chariots coming forth to carry us --
home is Jim Crow incubating culture in the stuff of nightmares.
This seed bears strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Big Mama’s hound dog howl
shakes cobwebs off Elvis’ pelvis.
Long tall Sallys go tutti frutti
for rock’s white king.
Blue-eyed soul’s sleight of hand
makes King Richard feel Little
but say it loud Mister Brown,
‘I’m Black and I’m proud!’
Soul power plants seeds
for Black Power now.
Funkadelic spectacle brings
one nation under a groove.
If Paris is Burning,
The House of Baldwin has set it aflame.
Let Joseph Bologne compose a melody
with the fire next time as muse.
Punk meets Rudeboy
in old Brittania,
a London calling that doesn’t Clash
With gangsters in a ghost town.
Oku Onuora’s reflections in red
migrate colonial class struggle.
Linton Kwesi’s dread beat an’ blood
is chocolate magic hidden in ganja mist.
We are moving culture people
even after our forced exodus,
we get up, stand up for our rights,
to sing redemption songs.
Tonight Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou
will cut a rug.
Uncle Jimmy will catch a vibe as Aunty Toni
stalks the dance floor.
Earth-toned limbs and elastic bodies
vogue into Harlem living rooms.
“We will house you,” says Mother at the ball
like Madonna with child.
We paint the message of our plight
like hieroglyphics on new pyramids.
white lines blow away, but
redlining remains a sign of the times.
As public enemy number one, it would take
a nation of millions to hold us back.
Within this terror dome, we fight the power
and try to shut em’ down.
This lemonade is bittersweet
yet quenching our thirst for a renaissance.
Tina was simply the best
So Beyonce had a suitable prototype.
Come forth Orishas through our ancestors as ebo.
Write Sonnets in Adinkra on our minds so we remember,
we are music rooted deep as the foundations of a nation
where our bones are bricks for monuments to liberty once denied.
Sunrise Symphony
A cacophony of cooing birds chirp daybreak through shuttered windows.
Rhythm rides sunlight scattered between curtain slits in situ.
Sza croons smooth awakening with soulful aplomb, and I
connect consciousness to the chaos of kids clomping on concrete.
Rubber soles squeak step and scratch slide across sidewalks,
with wanton abandon these careless kids collect scuff marks on new kicks.
The elongated beep of garbage backing up bellows a beware.
Gears grind dust while mechanical movement swallows detritus into itself.
The gaping maw mashes solid matter made malleable as
an attentive mama bird regurgitates food into chirping chicks.
Scared mice scramble, skittering behind thin walls,
my loquacious feline scratches plaster, mewling feral discontent.
Gravel-throated exhalation punctuates the ceremonial performance
of fluttering wisp of blanket announcing serene shedding of twilight.
Uncovered extremities crack while crawling from their extraneous cocoon.
Mattress warbles a spring-loaded whine as I shift lumbering mass out of idle.
Flat feet creak the floors of this venerated Victorian,
as I trod tenaciously toward toothbrush territory.
Turning bathroom taps triggers pressure tremoring pipes,
evacuating an element essential to eliminating the end of existence.
I hack up phlegm to emancipate lungs from belabored breath,
a primordial brew like one-celled organisms ovulating through osmosis.
Shaving my epidermis with unskilled precision that slits skin,
bleeding a truth that betrays the solipsism of lighter shades,
A denial of equal existence disassociated from the divine.
A skin displayed in human zoos and prisons perceived lesser.
My mirror meditation doesn’t reflect what bluer eyes have shown
through white knuckle-clutched purses and locked car doors upon approach,
The spritz of pink spray tans around plastic plumped lips,
Stealing features like African masks pilfered for Picasso paintings.
While Kardashians run through Black men like O.J. fleeing the police,
carving away ethnicity under the knife to live anew in Black women’s bodies.
Black men run from the police to flee the cries of Black women grieving,
high-pitched siren wails drowning out muffled gasps and lovers’ mourning.
