tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-296018632024-03-20T05:05:13.358-04:00DOG BYTES: The Cave Canem Events Journal (hosted by the Cave Canem Fellows)Curious about what goes on at the Cave Canem? Read DOG BYTES to get updates from Cave Canem events such as fellows readings, our Summer retreat, and our Tenth Anniversary celebration.Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-37050746561347849342008-10-08T22:14:00.017-04:002008-10-09T19:07:48.038-04:00An Evening with Ishmael Reed and Al Young<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://usefulmedia.net/files/CaveCanemLegacyConv.mov"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC7n6s9MnihfEzGJ6uczUFZnQgXiCrKvUymbA8VhpKy8fb5Ra2JuW9spsMKwJLBMtxoBQRNIGsak4PXQEJjIHnxMC2z39AjDbx6ndizeSov3n1wTTdpKEo-xoCiC5IWae8Ftcp1g/s400/IMG_1071.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254973877438888594" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 39px; height: 39px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-sHcZ7QifXIwpmK3pS34Vl1MV_I8sNRJ7YALyFUX8XmZl4oaXnFQfXbWDDgfPiNAOD5hq8JAXnFY8COt0dqA2oDZy6pmXx6_-3sE7xPAdJVrTIWAPVO4Wv1nGMvVEu9gsLY4g9g/s200/quicktime-logo.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255294425792168914" border="0" /></a><br /><object classid="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" width="400" height="400"><param name="SRC" value="http://usefulmedia.net/files/CaveCanemLegacyConv.mov"><br /><param name="AUTOPLAY" value="true"><br /><param name="CONTROLLER" value="true"><br /><param name="LOOP" value="false"><br /><embed src="http://usefulmedia.net/files/CaveCanemLegacyConv.mov" autoplay="true" controller="true" loop="false" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" width="400" height="400"></embed><br /><br /></object><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">OCTOBER 1, 2008 -- The New School, NYC, New York<br /><br />For the fifteenth program in its Legacy Conversation series, Cave Canem brought writers Al Young and Ishmael Reed together for a brief reading and dialogue about the historical and cultural influences on their work. The conversation was moderated by Cave Canem fellow LaTasha Diggs.</div></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKA7RSDG9P_GT8hZ7tE_fmCevihuXBU5O1ebVQbL7a3jZpTlT1hYjQQgCYRdI5vZLRRiYvsLm0Hh0QrrY0RbQKKm3ydmHLNx1TTwYZnQaDgK6ZnMneHpTudJ2njuf85WQeFxY2g/s1600-h/IMG_1063.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 189px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKA7RSDG9P_GT8hZ7tE_fmCevihuXBU5O1ebVQbL7a3jZpTlT1hYjQQgCYRdI5vZLRRiYvsLm0Hh0QrrY0RbQKKm3ydmHLNx1TTwYZnQaDgK6ZnMneHpTudJ2njuf85WQeFxY2g/s320/IMG_1063.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254973684494864978" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnIhnParZ1W_EvAXMTaGOxStJHrOoKkdrlB8ekm0IuV2VLIUX7HVdVsxbhDHcBGNRHd0hOjIt44MEZDlVPZ4cRe5rGduDQcLYJkWkkXHRIvOMe_Ht2V0yFSOSuwoJZpPdS55DFkA/s1600-h/IMG_1036.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; 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Like the poets I love had been raptured off and I was left behind with Nandi's iPod waltzing matilda all over my tender places. Then, slowly, a few familiar faces emerged from the open rooms. The tears dried and I started to pack.<br /><br />What a week. What a place. Have I ever felt so drained and so full at the same time? During our final workshop, Carl Phillips took us outside to the covered benches, and in the middle of workshop it poured down rain. Then the sun came out and filled every raindrop with light.<br /><br />Graduation was even more beautiful. Janice preached her trial sermon from the Cave Canem pulpit with that awesome salute to us third-years. Annette took us to church with her awesome interpretation of "Count Your Blessings." Rachel's slide show was incredible. Thank you for capturing our light. Thank you Ashaki and the second year fellows for the touching ceremony, the lovely CDs, photos, and postcards. Thank you Toi and Cornelius, Alison and Sarah, Amanda and Remica. Thank you Carl and Claudia and Colleen and Ed, Ms. Shange and Claude. And fellows. Thank you fellows.<br /><br />Seventeen poets broke the chain last night. We are unleashed. We are bark and whimper and a warm, wet tongue on your hand. Cave Canem is truly, truly a HOME for black poets. But everyone has to leave home sometime.<br /><br />So maybe, Iain, a few tears will fall. But just for a moment. And then the sun will light them up.<br /><br /><em>5...4...3...2...1</em><br /><em>ready for lift-off</em><br /><em></em><br />Deidre<br />'04, '07, '08Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-60497192326091883262008-06-27T10:59:00.003-04:002008-06-27T11:28:51.093-04:00Got to Get Over the Hump!<em>funny how time flies when you're having fun...</em><br /><strong><em></em></strong><br />--Janet Jackson (as if I needed to tell you)<br /><br /><br />It's already Friday. It was just Wednesday, just Sunday, just the frantic week before. The last day and a half has been a beautiful blur. Last year, I referred to CC as "poetry camp." This year, I realize it's boot camp! That's the middle of the week for you. There was some really intense energy among the fellows yesterday. Intense, yet exhausted. We were all a little edgy and it came out in the work. Several fellows mentioned a somber, heavy tone to the work that was workshopped. After tapping our souls for three days straight, we need a collective nap. Or another cup of coffee, one.<br /><br />I can't make this too long because I, too, have fallen behind, but I didn't want to leave y'all hanging. Some magnificent things have happened in the midst of this whirlwind schedule. We held an impromptu poetry jam in Village Hall at 2:30 in the morning. Rachel Eliza Griffiths has spirited a bunch of us up to her studio in Selene House where she has taken the most exquisite photos. That is a bad sista! We've had spades games, tarot readings, astrological conversations, religious discoveries, pizza parties, and sangria. We've swapped war stories from classrooms and MFA programs and traded techniques on every aspect of our lives. Each of us are students, each of us, teachers. We have pushed each others buttons, pushed our own limits, experimented with forms, techniques, attitudes.<br /><br />Yet in the midst of it all, real life encroaches. Perhaps encroaches is too sinister a word. Life is. If life was not, what would we write about? And yet, life has a way of squeezing out reflection, if we let it, even here, at Cave Canem. There are children to check on, bills that need to be paid, work that needs to be done. Exhausted as I was, I managed to pump out an (overdue) article and advertisement this morning. That's one thing I've learned this week: if I push myself, I can lift mountains. But what a strain on the muscles!<br /><br />It's time to s l o w d o w n. It's already Friday. I have done a lot, yet I've missed a lot. You can't do it all. I missed the fellows workshops (again). I also missed the remembrance ceremony for the fellows who have left this phase of life behind. (Ross Gay is going to help me fill you in soon.) I have made all the evening readings, which as you well know, are unbelievable. There is enough talent in these four dormitories to raise the dead. Last night, we went to Westmoreland Museum of American Art to witness the power of our three new fellows (it's hard to count Carl Phillips as new because he was last year's guest poet): Ed Roberson, Claudia Rankine and Collen McElroy.<br /><br />I have the tremendous honor and pleasure of hosting tonight's fellows reading. It is the polyurethane coating on my CC experience. Well, it smells a lot better than polyurethane, lol. I hope Einstein is right. I hope time is relative, and I can stretch each second into an hour. Because otherwise I will blink and it will be Sunday morning, and I will be packing my bags for the last time. But there is not enough room in my luggage to carry all that I have gathered here. I guess that's why God blessed me with this all this body ;)<br /><br />Love,<br />DeidreCave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-35182268988066769312008-06-23T20:55:00.007-04:002008-06-25T18:30:59.323-04:00"I have personal knowledge of the wind..."***this blog was supposed to go up last night, but blogger was trippin***<br /><br />So I had my first of what I'm sure will be many emotional moments today. It wasn't the first tear I've shed since my arrival. Ms. Ntozake Shange ripped that bad boy clean out of the duct with a wicked piece called "Crack Annie" that she read for us during this morning's craft workshop. Not to rub it in, but she and her companion Clyde also blessed us with an exclusive preview of a new vignette for the upcoming Broadway production of <em>For Colored Girls...</em><br /><br /><br />The week's first workshop didn't do it either. I am honored to be in the marvelous company of Group C this year, and we had a wonderful experience with Colleen McElroy, who is a dynamic first-year faculty member. It is always amazing to see how many different children the night (and wee hours of the morning) gives birth to. I worked hard on my poem, harder than I've worked on any poem I've written here except maybe the final poem of last year's workshop. I found myself whining to my suite mates and new-found friends because the poem wasn't coming together.