Tag: literary

Carolyn Rodgers, one of the greatest poets of the Black Arts Movement, transitioned at the beginning of this month.  As usual, I missed it until a writer-friend emailed me about her passing this week. I've already fessed up to being a poor excuse for a poet in my quite fickle love of poets and poetry.  [...]

Yet when the words come (and they do, just like prodigal children) you hope they come out with the kind of resonance that's relevant even outside the specifics.  Kind of like this. First Writing Since Suheir Hammad (1973 -) 1. there have been no words. i have not written one word. no poetry in the [...]

My friend Robin (hey Robin!) introduced me to Li-Young Lee.  Check him out: Braiding Li-Young Lee (1957- ) 1. We two sit on our bed, you between my legs, your back to me, your head slightly bowed, that I may brush and braid your hair. My father did this for my mother, just as I [...]

William Thomas Caine, Getty Images (2003) When we were growing up, my mother never let us identify people by race or class.  In conversation with her, the "white girl" in my class had to become the girl who sat in the left corner, carried the green backpack; the "poor" kid became the kid who lived [...]

There is an uncanny silence surrounding Ai’s recent death from late-detected cancer on March 20.  So much so that I didn’t believe it to be true and looked to “reputable” sites for days for confirmation.  But turns out it’s true: she’s joined the ancestors. When I first read Ai she scared me; or maybe it [...]

Kathleen Cleaver, 1968 Could’ve been my penchant for big hair and accessories made from natural materials.  I dunno.  But the Black Arts Movement’s aesthetic spoke to my poetics at just about the time I decided that defining it would be useful to my writing growth.  It seems restrictive that art should only exist to be [...]

I was smack in the middle of trying to figure myself out and make that self fit Some-Damn-Where when I discovered Audre Lorde via her “biomythology:” Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.  (Didn’t quite work out for me). But the line that grounded this airy Aquarius for a sec went: Do not pretend to [...]

First I read him. I was relieved to find a style I related to.  Drawn to ideas as much as—probably more than—technique in my poetic affections left me more than a little befuddled, skeptical, and lonely in many a writing workshop. Then I heard him read. And I was like yup.   Never graduated to groupie [...]