A symphony muted by screaming teapots, the clink of a swirling spoon,
and the pin-drop drizzle of honey in a steaming cup of the blackest tea.
(Reposted from Decolonial Passage)
Byron Armstrong has been awarded literary grants from the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for The Arts. He was longlisted in the Top 100 of the 7th Annual Launch Pad Prose Competition. His work is published in Heavy Feather Review and The Malahat Review. A son of Jamaican immigrants, his feature writing exploring sociopolitics and art has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Whitehot Magazine, and Arts Help, amongst others. The recipient of a 2022 Canadian Ethnic Media award for best online article, he resides in Toronto, Canada (Tkaronto) with his family.
The revolutionary writing of poets in the African Diaspora is a testament to the power of literature as a tool for resistance, empowerment, and cultural affirmation.
My Face is an Iteration but the Song in my Belly is Ancestral
Mahogany Browne
The Slave Castle in Elmina isn’t as beautiful as her name suggests
I enter the clay arms of Gorée Island’s ancient grounds
and let this be the last thought that steals my attention
The red fortress still leans against the volcanic rocks
as stunning as any glossy travel magazine cover
it’s hard to distinguish eloquent architecture from its destructive design
Listen, beauty can kill more beautiful things
It delights in possessing the bruised, sweet fruit, whether it bursts or rots
The stubborn door of Maison des Esclaves fastens shut after we enter
and I can’t help but look at the vicious maw
suspicious as a stolen bride
The spirituals in my chest
are eager to return to a home I know
“The Door Of No Return” waits patiently ahead
Have you ever stared at a hungrier death?
The dank, stony cell closest to the sea once cradled children and women
I imagine they were the color of my great-grandmother
with cheekbones and noses as sharp as cutting knives
The murder pen is flanked by stone-structured quarters
where island-bound women once thrived as keepers of the captured
where island-bound women were taught to slice her sister’s flight
a math problem divided by no living answer
I can still see the blue-black neck of the gun barrel
Hot hot and cutting through the castle’s meticulous slit
signaling the shark’s breakfast with screams from the bullet’s prey
as the current crash awaits blood gold from the enslaved
What other hell is there to believe in?
In the belly of the mausoleum, where the echoes lift the hair on my forearms
I hold my chest like a machete and weep for the lives stolen until shadows
I like to think I am a patient coup-ready woman
But I know the heaven we jump towards is merely a holy crawl
You got to harrow deep within to free the deadly hope from your gut
After months and months and months of steel rust blisters
Sometimes, the only peace you can count on lives
in the jaws of a sea beast or a stolen country’s mineral pit
Hollow, be the manmade purgatory you believe in
I swear, on everything I love
hell looks nothing like this
The Sound in my Body1 (Murmuration & Echo)
It delights in possessing the bruised sweet fruit no matter if it bursts or rots
and I can’t help but look at the vicious maw
The spirituals in my chest
“The Door of No Return” waits patiently ahead
The dank stony cell closest to the sea once cradled children and women
with cheekbones and noses as sharp as cutting knives
where island-bound women once thrived as keepers of the captured
a math problem with no living answer
Hot hot and cutting through the castle’s meticulous slit
as the current crash awaits blood gold from the enslaved
In the belly of the mausoleum, their echoes lift the hair on my forearms
I like to think I am a patient coup-ready woman
You got to harrow deep within to free the deadly hope from your gut
Sometimes, the only peace you can count on lives
Hollow, be the manmade purgatory you believe in
I swear on everything I love
1. The murmur is an acknowledgment of [Cathay] Williams’s being the only Black woman in the Buffalo Soldier’s 38th Infantry. The final construction consists of three parts. The first element, “The Sound,” is a thirty-eight-line poem written by the poet. The subsequent construction, “The Murmuration,” is a poem that takes the even numbers from the previous composition. These lines, nineteen in total, will then be divided into six tercets. “The Murmuration” closes with a declarative statement from line 37 of “The Sound.” The final piece, “The Echo,” is composed by taking the first line from each tercet in “The Murmuration.” The collection of these three elements will complete the full murmur.