<br /><br /><br />"I wish my poems were like pre-fab houses," I complained. "This is like sawing down the tree first." But in that moment, I recognized the process at work. We are creating from scratch, and it is messy business. Suddenly, I knew what it meant to sweat for a poem. To have something so important to say that it is worth the effort to find the right words, the right metaphor, to apply a substantial amount of the advice I have heard here over the years. To craft something that is powerful and beautiful and true in equal measure.<br /><br /><br />That poem didn't make me cry, either. What did it, was Cornelius. You know, everybody says Toi is the tear jerker of our founding duo. I have yet to cry in one of her workshops. Cornelius is supposed to be the laid back one, right? But while he was reading "Gratitude" this evening, transporting us back to those classrooms, those cold places where Gwendolyn Brooks' pushmen and our own demonic doubts lurk, I imagined what my life would have been like if I had never come to Cave Canem. I imagined what my life would be like after this week, after this summer... no more faculty readings, no more fellows readings. A sista got a little misty, you know what I'm saying? I know that's not "in the moment" but can a poet ever truly practice that Zen state? Isn't our craft dependent upon weaving together existence, memory, and projection?<br /><br /><br />I just want to say how grateful I am for this experience, for the opportunity to know you (all of the fellows I have come to know), to spend time with you, to laugh with you, to cry with you, to party with you, to write with you, to learn from you, to grow with you. I feel one of those good gut-deep church balcony crying sessions coming on. That first year, I got up on the fellows stage, and you guys leapt to your feet. Your appreciation of my words, of the person behind the words was so sincere. It was so pure and spontaneous. It knocked me to the ground, and when I got up, I was not the same Deidre. That kicked off something inside me that goes so much deeper than ego or pride. Something started to heal in me.<br /><br /><br />I know people laugh at us and think we are crazy because we speak of Cave Canem so deeply. To the outside, it sounds cultish. Certain people who shall remain nameless seem to enjoy poking holes in Cave Canem. Zora put it best: you got to go there to know there.<br /><br /><br />So to each of them, Love.<br /><br />~DeidreCave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-54961505630631722672008-06-22T22:52:00.003-04:002008-06-22T23:19:18.389-04:00Back in the Land of Milk and Honey<em>i got my home</em><br /><em>in the promised land</em><br /><em>i feel at home</em><br /><em>can you overstand</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>Said the road is rocky</em><br /><em>sure feels good to me</em><br /><em>and if i'm lucky </em><br /><em>together we'd always be</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>i will ride it</em><br /><br />Rainbow Country - Bob Marley<br /><br /><br />So my third year has officially begun. Funny enough, this was the first year I actually made the entire welcome circle. All week, I've been thinking about how much I've grown as a poet and as a person since 2004, when I first set foot on the Greensburg campus. I actually drafted this blog on the long bus ride from DC (another first, and probably the reason I was actually on time), but I said a lot of it in the welcome circle.<br /><br />I guess the most important things are why I love coming here, what I hope to accomplish, and ... I don't want this blog to turn into a lot of introspective blah blah blah, though. Tonight, I sat in a room full of the most incredible people God ever allowed to walk the earth. I mean that. So many thoughtful, powerful, creative, beautiful black people. Tonight's circle reminded me that we all have a voice. Not just those of us who claim the title of poet, but all of us. All of us have something to say.<br /><br />Even George Bush? I thought of Sonia Sanchez as I typed that. I picked him because he is an extreme case. I remember Sister Sanchez saying that we rob ourselves of our own humanity when we deny the humanity of our "enemies." It is easy, in a sense, to champion the weak, the small, the ordinary... the people who are downtrodden and denied the right to speak. I mean, it's not easy to champion them in a world that celebrates power, glory, might, and wealth. But it is easier to root for the underdog than to say that those who stand as exploiters also have a voice.<br /><br />I totally wasn't expecting to go here tonight. I figured I would write about how beautiful and awesome Cave Canem is. I think this is precisely the beauty of Cave Canem. The alchemy of bringing all these different vibrations, these different experiences and perceptions and catalogs of words and images together. Cave Canem is an energy field like nothing else I have ever experienced. We are magnetizing each other by our presence, by our discussions. This is fertile ground. Isn't that how poetry happens? If we are brave, one predictable train of thought makes a sharp right turn, and suddenly we are in the wilderness, using all of our craft tools to mold a way out or at the very least, an explanation (or exploration?) of the landscape.<br /><br />This week is a time when we can risk wondering whether George Bush has a voice that needs to be honored just as much as Cynthia McKinney's, even if we despise nearly everything that he has to say. Does Nelly have the right to express his voice, even if it means bastardizing a little girl's hand clap to detail the set-up of a drive-by shooting? Does the virus have as much a right to exist as the antibody?<br /><br />Cave Canem is a place for exploring language, and for exploring ideas about life through language. And the risks we learn to take here follow us home. I know that they will follow me far beyond the three years of fellowship. I don't want to think about the end of this week because I might miss something by jumping out of the moment (thanks for the reminder, Remica). I can accept it though because it's (almost) time for me to relinquish my position and allow another poet to contribute and receive from this body, this organism that is Cave Canem. And it's time for me to graduate, and take my work to the next level. That's what Cave Canem is to me... an incubator (thanks CM).<br /><br />Now. I have a poem to write. 10 am comes mighty fast, and I want to have a little time at least to enjoy the fellowship of my fellow poets. So I will leave whoever you are, dear reader, to think about what language means to you, who has a right to speak, and what responsibilities they bear for the speech they choose to utter. Feel free to chime in at will. Till next time...<br /><br />Love,<br />DeidreCave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-38135203481264856212008-06-16T16:49:00.002-04:002008-12-10T06:24:59.639-05:00WELCOME THE NEW AND RETURNING CAVE CANEM FELLOWS FOR 2008<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">(click for larger view)</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcCS9i4bBzqe1dxJAVToid3LCyDFQORC4LLuL9ylbU0P5LtUXVDRuhQiUrU6dAzrU8F99vqlVBkYPuIyj8gid28IiosL1fJ7fNi5-rqRPUxJtdMAmrOUvbcINgaSdvLYYKnHagTg/s1600-h/2008+CC+Fellows.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcCS9i4bBzqe1dxJAVToid3LCyDFQORC4LLuL9ylbU0P5LtUXVDRuhQiUrU6dAzrU8F99vqlVBkYPuIyj8gid28IiosL1fJ7fNi5-rqRPUxJtdMAmrOUvbcINgaSdvLYYKnHagTg/s320/2008+CC+Fellows.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212584733402221042" border="0" /></a><br /></div>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-76695791238942294012008-06-16T16:05:00.014-04:002008-12-10T06:25:02.317-05:00THE RINGING EAR at New York University<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgST7w5VE37GIMGfefNheovpF_PxGzecCTjLhOxwwHYNFdAVbpelIgWofY4MmjmkDTmfXtdDZDKqr-89CJnPKPNb1ap1rYQa9xJ7hvLW6fmcrFZSIC9fpYUl9Czl-7yakAmDGUTyQ/s1600-h/1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgST7w5VE37GIMGfefNheovpF_PxGzecCTjLhOxwwHYNFdAVbpelIgWofY4MmjmkDTmfXtdDZDKqr-89CJnPKPNb1ap1rYQa9xJ7hvLW6fmcrFZSIC9fpYUl9Czl-7yakAmDGUTyQ/s200/1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212573520509797490" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;">On April 25, 2008 at NYU, five poets (Alvin Aubert, Randall Horton, Mendi Lewis Obadike, and Gwen T. Samuels) featured in Cave Canem's <a href="http://www.ugapress.uga.edu/0820329258.html">THE RINGING EAR: BLACK POETS LEAN SOUTH</a> read their work in promotion of the anthology.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGgW_acyalwnon3fcZNUhEZMqPSiNwzruFdVoNz4jnJBWqttUlbQZpTgxs35c8Z8np4wpJWcuz6UuIE5qFBIODcN2HwR82iGGmNztSk-nFvpoe_eJd03WXIBeoV89JdzWCkGePCw/s1600-h/7.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGgW_acyalwnon3fcZNUhEZMqPSiNwzruFdVoNz4jnJBWqttUlbQZpTgxs35c8Z8np4wpJWcuz6UuIE5qFBIODcN2HwR82iGGmNztSk-nFvpoe_eJd03WXIBeoV89JdzWCkGePCw/s320/7.