Mahogany Browne -(Retrieved from Poem-A-Day-American Poetry Society, May 2, 2024)
Mahogany Browne
The Slave Castle in Elmina isn’t as beautiful as her name suggests
I enter the clay arms of Gorée Island’s ancient grounds
and let this be the last thought that steals my attention
The red fortress still leans against the volcanic rocks
as stunning as any glossy travel magazine cover
it’s hard to distinguish eloquent architecture from its destructive design
Listen, beauty can kill more beautiful things
It delights in possessing the bruised, sweet fruit, whether it bursts or rots
The stubborn door of Maison des Esclaves fastens shut after we enter
and I can’t help but look at the vicious maw
suspicious as a stolen bride
The spirituals in my chest
are eager to return to a home I know
“The Door Of No Return” waits patiently ahead
Have you ever stared at a hungrier death?
The dank, stony cell closest to the sea once cradled children and women
I imagine they were the color of my great-grandmother
with cheekbones and noses as sharp as cutting knives
The murder pen is flanked by stone-structured quarters
where island-bound women once thrived as keepers of the captured
where island-bound women were taught to slice her sister’s flight
a math problem divided by no living answer
I can still see the blue-black neck of the gun barrel
Hot hot and cutting through the castle’s meticulous slit
signaling the shark’s breakfast with screams from the bullet’s prey
as the current crash awaits blood gold from the enslaved
What other hell is there to believe in?
In the belly of the mausoleum, where the echoes lift the hair on my forearms
I hold my chest like a machete and weep for the lives stolen until shadows
I like to think I am a patient coup-ready woman
But I know the heaven we jump towards is merely a holy crawl
You got to harrow deep within to free the deadly hope from your gut
After months and months and months of steel rust blisters
Sometimes, the only peace you can count on lives
in the jaws of a sea beast or a stolen country’s mineral pit
Hollow, be the manmade purgatory you believe in
I swear, on everything I love
hell looks nothing like this
The Sound in my Body1 (Murmuration & Echo)
It delights in possessing the bruised sweet fruit no matter if it bursts or rots
and I can’t help but look at the vicious maw
The spirituals in my chest
“The Door of No Return” waits patiently ahead
The dank stony cell closest to the sea once cradled children and women
with cheekbones and noses as sharp as cutting knives
where island-bound women once thrived as keepers of the captured
a math problem with no living answer
Hot hot and cutting through the castle’s meticulous slit
as the current crash awaits blood gold from the enslaved
In the belly of the mausoleum, their echoes lift the hair on my forearms
I like to think I am a patient coup-ready woman
You got to harrow deep within to free the deadly hope from your gut
Sometimes, the only peace you can count on lives
Hollow, be the manmade purgatory you believe in
I swear on everything I love
1. The murmur is an acknowledgment of [Cathay] Williams’s being the only Black woman in the Buffalo Soldier’s 38th Infantry. The final construction consists of three parts. The first element, “The Sound,” is a thirty-eight-line poem written by the poet. The subsequent construction, “The Murmuration,” is a poem that takes the even numbers from the previous composition. These lines, nineteen in total, will then be divided into six tercets. “The Murmuration” closes with a declarative statement from line 37 of “The Sound.” The final piece, “The Echo,” is composed by taking the first line from each tercet in “The Murmuration.” The collection of these three elements will complete the full murmur.
Mahogany Browne -(Retrieved from Poem-A-Day-American Poetry Society, May 2, 2024)
The subversive hand of the Black poet scripts words and rhythms of revolution and at the same time, reminds us of our accountability to be a custodian of change and justice
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A Biography of Mahogany Browne
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Jamaican born author, Ishion Hutchinson shortlisted for International Griffin Poetry Prize
Ishion Hutchinson
Club Paradise
Early days of July, heatwave membraned
the city, Aura and Zephyr lockjawed
and left the girl looking a mouldered grey.
Only the wind of expiation blows,
or at least attempts to smooth our rafters.
Still, ardour conspires with every breath
and makes my voice a giant scallop shell,
scoffed with apologies and songs. Hear me
out: I am as faithful as a coral reef.
A behemoth backfires in Eden
and sets off total colony collapse.
Hell seems happier. Well, hell, go to hell
then! Easy: hell is in the air outside.
I will stay, resuscitate our hive
with what I know of work: transparent words
next to transparent words, ransomed for love,
the sake of love, fresh, renewed, startled back
into place by a breathless, heavy blow
from my hautboy. Gold tremble off my lips.
We are way out beyond limits now. Too
far for tears, except the sun brings them on.
It is me. Taken by paranoid seizure,
weeping at the dark deluxe of the sun
like an actor or a Rasta, chanting:
Paradise once, paradise once again!
But this is rose-pink Florence, infernal
as ever, interred by the living light
we have half blocked out with half drawn shutters
to make the ecliptic line visible,
so even here we may be “unalarmed
by the vicissitudes of the future.”
Now that’s viva luce. Casual rapture.
Surety and fidelity are terms,
on pain of death, not to be avoided.
Pop a paxlovid, beloved, read this
as I tell you that I am the Seraph
Abdiel, indignant before the devil.
Do you feel weak in body or mind?
In spirit? Well, that was unexpected.
My angelic recommendations are
cold baths and the movies of Gene Tierney.
Abdiel I said? Let me now abdicate
from that tower, for my mind is constant
changes, as now single in retorted
scorn for current major minor poets.
One must have a talent to unmask shades.
It is your savage gift, and mine, to conceal
openly berries from childhood forest,
our heads shawled like witches in the green,
mosquitoes pitched partisans’ melodies,
a half tropical bluff in my left ear.
Solomon’s Mine flourished in my right ear.
You are as impatient as I am not.
Everything moves is firm philosophy.
But moves how? In a flagellum pattern?
I can’t imagine that. Yet I can see
furtive fern, under shadowed, move as such;
as such, when I was a schoolboy, iron
filings straggled on my desk, ant or rain
drawn, I supposed, by a phantom magnet.
I know now that it was the Holy Ghost.
You’ve called me a Christian fabulist
before, and I’ve played the clown, it’s true,
but only for your serious amusement,
nightly pointing out the fading dog star.
I aim each morning to salute the sun.
What I call progress is antiquity
in reverse, the wheels off, transfigured light
through the dark sky, flared; immolated; gone.
In Club Paradise, my father alone
of all the extras had a speaking part.
A single phrase, a question, when he asked
got lost in his dreads. Heuristic technique
you could say. Don’t laugh, he’s an amputee
now, still delusional but on good pension.
Flesh of my flesh, love. I cannot go far,
and I have gone far, and not hear my blood shriek
with the thought that all of this could be cut
by a second-string executioner.
My heart rides at anchor telling you this.
My heart is riding at anchor to tell.
Copyright © 2024 by Ishion Hutchinson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 26, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
Ishion Hutchinson was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica. He is the author of two poetry collections: Far District (Peepal Tree Press, 2020) and House of Lords and Commons (FSG, 2016). He is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, among others.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
5 Wise Women Gather
Forthcoming book celebrates the diverse tapestry of womanhood and the narratives that bind us together.
Embark on a journey with 5 Wise Women as we converge to craft an ode to female bonds! Following the electric vibes of our riveting panel discussion on March 17, 2024, we're thrilled to unveil our first publication: The Rhythms of Female Friendships. Set to hit the shelves on September 30, 2024, this anthology promises a captivating exploration of the intricate threads weaving through various female connections.
Our esteemed contributors will delve into the nuances of mother-daughter dynamics, the timeless essence of bestie bonds, the unbreakable ties of sisterhood, the profound journey of self-discovery through friendship, and the camaraderie found in professional circles. Stay tuned on my social media platforms for a glimpse into the making of this literary gem!