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212574356798701250" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Alvin Aubert</span><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRONaux8p-dE3xKCZ0IH_6pmBiANW0QVP6CmxABt8bnbxdhbbtbvjXFd1crgrb7ACZicBRBW1Y6vqoOo3eyHiseVOLdnfVPfCUEVkA-9sfXv6ixxqQhMYOF6rhhhTviOEtz_Z2Cw/s1600-h/2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRONaux8p-dE3xKCZ0IH_6pmBiANW0QVP6CmxABt8bnbxdhbbtbvjXFd1crgrb7ACZicBRBW1Y6vqoOo3eyHiseVOLdnfVPfCUEVkA-9sfXv6ixxqQhMYOF6rhhhTviOEtz_Z2Cw/s320/2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212574676771562658" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dante Micheaux</span><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisrFe_cTBtY2klYTLujUIdIrfuZwXoJBLfl2VdvEkAqrRP_KYN5Z3X0R3VMAS3mE5b4EsSjB6IE_viR2-MBQKXmKrdNKU-B3uP-5mXPWezOrxv1lP-qASy-zks6jmBw2FcPbOn5Q/s1600-h/6.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisrFe_cTBtY2klYTLujUIdIrfuZwXoJBLfl2VdvEkAqrRP_KYN5Z3X0R3VMAS3mE5b4EsSjB6IE_viR2-MBQKXmKrdNKU-B3uP-5mXPWezOrxv1lP-qASy-zks6jmBw2FcPbOn5Q/s320/6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212575424534719906" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mendi Lewis Obadike </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.blacknetart.com/">[link]</a><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_hEEFHh64agd_lgOQUpFOAyMYV-DaI-iRYMR2X0i9zjAEqeM5d2_Qd0hpFmWgd2GhwVNDMJz1UIue6G9ihsvcdITckOP31RsRgkHxqPoImwvZCjLRhsRrkfRPNNrP4kmrgmvq1A/s1600-h/5.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_hEEFHh64agd_lgOQUpFOAyMYV-DaI-iRYMR2X0i9zjAEqeM5d2_Qd0hpFmWgd2GhwVNDMJz1UIue6G9ihsvcdITckOP31RsRgkHxqPoImwvZCjLRhsRrkfRPNNrP4kmrgmvq1A/s320/5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212575717848724594" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Randall Horton</span><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifiQfq_ZnuLYEEDWu6hzZjR_Kq5RafejKSI4YLVWNgSCDLqnmnFLOV9XCOb8qYQ_AGW9UgYDWE6gD78_eUO5RiuR_1BY3K87cO4OCYapxvOENawotSoWlT9q_6K0YNzoQTwNsTaw/s1600-h/4.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifiQfq_ZnuLYEEDWu6hzZjR_Kq5RafejKSI4YLVWNgSCDLqnmnFLOV9XCOb8qYQ_AGW9UgYDWE6gD78_eUO5RiuR_1BY3K87cO4OCYapxvOENawotSoWlT9q_6K0YNzoQTwNsTaw/s320/4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212575889038645042" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kamilah Aisha Moon</span><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaweUKMJliwGdHnrvZNUpfiPjwt24nswWnN2ZuRyGJySOXRHQJVIdOXGZb-ieH4_1mr0vv6tgsnMmVQDbGj3IbgiFHf3HS98D3kFgi17wEPMJwlACZwAXhdcawpH-hc7R2V2o4VQ/s1600-h/3.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaweUKMJliwGdHnrvZNUpfiPjwt24nswWnN2ZuRyGJySOXRHQJVIdOXGZb-ieH4_1mr0vv6tgsnMmVQDbGj3IbgiFHf3HS98D3kFgi17wEPMJwlACZwAXhdcawpH-hc7R2V2o4VQ/s320/3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212576254359493922" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gwen T. Samuels</span><br /><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKIaXOARc9dZFWcWfGCt1l4XbS7Y7Dz3AdMRou3iaZRxZ4dY8OJpBsjG579uMh82oKYqQ8Xp0uPsa95gG9-ec8syvgcFDuL_iDrHpA2xCL1X6n37DyCVWuvPzspY-k1u8KxsCHQ/s1600-h/8.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKIaXOARc9dZFWcWfGCt1l4XbS7Y7Dz3AdMRou3iaZRxZ4dY8OJpBsjG579uMh82oKYqQ8Xp0uPsa95gG9-ec8syvgcFDuL_iDrHpA2xCL1X6n37DyCVWuvPzspY-k1u8KxsCHQ/s320/8.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212576602509499346" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tayari Jones </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.tayarijones.com/">[link]</a><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0rtzgSNof8Hpi613ANES76YOSaOupgMZnhwiUJQYdUVGBukgdb2SvSrQTDz30UQfKh7ehF6CP5x5YX2QroZLwLFjEq12l8573fLeHpzgJs9zbHoDiNtFnhxTKgP-7tTpIPlaMoA/s1600-h/10.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0rtzgSNof8Hpi613ANES76YOSaOupgMZnhwiUJQYdUVGBukgdb2SvSrQTDz30UQfKh7ehF6CP5x5YX2QroZLwLFjEq12l8573fLeHpzgJs9zbHoDiNtFnhxTKgP-7tTpIPlaMoA/s320/10.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212576904418109698" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Charles and Myronn</span><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRUniN_Gp1t1aEfmcaD7_bAE9nDp4-oRZV1AYCObbXdhLx2CLo56Rm6RBqCb_TEgAlVL6GK3_Y9Vo3FkMS3ow7kvlqDTijLrnC_inlmT949fh3IC5i7PU5eX81BE5tfNibwdAEA/s1600-h/12.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRUniN_Gp1t1aEfmcaD7_bAE9nDp4-oRZV1AYCObbXdhLx2CLo56Rm6RBqCb_TEgAlVL6GK3_Y9Vo3FkMS3ow7kvlqDTijLrnC_inlmT949fh3IC5i7PU5eX81BE5tfNibwdAEA/s320/12.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212577096855489282" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1qRQUXhWwjMM7U31a6pQyqihQIABRRA36g0TqnRvW5oDnvuOPFBl0ZJRMq0fTQQ5IoHZjqY0CXEnn6zgSk5GKDi9LGm61Higk68pdPSEU53Eaz779y32vNNhLoh5igmDYv572OA/s1600-h/11.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1qRQUXhWwjMM7U31a6pQyqihQIABRRA36g0TqnRvW5oDnvuOPFBl0ZJRMq0fTQQ5IoHZjqY0CXEnn6zgSk5GKDi9LGm61Higk68pdPSEU53Eaz779y32vNNhLoh5igmDYv572OA/s320/11.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212577271845133506" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHzzvdA0IG2M5b2P6_CW8SQZjV6HVjboUl4ETo-0K_9X-xpjWbnZj8MAC6aOrqvQDrmWlRdk7K8PWmXtsAXVddcsV1zjMOoiZD1o0xqVYEEviW7E1seZHW-8E2TjVHQoi5OUyGaw/s1600-h/9.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHzzvdA0IG2M5b2P6_CW8SQZjV6HVjboUl4ETo-0K_9X-xpjWbnZj8MAC6aOrqvQDrmWlRdk7K8PWmXtsAXVddcsV1zjMOoiZD1o0xqVYEEviW7E1seZHW-8E2TjVHQoi5OUyGaw/s320/9.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212577465687264978" border="0" /></a><br /></div>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-78370893577234605232008-06-16T11:45:00.015-04:002008-12-10T06:25:04.834-05:00Cave Canem Co-Founder Cornelius Eady Debuts New Collection HARDHEADED WEATHER<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3b9MDhikVZlJQPf4DXxWElRZCy81N5VeYg2P8FAgxd-m4DRqM-8VMMGW9Yy6nye3ab6W9asxg-iSob5BffMAqBUUlah2odGBgExL75TZb64DF9ykhrrsoWVcbq9RAjAv5jy8cmQ/s1600-h/hardheaded-weather.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3b9MDhikVZlJQPf4DXxWElRZCy81N5VeYg2P8FAgxd-m4DRqM-8VMMGW9Yy6nye3ab6W9asxg-iSob5BffMAqBUUlah2odGBgExL75TZb64DF9ykhrrsoWVcbq9RAjAv5jy8cmQ/s200/hardheaded-weather.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212516183248538434" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:130%;">On April 23rd, 2008, Cave Canem fellows and friends joined Cornelius Eady at The New School to celebrate the release of his collection of new and selected poems <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90184195">HARDHEADED WEATHER</a>.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8PUFl-vA6gZWdXxQ3UwT1vWj5v_R_h2Fl8UheodNHn0K0JpRuzzvCMLN5xfMoWMcZ1o-no8Y3XGM9pBwV7HcKcgTnfHM3gLjJ7Uznd_5R6FAptAHq4o-MUBOMm6_rxeITZYk9lg/s1600-h/1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8PUFl-vA6gZWdXxQ3UwT1vWj5v_R_h2Fl8UheodNHn0K0JpRuzzvCMLN5xfMoWMcZ1o-no8Y3XGM9pBwV7HcKcgTnfHM3gLjJ7Uznd_5R6FAptAHq4o-MUBOMm6_rxeITZYk9lg/s320/1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212512620824734690" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Toi Derricotte</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzca18TIztPB3lsESPIJdswtXTA35ClO-Mv6-KUCBkY8ZHR9rM3pEVmMBEdKSiU4B1vaKGIFA1TRzPEGNzGCn97kULMRyoJSVOVi49dIlN5CQFF_CyvPi2Nhdd3czevkUobNZbA/s1600-h/2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzca18TIztPB3lsESPIJdswtXTA35ClO-Mv6-KUCBkY8ZHR9rM3pEVmMBEdKSiU4B1vaKGIFA1TRzPEGNzGCn97kULMRyoJSVOVi49dIlN5CQFF_CyvPi2Nhdd3czevkUobNZbA/s320/2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212512962995087122" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cornelius Eady</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggbeqDm0Tdyp9RJbyQciQigK70PAiVgl78wJihKteYYovie5nivImJ_3UiamJXIqdn7RE5sXQqo2UY_UMqKdy2Kyyewt0vdPVESqvTTI-ymwyopFYEWGsRUgmC4ZSptiH74Lssrw/s1600-h/4.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggbeqDm0Tdyp9RJbyQciQigK70PAiVgl78wJihKteYYovie5nivImJ_3UiamJXIqdn7RE5sXQqo2UY_UMqKdy2Kyyewt0vdPVESqvTTI-ymwyopFYEWGsRUgmC4ZSptiH74Lssrw/s320/4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212513243656643730" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">T. Derricotte and Kamilah Aisha Moon</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFwwsQPP5zEntYX17ul_hsswcI7ubb6pCLQbAtV5cqp9-LaeEYdap42VlPndNbe9XT6LG60S-jF1RjLOJ6fwr0u6PzYTn1HpT_ilrOV3RrLLPZA8bavIGG7PkMK83QNOo71RkZng/s1600-h/7.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFwwsQPP5zEntYX17ul_hsswcI7ubb6pCLQbAtV5cqp9-LaeEYdap42VlPndNbe9XT6LG60S-jF1RjLOJ6fwr0u6PzYTn1HpT_ilrOV3RrLLPZA8bavIGG7PkMK83QNOo71RkZng/s320/7.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212513737732651250" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Walter Mosley and Alison Meyers</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWMDebo5O_v34bStiV3hRa6h1VkcMLnmG6-LM-VGaQsXbpuT3lC-exPGonEKrl3TVu_BGL0_vCPs91Q6nEEnCUH-WL77Y_uDCo_3CJVN3bicRWY2vjlt1Epj__QQVQcSgiuc2HLw/s1600-h/6.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWMDebo5O_v34bStiV3hRa6h1VkcMLnmG6-LM-VGaQsXbpuT3lC-exPGonEKrl3TVu_BGL0_vCPs91Q6nEEnCUH-WL77Y_uDCo_3CJVN3bicRWY2vjlt1Epj__QQVQcSgiuc2HLw/s320/6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212514025744426722" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ1LMiC4ggvjV3LyD9Tm8D0SlmSXMAjy7uXa_bN0eOUMAnUUTjXLCLtGd5cqvWFxq1Bb5gOCv8TUQi_skNFZPeeikNpqFWkVyk0EGfhhn9zpem-ATZIWDZvwIZnJAhY6UDXqUKGw/s1600-h/8.