SAVE THE DATE
While anticipation brews for our forthcoming publication, mark your calendars for another enlightening rendezvous: Narratives of Motherhood, the eagerly awaited sequel in the 5 Wise Women Gather series, scheduled for Sunday, May 19, 2024 @ 6:15 PM). Join us as we continue to celebrate the diverse tapestry of womanhood and the narratives that bind us together.
Join Zoom Meeting with host Marva McClean
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85868909911?pwd=ANXQIbZ1ro0Aoofbo5fW6z6mj87hVJ.1
Meeting ID: 858 6890 9911
Passcode: 4049516:15 PM/ET
5 Wise Women Gather
Forthcoming book celebrates the diverse tapestry of womanhood and the narratives that bind us together.
Embark on a journey with 5 Wise Women as we converge to craft an ode to female bonds! Following the electric vibes of our riveting panel discussion on March 17, 2024, we're thrilled to unveil our first publication: The Rhythms of Female Friendships. Set to hit the shelves on September 30, 2024, this anthology promises a captivating exploration of the intricate threads weaving through various female connections.
Our esteemed contributors will delve into the nuances of mother-daughter dynamics, the timeless essence of bestie bonds, the unbreakable ties of sisterhood, the profound journey of self-discovery through friendship, and the camaraderie found in professional circles. Stay tuned on my social media platforms for a glimpse into the making of this literary gem!
SAVE THE DATE
While anticipation brews for our forthcoming publication, mark your calendars for another enlightening rendezvous: Narratives of Motherhood, the eagerly awaited sequel in the 5 Wise Women Gather series, scheduled for Sunday, May 19, 2024 @ 6:15 PM). Join us as we continue to celebrate the diverse tapestry of womanhood and the narratives that bind us together.
Join Zoom Meeting with host Marva McClean
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85868909911?pwd=ANXQIbZ1ro0Aoofbo5fW6z6mj87hVJ.1
Meeting ID: 858 6890 9911
Passcode: 4049516:15 PM/ET
Cave Canem Prize
Ajibola Tolase -Cave Canem Prize Winner 2024
Ajibola Tolase has won the esteemed Cave Canem Prize for the best debut collection of poems submitted by a Black poet. Cave Canem established the Prize to foster the artistic creation of Black poets and connecting them to three publishing houses of Graywolf Press; University of Pittsburgh Press and University of Georgia Press. Now in its 25th year, the prize was launched in 1999 with Rita Dove’s selection of Natasha Trethewey’s Domestic Wor, Cave Canem is offering a prize of $10,000 for the selected manuscript, the largest prize in the organization’s history and one of the largest first poetry book prizes in the country. In honor of the 25th anniversary, inaugural winner Natasha Trethewey will judge the 2025 Cave Canem Prize.
Adisa Ancestry Writers Residency
Dr. Opal Palmer Adisa, retired English professor and gender justice advocate, unveils the Adisa Ancestry Writers Residency, nestled in the breathtaking vistas of Linstead, Jamaica. Dr. Adisa envisions this creative space as more than just a sanctuary for creativity, but also a celebration of community and heritage. This vision springs from a deep well of gratitude, nurtured by her own odyssey through countless writers' residencies that shaped her illustrious career. She asserts that now, it is her turn to pay it forward, to weave a tapestry of opportunity for the next generation of artistic trailblazers. The artist residency will open its doors in July 2024 to accommodate two writers/visual artists in residence on a rotating cycle throughout the year.
STRONG IN THE BROKEN PLACES INVITES YOU TO
WORDS ON FIRE!
Friday, June 28, 2024 @ 5:30-7:00 PM ET/USA
Featured Poets Andrew Moss and Celia Sorhaindo
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83039426762?pwd=Bzn8uhNp0hqpPq6QU4rTK0NRuIMbTR.1
Meeting ID: 830 3942 6762
Passcode: 937480
In His Own Words, Ajibola Tolase
Learning to be Black in a Strange, Strange Country
Dear Mother, I am Dying
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Poet Ajibola Tolase is a Nigerian poet & essayist & has been named the winner of the 2024 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. He is a graduate of the Creative Writing MFA Programme at the University Of Wisconsin, Madison. His Chapbook Koola Lobitos was published in 2021 by Akashic Books as part of the New Generation African Poets series. His work has appeared in American Chardata, Lit Hub, New England Review, Prairie SHOONER & elsewhere.