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ1LMiC4ggvjV3LyD9Tm8D0SlmSXMAjy7uXa_bN0eOUMAnUUTjXLCLtGd5cqvWFxq1Bb5gOCv8TUQi_skNFZPeeikNpqFWkVyk0EGfhhn9zpem-ATZIWDZvwIZnJAhY6UDXqUKGw/s320/8.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212514627396030434" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Yusef Komunyakaa and associates</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRCEty-m2azlkh3Nxcui5661qBDKvxfBChcraT7ODSZKZ-EB4rSHyqz3ZyUUaL-hiEpR11osUPlz8GnoNjmco-GfXbqxyJjr1qDaRhXdC_jwfUqq2QRtE5_WOlJA-2TNyDIIm-kg/s1600-h/9.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRCEty-m2azlkh3Nxcui5661qBDKvxfBChcraT7ODSZKZ-EB4rSHyqz3ZyUUaL-hiEpR11osUPlz8GnoNjmco-GfXbqxyJjr1qDaRhXdC_jwfUqq2QRtE5_WOlJA-2TNyDIIm-kg/s320/9.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212514928446863890" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Myronn Hardy, Marcus Jackson, and Dante Micheaux</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIT9TAwOHyKs69YOw_vawK4F6LWFfLeGRcm3GAF0Htar0yS7WG9qauMTNsi9K726C9ccjHIeManx4KyC3TJP7MGNKZYDy2_K2w1hq-BFFYuu2OndM6jKMKV_dorMNty5ZEMopCfQ/s1600-h/10.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIT9TAwOHyKs69YOw_vawK4F6LWFfLeGRcm3GAF0Htar0yS7WG9qauMTNsi9K726C9ccjHIeManx4KyC3TJP7MGNKZYDy2_K2w1hq-BFFYuu2OndM6jKMKV_dorMNty5ZEMopCfQ/s320/10.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212515382784939298" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Evie Shockley and C. Eady</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6lSxUCIGgpyiirkFaO8K-Q2XuXCYGcnl6-2IgRg1w-fojzPyuMHSb2ogY3DcpWmtktpUEV3UDHdXgrBIbkQJOuQIDr27T1lwYFjpSDAHWas0muIduLSda1OavecMd6HTw-WdyQ/s1600-h/3.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6lSxUCIGgpyiirkFaO8K-Q2XuXCYGcnl6-2IgRg1w-fojzPyuMHSb2ogY3DcpWmtktpUEV3UDHdXgrBIbkQJOuQIDr27T1lwYFjpSDAHWas0muIduLSda1OavecMd6HTw-WdyQ/s320/3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5212515630801513794" border="0" /></a><br /></div>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-77627872284102908982008-03-06T08:33:00.020-05:002008-12-10T06:25:08.158-05:00Cave Canem Reading @ Bowery Poetry Club (AWP 2008), January 30th, 2008On January 30th, 2008, poetry lovers and Cave Canem fellows from across the country gathered during the <a href="http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/index.php">Associated Writing Programs</a> Conference for a reading at the <a href="http://bowerypoetry.com/">Bowery Poetry Club</a>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1R59c2dbRDNM6dSaRezkMGqCm0UIggBTBH6aAOJhpzyrpNnuq10BTyEASVYGl-Gc7F_qBHj1ag0rtZUKBWwTmkhC9OZ4PCoEIzAe4Q2g6FvOPPzQOMu8NsYZ6rhVd2plu2IUMfg/s1600-h/IMG_9779.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1R59c2dbRDNM6dSaRezkMGqCm0UIggBTBH6aAOJhpzyrpNnuq10BTyEASVYGl-Gc7F_qBHj1ag0rtZUKBWwTmkhC9OZ4PCoEIzAe4Q2g6FvOPPzQOMu8NsYZ6rhVd2plu2IUMfg/s320/IMG_9779.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174621873794331538" border="0" /></a>Krista Franklin <a href="http://www.kristafranklin.com/">[link]</a><br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieYozqpj6TtePYWZ7cxPo0hbZmWxsVggVYigAdk4UGOJab_TqAbxwjhL5kNMwWVvwzmc0CRacxyTrZMlTXGzznBr64RQJs5qPEardU13_aqXTjQ5k7CNW8njXxsChFDXW8YjzkVQ/s1600-h/IMG_9911.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieYozqpj6TtePYWZ7cxPo0hbZmWxsVggVYigAdk4UGOJab_TqAbxwjhL5kNMwWVvwzmc0CRacxyTrZMlTXGzznBr64RQJs5qPEardU13_aqXTjQ5k7CNW8njXxsChFDXW8YjzkVQ/s320/IMG_9911.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174622281816224674" border="0" /></a>Venus Thrash <a href="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/poems/thicker.html">[link]</a><br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg83pTHLVNBR0s0f8VDgaJj_VY0ESjEMR3-OFgDUN01ghjG1s4obd74GXbbgVavlreks23d6EC-h68M8P5mVbTqtGrogIMuXEuUBH5ATQzMNWhg1PIDgSxxWw_T-Wqs-an7URPy7A/s1600-h/IMG_9753.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg83pTHLVNBR0s0f8VDgaJj_VY0ESjEMR3-OFgDUN01ghjG1s4obd74GXbbgVavlreks23d6EC-h68M8P5mVbTqtGrogIMuXEuUBH5ATQzMNWhg1PIDgSxxWw_T-Wqs-an7URPy7A/s320/IMG_9753.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174622835867005874" border="0" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Tyehimba Jess <a href="http://www.tyehimbajess.com/books.htm">[link]</a><br /><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS4qSI-1PbvapwCjHs0NnFx7Gl7YcRlp1wD_The75qUIZ5pWORG23qoZqD6KuDcZUE4KFtG0g0OO_ROGdZcrcqjgUrevEOU-PU9PVAiROY52rjxUHQsoGMwBn4974ux3GiDuVZFA/s1600-h/IMG_9813.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS4qSI-1PbvapwCjHs0NnFx7Gl7YcRlp1wD_The75qUIZ5pWORG23qoZqD6KuDcZUE4KFtG0g0OO_ROGdZcrcqjgUrevEOU-PU9PVAiROY52rjxUHQsoGMwBn4974ux3GiDuVZFA/s320/IMG_9813.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174623136514716610" border="0" /></a>Bianca Spriggs <a href="http://www.torchpoetry.org/Torch%20Fall%2006/Contributors/bianca%20spriggs.htm">[link]</a><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ68gplQq3cHjk_g7bMKOFw8spf2FpHhtGItyTv1tLtSFZDl9HjBSs-m6RmHD8X1z7Iq0QY4XzpFoYOxaXHhb3DFPvxehlAVOAz8jLthIXdzJwQIRSazfEska9TDyA5qBdQP4jiA/s1600-h/IMG_9815.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ68gplQq3cHjk_g7bMKOFw8spf2FpHhtGItyTv1tLtSFZDl9HjBSs-m6RmHD8X1z7Iq0QY4XzpFoYOxaXHhb3DFPvxehlAVOAz8jLthIXdzJwQIRSazfEska9TDyA5qBdQP4jiA/s320/IMG_9815.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174623445752361938" border="0" /></a>Marcus Jackson<br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw-C9feWCVhxmYFAdBgRBEM5488TPPmeKUr_7lhmd7gMFwv5L_I0imUYnoXH-SLi6JoTtDy3lvR60yns2GxFva_yNA1FzE4vfAAXsNE2bRkbtuqLBV1a4PsQ6VID87Vy91nxSgEQ/s1600-h/IMG_9895.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw-C9feWCVhxmYFAdBgRBEM5488TPPmeKUr_7lhmd7gMFwv5L_I0imUYnoXH-SLi6JoTtDy3lvR60yns2GxFva_yNA1FzE4vfAAXsNE2bRkbtuqLBV1a4PsQ6VID87Vy91nxSgEQ/s320/IMG_9895.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174623604666151906" border="0" /></a>Mendi Lewis Obadike <a href="http://www.blacknetart.com/">[link]</a><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXiWmi2hY3dy002jXjhomFiWh31eYDWFWpqH_2fCTd5NhapgIRzy3-GVBvnAN5gdXIGCiDYtPOzaKNBoXx_UziWWLFzL9OYHjADVP-K1STcxg4xkjOyucErn-eki0ibgciogWzmw/s1600-h/IMG_9943.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXiWmi2hY3dy002jXjhomFiWh31eYDWFWpqH_2fCTd5NhapgIRzy3-GVBvnAN5gdXIGCiDYtPOzaKNBoXx_UziWWLFzL9OYHjADVP-K1STcxg4xkjOyucErn-eki0ibgciogWzmw/s320/IMG_9943.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174623858069222386" border="0" /></a>Remica Bingham <a href="http://www.remicalbingham.com/">[link]</a><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji-x7t0rDX5U-K1gx_GyhPWOO1Cz1RGkkEISZdo8ldgmvgnuFzMqv6E3p0qAA3_5kweOpLeaG-jz55OnXZwzAtHYpA2A4k3mMoq94LkxoyWHhqc0jRMI4Qcp86Xs5G3P5Lvq2tMA/s1600-h/IMG_9831.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji-x7t0rDX5U-K1gx_GyhPWOO1Cz1RGkkEISZdo8ldgmvgnuFzMqv6E3p0qAA3_5kweOpLeaG-jz55OnXZwzAtHYpA2A4k3mMoq94LkxoyWHhqc0jRMI4Qcp86Xs5G3P5Lvq2tMA/s320/IMG_9831.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174624068522619906" border="0" /></a>DeLana Dameron<br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEido2J90_Mv4Sa_KhMul_gIOujyeeGtXn32zxP8mgpMyPDZssYXPgdEAlkTpNXrgx6_s4t9JiFuCVbLS8BOraS2klwDiXYiP2cYn-1ix8wsjSGYPZP0vuvXC47gxGwWeqBwovvpZw/s1600-h/IMG_9820.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEido2J90_Mv4Sa_KhMul_gIOujyeeGtXn32zxP8mgpMyPDZssYXPgdEAlkTpNXrgx6_s4t9JiFuCVbLS8BOraS2klwDiXYiP2cYn-1ix8wsjSGYPZP0vuvXC47gxGwWeqBwovvpZw/s320/IMG_9820.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174626198826398738" border="0" /></a>Cave Canem Co-Founder Toi Derricotte<br />and reading organizer Amanda Johnston <a href="http://amandajohnston.blogspot.com/">[link]</a><br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrfA2R7vOlM8UZRvnn1M7ZMd4t1a0Jpo2lu5RVUcd26CjJ8qIQlQDG4rwCNxmDHj0RZ0T-_Z810nmK1AQRFH09YHyTxjKDsjdOfHZcXFdGrYOaRL_gcud1KGsuc7I-Ft7etbq91A/s1600-h/IMG_9951.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrfA2R7vOlM8UZRvnn1M7ZMd4t1a0Jpo2lu5RVUcd26CjJ8qIQlQDG4rwCNxmDHj0RZ0T-_Z810nmK1AQRFH09YHyTxjKDsjdOfHZcXFdGrYOaRL_gcud1KGsuc7I-Ft7etbq91A/s320/IMG_9951.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174626727107376162" border="0" /></a>Cave Canem Co-Founder Cornelius Eady<br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDYdt3IFyxzq07DXMsbfawyGkLowptM6lKbPUKsWtpmInFFlIh6zuaJ8RGKh_kZ0J34-wvK5gzo3BT62hB25AxIPCVr-MFCg7y-6NcnYsqIht_5cP5V_yMBWwOcS7xLBmy6I3Ngw/s1600-h/IMG_0010.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDYdt3IFyxzq07DXMsbfawyGkLowptM6lKbPUKsWtpmInFFlIh6zuaJ8RGKh_kZ0J34-wvK5gzo3BT62hB25AxIPCVr-MFCg7y-6NcnYsqIht_5cP5V_yMBWwOcS7xLBmy6I3Ngw/s320/IMG_0010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174627418597110834" border="0" /></a>Cave Canem Director Alison Meyers and Jacqueline Jones LaMon<br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtcX71jcJUs28DESzFfric2HmQ3NrDQaHlcIJ0a9u27N1AQFmvAb2HUsIylcBviJXvduLXgx9a1jt-xMl4X-cowRlPqAS2opD1IIcTTJRXMLNdU8U4X5XF45HsL_Xb-2_EgHIHgA/s1600-h/IMG_0034.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtcX71jcJUs28DESzFfric2HmQ3NrDQaHlcIJ0a9u27N1AQFmvAb2HUsIylcBviJXvduLXgx9a1jt-xMl4X-cowRlPqAS2opD1IIcTTJRXMLNdU8U4X5XF45HsL_Xb-2_EgHIHgA/s320/IMG_0034.