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Learning to be Black in a Strange, Strange Country Ajibola Moves from Nigeria to the United States By Ajibola Tolase October 9, 2020 You are Ghanaian, she said. At the end of our conversation, she wanted me to know two things: though she couldn’t tell my nationality she is a genius at identifying accents, and my English is very good no one would be able to tell I had only lived in the US for three months. I thanked her. What I didn’t tell her is that I, too, am a genius at identifying accents. That I, too, know people who say “Wanna beg?” when they mean to say “Want a bag? Retrieved from LITERARY HUB MAY 2, 2024 |
REQUIRED READING FROM OUR BOOKSHELF
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EDITOR'S POST SCRIPT
Our agency is at work in the Diaspora. We are walking in the footsteps of our ancestors and celebrating the rich tapestry of our heritage and the ways in which we have contributed to the development of our world. The revolutionary writing of our poets is an unapologetic assertion of identity and heritage with a force that reclaims our narratives and asserts the dignity and humanity of Black people across the globe where we are 1. 25 billion strong!
Our agency is at work in the Diaspora. We are walking in the footsteps of our ancestors and celebrating the rich tapestry of our heritage and the ways in which we have contributed to the development of our world. The revolutionary writing of our poets is an unapologetic assertion of identity and heritage with a force that reclaims our narratives and asserts the dignity and humanity of Black people across the globe where we are 1. 25 billion strong!
Dr. Marva McClean is a dreamer, poet, author and scholar/activist whose research agenda focuses on the African Diaspora and the historical empowerment of people of color across the globe. She leads the literary initiative, Strong in the Broken Places: Poetics of the African Diaspora and is editor of the online newsletter, Sound the Abeng: Writing Black, Aboriginal & Indigenous Lives.
Poetry is my resistance to oppression and response to trauma. It is a deep, deep well that accommodates the undefined yearnings of my soul and connects me to others; my undefined and perhaps not yet identified tribe. It speaks to the muddling in my heart and becomes the rain that feeds my parched soul. I know when the thirst rises again, the rain will pour down and feed my parched soul from the gourd of my experiences, the wisdom of the ancestors and my kin that are scattered everywhere across the globe. Their writing is the reservoir of creativity; that eternal spring of hope. They remind me that when I write, I know I can explore. I can create. I can express and assert. And when it’s time to withdraw, I can do so within that crucible of Diasporic love and acceptance. I settle into the words and the rhythms of revolution to express who I am and my connection to the world and the fiery writing of poets in the African Diaspora.
Poetry is my resistance to oppression and response to trauma. It is a deep, deep well that accommodates the undefined yearnings of my soul and connects me to others; my undefined and perhaps not yet identified tribe. It speaks to the muddling in my heart and becomes the rain that feeds my parched soul. I know when the thirst rises again, the rain will pour down and feed my parched soul from the gourd of my experiences, the wisdom of the ancestors and my kin that are scattered everywhere across the globe. Their writing is the reservoir of creativity; that eternal spring of hope. They remind me that when I write, I know I can explore. I can create. I can express and assert. And when it’s time to withdraw, I can do so within that crucible of Diasporic love and acceptance. I settle into the words and the rhythms of revolution to express who I am and my connection to the world and the fiery writing of poets in the African Diaspora.
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INVITATION TO SUBMIT
You are invited to submit content that speaks to our objectives with a word count guideline of 350 words maximum. You may support your content with photographs, capturing the essence of Black, Aboriginal, and Indigenous lives from diverse perspectives across the globe. Sound the Abeng welcomes your submissions as we endeavor to elevate voices and deepen understanding of Black, Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples. You are invited to submit to our Fall-Winter Edition: Harvesting our Community Submission Guidelines Each submission, including poetry and photographs, should adhere to a word limit of 350 words or less.
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