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174628183101289538" border="0" /></a>Hallie Hobson, Roger Reeves, and Christina Archer<br /><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69EvJGnOTM3YQ4ikZv97_tXMXyExU64JsdqwcmV-5LvLUamiS4jY2KuSoqSM6wwCWF8fcmBY288iE-FOt4CRmUdtgMMaCsaazvUxEhAcPQdNGhLHcw3rObtSK0EQpHW3gROXDkg/s1600-h/IMG_0042.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69EvJGnOTM3YQ4ikZv97_tXMXyExU64JsdqwcmV-5LvLUamiS4jY2KuSoqSM6wwCWF8fcmBY288iE-FOt4CRmUdtgMMaCsaazvUxEhAcPQdNGhLHcw3rObtSK0EQpHW3gROXDkg/s320/IMG_0042.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174628784396710994" border="0" /></a>Ross Gay <a href="http://www.upne.com/1-933880-00-7.html">[link]</a>, Randall Horton <a href="http://www.randallhorton.com/">[link]</a>, Tyehimba Jess<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinBfWJyWRfxKlBw1WAWGCKFvRdM6FDYMHkJjyn-rD1YI-vHqf2nk-17P6ICcTLgUZk9xui07dLW61X1JrwyScRUM95vGkOVRp2w38NHTGxBO7vu73FPj_Rb7otg3eotUf19gBcMw/s1600-h/IMG_9930.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinBfWJyWRfxKlBw1WAWGCKFvRdM6FDYMHkJjyn-rD1YI-vHqf2nk-17P6ICcTLgUZk9xui07dLW61X1JrwyScRUM95vGkOVRp2w38NHTGxBO7vu73FPj_Rb7otg3eotUf19gBcMw/s320/IMG_9930.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5174629188123636834" border="0" /></a>Toi Derricotte<br /></div>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-17893101498651119362007-10-22T23:01:00.000-04:002008-12-10T06:25:10.070-05:002006 Cave Canem Prize Winner Reading<span style="font-size:180%;">October 4, 2007<br />NYC, NY</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Cave Canem Prize Winner <a href="http://www.ugapress.org/FMPro?-DB=Testdbwebsite.fp5&-Lay=Layout_1&-Format=books_details.html&-Token.1=Poetry&-Token.2=&-Token.3=&-Token.4=&-RecID=48837&-Find">Dawn Lundy Martin</a> reads with Prize Finalists Sean Hill and Nadia Nurhussein and 2006 Prize Judge <a href="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/programs_faculty.php#carl">Carl Phillips</a></span><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgslopk4Uj6mdAh_7K6KNwNhrx_hctd6Br1KkssTMnvMU83bHb2v2PJjnbutAeL5OermwXSo3_XwrlL01TYhNlWy9soXj08PviP1UWtVSMmGkJ4l-Rpr_TvMzClHmUpDoc9XpE1DQ/s1600-h/Group+1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgslopk4Uj6mdAh_7K6KNwNhrx_hctd6Br1KkssTMnvMU83bHb2v2PJjnbutAeL5OermwXSo3_XwrlL01TYhNlWy9soXj08PviP1UWtVSMmGkJ4l-Rpr_TvMzClHmUpDoc9XpE1DQ/s320/Group+1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124368847633214546" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sean Hill, Dawn Lundy Martin, Carl Phillips, and Nadia Nurhussein</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKpsPnGaqIb4ilvfBsM_CYreI724koQzr8LJkjYOCHekeDX76JwfpyZYHUT7TQZ34nrAQCH_rZ-g5Ss2jONAOQ34RJzsA-9Hd8WuaQtVC2Mzs5MXQwU237ODo9A4hZkOYgZnu2lQ/s1600-h/DLM.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKpsPnGaqIb4ilvfBsM_CYreI724koQzr8LJkjYOCHekeDX76JwfpyZYHUT7TQZ34nrAQCH_rZ-g5Ss2jONAOQ34RJzsA-9Hd8WuaQtVC2Mzs5MXQwU237ODo9A4hZkOYgZnu2lQ/s320/DLM.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124369324374584418" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dawn Lundy Martin</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvSHkseGIAPuRBo3TOrcSvdbqC8C1FvqOM6lIZr56KmIvCmGhZruYBnt4gwKA52x8G2QJfct3US7mV_oKzUZorcr-5IiHfr4t95o2et9FeFuFqlBKEb7-P7ODGf0S_8faxfxGI-w/s1600-h/Sean+Hill+1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvSHkseGIAPuRBo3TOrcSvdbqC8C1FvqOM6lIZr56KmIvCmGhZruYBnt4gwKA52x8G2QJfct3US7mV_oKzUZorcr-5IiHfr4t95o2et9FeFuFqlBKEb7-P7ODGf0S_8faxfxGI-w/s320/Sean+Hill+1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124369805410921586" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sean Hill</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnInm3l5uq89x_Ms6veAmrij0H2Fr6lqC4CvU5m0CQut5U_Sh4h2zHZFsYrASyN9W8pHFKzOTpZ9TPa7gseOIpMeHf_E4OoMl90q7Ji1yUZYKv3j8lk6XttjBRicWsxotGdCT1Mw/s1600-h/NN.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnInm3l5uq89x_Ms6veAmrij0H2Fr6lqC4CvU5m0CQut5U_Sh4h2zHZFsYrASyN9W8pHFKzOTpZ9TPa7gseOIpMeHf_E4OoMl90q7Ji1yUZYKv3j8lk6XttjBRicWsxotGdCT1Mw/s320/NN.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124370101763665026" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nadia Nurhussein</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_g7BjmNw0Saw1eYTUJM-uw-mU4KAdmg-5t014phCTXyguxC9tcMSy7UFT_Ywx6D3wcfowpDXjlBA9znmQcIHrOQfSbWYPBVYIXhDqhZlO59gEmewltrKiBDsmcJVssBDY3wiB-Q/s1600-h/Carl+Phillips.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_g7BjmNw0Saw1eYTUJM-uw-mU4KAdmg-5t014phCTXyguxC9tcMSy7UFT_Ywx6D3wcfowpDXjlBA9znmQcIHrOQfSbWYPBVYIXhDqhZlO59gEmewltrKiBDsmcJVssBDY3wiB-Q/s320/Carl+Phillips.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124370449656016018" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Carl Phillips</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii7hl_CYwF5PrxSQw1rDnMYXlqU9GMRTBUx3Jrt_knEPycvhoML5HDCWaJm6PcZXMypGCWY0JhdRNWgR06yweWi_dwvy_cbMrHCe5JX3MedCjpyUlZbFVj__qmSMafDsPZM9eUpw/s1600-h/SH+RW.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii7hl_CYwF5PrxSQw1rDnMYXlqU9GMRTBUx3Jrt_knEPycvhoML5HDCWaJm6PcZXMypGCWY0JhdRNWgR06yweWi_dwvy_cbMrHCe5JX3MedCjpyUlZbFVj__qmSMafDsPZM9eUpw/s320/SH+RW.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124370720238955682" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sean Hill and Bakar Wilson</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGAyG8hLfp8dVGCDMoisaogtP94h5RLcyxePKNbn-y6yj9tF2caRfCQzH0RMHvsHh9BQBRwjpizEDSna_I-Ympym6WkUk_W0mf0oLKyPnL7LTkJBIJe2pChucg9cBTNuCwiT8DIw/s1600-h/DM+SW.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGAyG8hLfp8dVGCDMoisaogtP94h5RLcyxePKNbn-y6yj9tF2caRfCQzH0RMHvsHh9BQBRwjpizEDSna_I-Ympym6WkUk_W0mf0oLKyPnL7LTkJBIJe2pChucg9cBTNuCwiT8DIw/s320/DM+SW.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124371222750129330" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Simone White and<br />Cave Canem Program Coordinator Dante Micheaux</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYg6KJ17V2xzKDQ6Ut46jgMUTh2-7VpJAqnUIEP1VljheDAezZQjAeeB9sX4Pl1VRl98LPh1o0AAgq6avB2CXC0wXg9njSFEY2wSU-yvEN-3_EV_1hErWxbp5POpF608hJjIuITA/s1600-h/SP.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYg6KJ17V2xzKDQ6Ut46jgMUTh2-7VpJAqnUIEP1VljheDAezZQjAeeB9sX4Pl1VRl98LPh1o0AAgq6avB2CXC0wXg9njSFEY2wSU-yvEN-3_EV_1hErWxbp5POpF608hJjIuITA/s320/SP.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124371617887120578" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Shelagh Patterson</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1dDUfubtkvR020DPVtTwfbuzZT8ChyphenhyphenVhpaXH7Opym-JEqprFW7THzoYNkI_BDvLhLdF6bEesAEoUrG6ZfD5-s-ARH550bHvUIWBUQ53RGRdCUxtmedHPoswM9jScg_9RNxKHJlQ/s1600-h/ES.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1dDUfubtkvR020DPVtTwfbuzZT8ChyphenhyphenVhpaXH7Opym-JEqprFW7THzoYNkI_BDvLhLdF6bEesAEoUrG6ZfD5-s-ARH550bHvUIWBUQ53RGRdCUxtmedHPoswM9jScg_9RNxKHJlQ/s320/ES.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124371982959340754" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Evie Shockley</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRmMRhllr3MXB3FGkw1piQs5AwmTt3pQqPL7cIm6Yfga9ZkU3OMOtuzYdxQNXGVgMO9NsuCps0uN_EDu3VQBzZCAlfeCxffJPvd_ez6l5L6251UU-0oQqAhUCrcovDlcIBtn2TXw/s1600-h/MO.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRmMRhllr3MXB3FGkw1piQs5AwmTt3pQqPL7cIm6Yfga9ZkU3OMOtuzYdxQNXGVgMO9NsuCps0uN_EDu3VQBzZCAlfeCxffJPvd_ez6l5L6251UU-0oQqAhUCrcovDlcIBtn2TXw/s320/MO.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5124372275017116898" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mendi Obadike</span><br /></div>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-91275532492744107292007-06-27T10:23:00.000-04:002007-06-27T10:33:06.303-04:002007 Cave Canem Retreat Fellows<i style="font-weight: bold; font-family: georgia;"><u>First Years</u></i><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: georgia;"></span><i style="font-weight: bold; font-family: georgia;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></i><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Monique Callahan</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Billy Coakley</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Mitchell Douglas</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Natalie Graham</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Alena Hairston</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rich Hamilton</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Janice Harrington</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Juliet Howard</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ashaki Jackson</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bettina Judd</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Alan King</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ana-Maurine Lara</span><st1:city style="font-family: georgia;" st="on"><st1:place st="on"><br />Lynn</st1:place></st1:City><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Procope</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Khadijah Queen</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nicole Sealey</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Stewart Shaw</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">L’Oreal Snell<br />Stacey Tolbert</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Qiana Towns</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lolita Stewart-White </span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;font-size:100%;" ><i style="font-weight: bold;"><u><br />Second Years</u></i><br />Christina Arche<br />Marion Bethel<br />Dwayne Betts<br />DeLana Dameron<br />Sharon Dennis Wyeth<br />Gina Dorcely<br />Deidre Gantt<br />Myronn Hardy<br />Francine Harris<br />Hallie Hobson<br />Randall Horton<br />Marcus Jackson<br />Carolyn Matthews<br />Tanya Shirley<br />Bianca Spriggs<br />Frank Walker<br />Vievee Francis<br /><br /></span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><u><span style="font-weight: bold;">Third Years</span><br /></u></i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Lauren Alleyne</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Roger Bonair-Agard</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">James Cagney</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Carleasa Coates</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Aya de Leon</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Joy Gonsalves </span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Carolyn Joyner</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Charles Lynch<br />David Mills</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jonathan Moody</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Indigo Moor</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hermine Pinson</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Amanda Johnston</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gwen Samuels</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Amber Thomas</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Simone White </span>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-85131039011762032682007-06-15T12:54:00.001-04:002007-06-15T13:02:25.240-04:00Cave Canem Poets @ The Big Read (New Haven, C.T.)<span style="font-style: italic;">from the bloggers of the <a href="http://www.artidea.org/">International Festival of Arts and Ideas'</a> website:</span><br /><br /><p><strong style="font-weight: bold;"></strong><span style="font-weight: bold;">1) Cave Canem Poets on the New Haven Green: Rhapsody in the rain</span> </p> <br />Who goes to the New Haven Green to sit under the shelter of a big tent that's being lashed by rain? The answer: New Haven's bold,intrepid lovers of Literature as Spoken Word. Quite a number of us, in fact, sat there feeling pleased with ourselves for being so smart and good-humored (and completely dry--the tent is watertight). The showers would abate for a bit, then swing back in an instant and pound down ferociously. The four mighty poets onstage--Elizabeth Alexander, Cornelius Eady, Patricia Smith and Tyehimba Jess--treated the cat-and-dog downpour as encouragement, a backup percussion beaten on our canvas roof. Among the story-gifts these poets brought:<br /> * words of wisdom from a South African rain queen;<br /> * a step-by-step lesson on how to lay claim to a sofa abandoned on a Manhattan sidewalk;<br /> * a recipe for hot-water cornbread;<br /> * a portrait of the virtuoso guitarist and singer known as Ledbelly.<br />The other gift each poet brought was a city: Elizabeth Alexander's was New Haven--in fact, the New Haven Green itself in 1839, when the kidnapped Africans taken prisoner from the Amistad were marched out onto the Green for exercise.<br />Cornelius Eady's city was New York, and that riveting and zanily complicated sofa-claiming story. Patricia Smith's was Chicago with its "wide watery hips," whose West Side was "burned to its bones in '68." Tyehimba Jess offered his hometown of Detroit, with vivid, astringent pictures of the buildings and denizens along the Motor City's once-thrilling boulevards.<br /><br /><br /><strong style="font-weight: bold;">2) The Big Read is Big Fun:</strong><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Saturday Afternoon's Festivities on the Green</span><p>. . . I passed by a group of children, completely engrossed in storytelling. They were perched on colorful jumbo-sized alphabet blocks, swinging their free-hanging legs as they clapped their hands with delight. With the sound of their laughter still ringing in my ear, I made my way toward The Big Tent, where a captive audience (this time, made up of adults) listened to a reading by four African American poets. The event, called Cave Canem on the Green, marks my first exposure to Spoken Word. Prior to this experience, I had never known that the art of poetry could extend to its performance. Throughout the reading, the poets' passionate voices showered over me like the rain pounding down on the tent-top. Spoken Word, I learned, speaks to a deeper sense of cultural and spiritual community. With topics ranging from Valentine's Day at an elementary school to the funky sexy music of James Brown, from the death of a parent to the death of our country's soldiers, Cave Canem covered a melange of human, particularly African American, experience. I felt as if I were listening to a conversation about a powerful history, a collective story that I was privileged enough to catch a glimpse of. These poets, especially Patricia Smith and Tyehimba Jesss, spoke so naturally and fluidly that they gave the impression of coming upon a spontaneous revelation, one that the audience was lucky to have witnessed.</p> <p>The entire poetry reading felt organic, and I'm glad to have shared in the experience. At one point, Patricia Smith pronounced over the roar of the rain, "God, if there's a You...Stop the relentless season, show us your face." And with that, the storm seemed to resurge with new force. The four poets at Cave Canem spoke to and from something that I could not grasp completely, but its stirring beauty could be felt and appreciated by all.</p>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-63623800051454151082007-05-22T07:12:00.001-04:002008-12-10T06:25:12.153-05:00Cave Canem & The Studio Museum in Harlem<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.harlemonestop.com/images/organizations/3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 177px;" src="http://www.harlemonestop.com/images/organizations/3.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Past Cave Canem faculty member Tim Seibles and three New York City-based poets -- Aracelis Girmay, Marcus Jackson, and JoAnne McFarland -- read their response to the <i>A Philosophy of Time Travel</i> exhibit, a sculptural installation by five artists who have created a “crash site” simulating the effect of a giant steel pyramid dropped on the museum’s roof.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifdD8WXytcmKBgx-QAVy0cdLs8dXnWotCSPMFrUkQbWkx7vCZnwdKTI2QTPhZXC6F8a3neUf0_foFwcnmxGyzPSkWxBwae9PpesKwZ2OVb3_QmsCSFQyHncLX-6JPrQ_nyQBfOUA/s1600-h/host.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifdD8WXytcmKBgx-QAVy0cdLs8dXnWotCSPMFrUkQbWkx7vCZnwdKTI2QTPhZXC6F8a3neUf0_foFwcnmxGyzPSkWxBwae9PpesKwZ2OVb3_QmsCSFQyHncLX-6JPrQ_nyQBfOUA/s320/host.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067344622951586514" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kalia Brooks, Studio Museum Program Coordinator (host)</span><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqpqLElMMwkE_PzsO8JNyGE1Rq66XsRGufQzxmKdjTSeMccM2nrIHtNoAOXSjcgDxD2YmjbyNrnutjgMEaFytuV3Zc4s-7svoOuqB2xSsuYdMdg7RXVCvkynZ_xmm5Nw6xsIHHKQ/s1600-h/Panel.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqpqLElMMwkE_PzsO8JNyGE1Rq66XsRGufQzxmKdjTSeMccM2nrIHtNoAOXSjcgDxD2YmjbyNrnutjgMEaFytuV3Zc4s-7svoOuqB2xSsuYdMdg7RXVCvkynZ_xmm5Nw6xsIHHKQ/s320/Panel.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067344519872371394" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Tim Seibles, Aracelis Girmay, Marcus Jackson, and JoAnne McFarland</span><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEkX5WjBngBDVYLr7MF6R5-Od2kDKUL9blotQLjP2bu8OtZfluU5nNux0SUCu44h6EvJhXvMr6EAR78uqyJpEdzKli3BB48uPyvG7sr1GtlDky56VFNi0fZLzvKsMsHWWbNX0DBA/s1600-h/TS1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEkX5WjBngBDVYLr7MF6R5-Od2kDKUL9blotQLjP2bu8OtZfluU5nNux0SUCu44h6EvJhXvMr6EAR78uqyJpEdzKli3BB48uPyvG7sr1GtlDky56VFNi0fZLzvKsMsHWWbNX0DBA/s320/TS1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067344421088123570" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Tim Seibles</span><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCo2DaH83qN9lUCIahsJbcDjSst-czoQpCaJq2H-OpPfMp_RsPmx87NIEDT0AXgHVDqiXMTgFwhS1A1Ga1t3EP5JfDIKKhEphs49KE5QIdXHGMvgxG15ftaB9QHlAlGG30ABs18A/s1600-h/AG1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCo2DaH83qN9lUCIahsJbcDjSst-czoQpCaJq2H-OpPfMp_RsPmx87NIEDT0AXgHVDqiXMTgFwhS1A1Ga1t3EP5JfDIKKhEphs49KE5QIdXHGMvgxG15ftaB9QHlAlGG30ABs18A/s320/AG1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067344262174333602" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Aracelis Girmay</span><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAe0eNu-b4kdCDrDzRszkmNoVD9s_mlfpd5vNaCJiMFetmI5RcsYiUGE69WSV5NzdkZkT2uR4PSecFi_3jxxR_GAc44_fMtafJoEX4kOdU-vK24V9bC0UnsdyVMYD60fnQmY6Zg/s1600-h/MJ.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAe0eNu-b4kdCDrDzRszkmNoVD9s_mlfpd5vNaCJiMFetmI5RcsYiUGE69WSV5NzdkZkT2uR4PSecFi_3jxxR_GAc44_fMtafJoEX4kOdU-vK24V9bC0UnsdyVMYD60fnQmY6Zg/s320/MJ.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067344150505183890" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Marcus Jackson</span><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm7WmUVNvGiyMshVD-knY23Gpmg01ivOQoOjShRv2uN-NGZ4CuT0uShCA6mj2P3zB6XpnhT40r-pexZYPH4UxT1KTJxeLW1wR830bf1i4g0QaA5PTFdL6_YPr_ydMXhzfRHTvLag/s1600-h/JoMc1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm7WmUVNvGiyMshVD-knY23Gpmg01ivOQoOjShRv2uN-NGZ4CuT0uShCA6mj2P3zB6XpnhT40r-pexZYPH4UxT1KTJxeLW1wR830bf1i4g0QaA5PTFdL6_YPr_ydMXhzfRHTvLag/s320/JoMc1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067344030246099586" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >JoAnne McFarland</span><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTl5jjteJoFA5G93vfh4xIG7xE0DlhufLOhcmD3MoWiNM8oMqts8ge4vSTuu1CeFPN-LwBUSOGkuMWWRCOu-9FUphvihKFbhLEQHHcJwnEIvBbwByKdQui2iiRTewTLZBjzEGtWQ/s1600-h/LH_AG.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTl5jjteJoFA5G93vfh4xIG7xE0DlhufLOhcmD3MoWiNM8oMqts8ge4vSTuu1CeFPN-LwBUSOGkuMWWRCOu-9FUphvihKFbhLEQHHcJwnEIvBbwByKdQui2iiRTewTLZBjzEGtWQ/s320/LH_AG.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067343781137996402" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" > Lita Hooper and</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" > Aracelis Girmay</span></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilhz-FJ18gxyFCA0pHdbos_1_7jAebWLca15qy5iSmoij6lqPX9isddhCVxF1sSz0FIdMDiccaLgOJz9ZQjnXHgygg9EkgOUsayeADWzbzH0Zy87zB866-pcGzUwYN-tH0ZcX2IA/s1600-h/TS_MJ_VJ.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilhz-FJ18gxyFCA0pHdbos_1_7jAebWLca15qy5iSmoij6lqPX9isddhCVxF1sSz0FIdMDiccaLgOJz9ZQjnXHgygg9EkgOUsayeADWzbzH0Zy87zB866-pcGzUwYN-tH0ZcX2IA/s320/TS_MJ_VJ.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067343622224206434" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >Tim Seibles, Marcus Jackson, and A. Van Jordan</span><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBPWV6x8D8FXakoSnX7hOgzboZ8gEZXPSR3UbFIvuiheamd2gGVIHcnyp-OQTghQWZJtc3qkP5UZHDIe6TUdrjxxiol_4aV13eVa3Ni-GTWjCZKzrv_2JCbx9G60pPLRtfwt_wrw/s1600-h/Alison_Audience.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBPWV6x8D8FXakoSnX7hOgzboZ8gEZXPSR3UbFIvuiheamd2gGVIHcnyp-OQTghQWZJtc3qkP5UZHDIe6TUdrjxxiol_4aV13eVa3Ni-GTWjCZKzrv_2JCbx9G60pPLRtfwt_wrw/s320/Alison_Audience.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067343428950678098" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Alison Meyers, Cave Canem Executive Director, and attendees</span><br /></div><br /><br /><p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">BRANCUSI’S TIME MACHINE<br />by Aracelis Girmay<br /></p> <p style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Brancusi, what is it that you wanted here<br />flying into Harlem in your gold-chain suit?<br />Did you think you’d go unnoticed?<br />& is this your camouflage?<br />Did you hear we’d all be dragons here? Or trees?<br />Gold chain. Gold snake. Gold corn-row through the roof.<br />One woman points to the sky & says:<br /> <i>God.</i><br />Another woman puts her hand over her eyes.<br />Henry’s ghost runs up from the belly of the station<br />& says: <i>I knew, I knew!</i><br />Where have I heard this story before?<br />Is this the ship you come in now, to fill your bags<br />with Artifacts? Books & sidewalks of the straight-backed<br />glorious, the paintings & the ink & the sun outside.<br />Will you take them back with you<br />to 1930? & on them, sign your name?<br />Harlem, by Brancusi. Garvey, by Brancusi.<br />Or have you come, Brancusi, for a visit?<br />Innocent & wondering enough.<br />Because you heard the people here<br />were wonderful. & you love spring.<br />& you want your hair braided. Oh,<br />Ms. Zora Neale. & the Schomburg’s gonna<br />open. & you heard Bjork would be singing<br />at the Apollo. Did you just want to<br />come down, Brancusi, come down<br />& get swallowed up by the sound<br />of a woman singing over the rush & rain<br />of her shower? Did you just want to<br />come down, Brancusi, cross over,<br />into space, space, outer space,<br />& black & pitch & oyster<br />mouth above the pearls,<br />under your breath did you sing<br />space, space, outer space?<br />Tell me, did you think Harlem was that place?<br />(c) Aracelis Girmay, 2007<br /></p><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc0NajSuecpjmmreU5HKDE1vptQpnpB0Gi4cYsP-Pz1cfmGSihfMzsRa9mRbir9bPpzZntyHh9ectFXc21L2ZFcJuZkkIqyFrsyrWnuC1xOI7r7UJEpsROOF5qgY6nSucJIAqEKw/s1600-h/Poem_Page.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc0NajSuecpjmmreU5HKDE1vptQpnpB0Gi4cYsP-Pz1cfmGSihfMzsRa9mRbir9bPpzZntyHh9ectFXc21L2ZFcJuZkkIqyFrsyrWnuC1xOI7r7UJEpsROOF5qgY6nSucJIAqEKw/s320/Poem_Page.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5067343321576495682" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">All Photographs (c) Dante Micheaux</span>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-73877846107764051552007-03-08T10:02:00.000-05:002008-12-10T06:25:15.285-05:00Cave Canem Poets - AWP 2007 / Atlanta<div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;">The University of Georgia Press reception for the release of </span><em><span style="font-size:130%;">The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, edited by Nikky Finney.</span> </em></div><div align="left"> </div><div align="left"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039578324159223522" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-CDneuOEriLfPruxGh5F_79k0_B97-mMtYwSrMCpyDwoYGeLpPeqCE181OFxB-MUvw78giJCa7E2g87kUwfjVjH42Y28v9dRkL_HEzUBZVhxCWXLCkejb62okyDUNBnMKomyoNw/s400/kellynikky.jpg" border="0" />Kelly Norman Ellis, Nikky Finney, Naomi </div><div align="center"><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039578457303209714" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghLgJea5jFIsgKL9O7f2UiLhMNrqaidXrXuNPhTEj_rrXnSmTwP7-VE5FsvejoAyY7mQzwDLIHsae3R7kwUWe0uNpQ8K4QlI2zxravKUpQzibvA6KVDy_-J8yUQuLM8uFP53H1LA/s400/franksteph.jpg" border="0" /> <p align="center">Frank X Walker & Stephanie Pruitt </p><p align="center"></p><span style="font-size:130%;">Cave Canem Salon</span><br /><br /><br /><div align="center"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039578637691836162" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKuy1jbuy-tBySeAa5-Ot7txeYbhBJwUtc-yIpH7lEhcXtok9jb7moNGGpVsqn2grcS4uX88rEyolYdG3WGlgjQsFHv7J-ElimZWXWzIhTJCQMiL4o4_PCq9rlS3KCayZdN-sJfg/s400/rainareadingsalon.jpg" border="0" />Raina Leon </div><p align="center"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039578826670397202" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg65sw7K1iIQGLMLttr95hrdSyVqG2oo1jCGPQpCmghWg9yoPyrHiGu22x2ncpmjS7JbWSJvlHBX3vpCi1dNvUNYOEPkIMNxjB0f5yC57eNNUwBXIsNH1DiqiGLN494ARkd6J4OYA/s400/remicareadingsalon.jpg" border="0" />Remica L. Bingham reads from <em>Conversion</em>. </p><p align="center"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039580634851628930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBLNR99jS_OwC9t2-ohZOMNcRGapGbmX6sK-1uEULH7Jin-Y9YTjs2mSoKwyKBNsh68yU2Y5MlFr25KVoqbHV9PIUppuICy5LEQBMB3bGTdfqsIrUPF4u0QZ50cJrGX5ODhDLKpA/s400/stephreadingsalon.jpg" border="0" /> </p><p align="center">Stephanie Pruitt reads from <em>Life on Lay-a-Way</em></p><p align="center"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039579041418762018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif3bdbALX27ea7gn8itYVsDv9EhDCE8r2Xpd1PwfrgGPyXzr5xJOP3frxlg5y1ddlhqz0AISMHsT36UikjUYKu1dWYKRxxrXN5n64oXAoizJSffn5z8j4HdRXh2YfDfZmuepwfLg/s400/litashia.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Lita Hooper & Shia Shabazz </p><p align="center"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039579204627519282" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0msfOomIFtqHe-ez19UPudjz-kzUKFzjsW_P9BtAH_XZId02AHDhUNSza05cUL0McSx918ZrgsRVWL27rAF7d0p3TlMzkhP6cykcRuzYdkNkTnEP3jO_4D8PVgefMy0cmAnN6EQ/s400/antrandallsalon.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Antoinette Brim & Randall Horton </p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039579372131243842" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2zlayxZvjtJZftETD8YLvzqvlUAMfHa4wp2I9zZ4OEQCYIdpTtJ5f_r8sy91TGEqqDHD4GI3bv_VwmSVhHupf9UUXlFUhCeykTaSlFV6IrsWpJkq5luZ67S0t39suIdly7k6QaQ/s400/dantesalon.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Dante Micheaux</p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039579565404772178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiheJDzgqpswMBsDT6RMT1aimjEemqwlUoJcI5ev8a7IjIdjCx4hxKjZhjFAtnLU27WTArpQd0dMPpEcS-8zIaXB-O7at2cO-GszUDPEkMFnN0rYCqxp3f_CzpXevLe67U13Retxw/s400/shiaamandasalon.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Shia Shabazz & Amanda Johnston </p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039579986311567202" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-AaFgV-ul_Er9fC1VDM5_nd3iyhiyvr2Hxdc3YFzIHhyFm3T7o_ubsUsB5I58NG-jQTeVXNamPY7LTjFMr4K3APZ1QvDabM1tyDLadYj838Pw7PhCvnz9lXWhIveDbKfd8vmHew/s400/rainatarasalon.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Tara Betts & Raina Leon </p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039580312729081714" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgluFdZnesYze-qPanDgFZKjHba6p9vCYvhDZP6nEAxAtTfT9kVEWtAuT9qag6VlJcgYiPO6c1MfsqB05yXaA87_8KAltWXHwLPpofqAnNUF2OZeKUHWRujpn1BbS3HK8LZZ9Om5Q/s400/remicasalon.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Remica L. Bingham</p><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039581034283587490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM2QvHl8gLWXxvMoyo-QRJXHpC915xxqMNIzZZLU22WV4o6aCBiFqbWQaNu2zqVErX_ccRl2UFCEgG-o7J1UAHofWqWskJ20bz0hvjGdwSOMG-pmOUalcYWbHFcZmrbc9YnJTd6Q/s400/poetsatgladys.jpg" border="0" /></p><p align="center">Poets enjoying Gladys Knight & Ron Winan's Chicken & Waffles </p><p>Posted by Amanda Johnston </p>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1165780436838549712006-12-10T14:23:00.000-05:002006-12-12T20:53:19.203-05:00Intersection of Poetry & Art @ Studio Museum (12.08.06 Harlem, NY)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/478732/yusef%20signing.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/152460/yusef%20signing.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">In conjunction with the </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://www.studiomuseum.org/exhibitions_new.html">Studio Museum's <span style="font-weight: bold;">African Comics</span> exhibit</a></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">, </span><span id="role_document" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Cave Canem Faculty member </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/programs_faculty.php#yusef" target="_blank" href="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/programs_faculty.php#yusef">Yusef Komunyakaa</a></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">, and fellows Taiyon Coleman, Phebus Etienne, and </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/poems/factotum.html#dante" target="_blank" href="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/poems/factotum.html#dante">Dante Micheaux</a> read from their poetic responses to the work in the show. This event was part of what has become a successful annual collaboration between Cave Canem and the Studio Museum in Harlem.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span id="role_document" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">* * *</span></span><br /></div> <span id="role_document" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/817885/group%201.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/917941/group%201.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>* * *<br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/554584/Ph.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/947636/Ph.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>* * *<br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/438843/T_C_D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/89270/T_C_D.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>* * *<br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/354930/Friend_D.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/60546/Friend_D.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>* * *<br /></div> <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/837986/kundiclan.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/436355/kundiclan.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>* * *<br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/5235/L_C%20laugh.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/494541/L_C%20laugh.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1165778366129354582006-12-10T13:45:00.000-05:002006-12-10T14:57:57.376-05:00Gathering Ground Reading @ Enoch Pratt Free Library (12.03.06 Baltimore, MD)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/709545/Lucille%20Podium.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/319173/Lucille%20Podium.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>National Book Award recipient <a href="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/faculty.html#clifton">Lucille Clifton</a> (<span style="font-style: italic;">Blessing the Boats</span>), 2003 Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner <a href="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/winners/dargan.html">Kyle Dargan</a> (<span style="font-style: italic;">The Listening</span>), and Baltimore-Washington area Cave Canem poets Derrick Brown, Carleasa Coates, Teri Cross, Hayes Davis, Deidre Gantt, <a href="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/poems/city.html#reginald">Reginald Harris</a>, <a href="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/poems/past.html#brandon">Brandon D. Johnson</a>, Carolyn Joyner, Jadi Keambiroiro, Kamilah Aisha Moon, and Venus Thrash celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Cave Canem and the publication of the anthology, <a href="http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/52024.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Gathering Ground</span></a> (University of Michigan Press).<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div> <div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/389199/Group%201.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/286630/Group%201.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />* * *<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/215160/K_T_H_C.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/960925/K_T_H_C.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>* * *<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/59937/V_T.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/118807/V_T.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>* * *<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/760443/R_B.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/46590/R_B.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>* * *<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/551976/D_C.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/408682/D_C.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>* * *<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/954510/V.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/982114/V.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>* * *<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/1600/45391/Lucille%20Laugh.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5855/3157/320/687665/Lucille%20Laugh.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /></div>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1162749647856578072006-11-05T12:57:00.000-05:002006-11-28T16:50:59.300-05:00Cave Canem Elder Afaa Weaver and the Gibbous Moon Collective<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/1600/afaa.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/320/afaa.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Check out CC Fellow Amanda Johnston's blog for a look into the Gibbous Moon Collective's Weekend Writers Workshop for women of color featuring poet and Cave Canem Elder <a href="http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/325">Afaa Michael Weaver</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://amandajohnston.blogspot.com/2006/11/weekend-writers-workshop-with-afaa.html">LINK</a>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1160957924286073462006-10-15T19:54:00.000-04:002006-10-16T02:09:27.340-04:00Panel Photos by Amanda JohnstonFellows' Panel: Inner Workings<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/1600/Love%20304.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/400/Love%20304.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><div align="center"> Outside St. Marks Poetry Project.</div><div align="center"> </div><div align="center"> </div><div align="center"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/400/Love%20298.jpg" border="0" />Former director Carolyn Micklem with current director Alison Meyers. </div><div align="center"><br /></div><p><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/1600/Love%20300.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/400/Love%20300.jpg" border="0" /></a> Panelists (L-R): Dante Micheaux, Ronaldo V. Wilson, Gloria Burgess, Phebus Etienne, Jacqueline Johnson, Ross Gay</p><p><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/400/Love%20302.jpg" border="0" /> </p>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1160832619971950292006-10-14T09:20:00.000-04:002006-10-14T09:30:19.990-04:00Panel Photos by Amanda JohnstonThe Master's Tools: Aesthetics & Poetry of the African Diaspora<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/1600/100_3952.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/400/100_3952.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/1600/100_3957.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/400/100_3957.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/1600/100_3961.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/400/100_3961.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1160806187175503582006-10-14T01:17:00.000-04:002006-10-20T01:26:51.663-04:00Tara Betts on Walter Mosley's keynote address and the 10/13/06 Cave Canem Faculty readingSometimes the best way to learn about poetry is not just in the books, but in the mouths of the writers themselves. The stories from which the poems emerge and the voices that float, jettison, soothe and project. Novelist Walter Mosley began his brief opening address with two short anecdotes preceding tonight's Cave Canem Faculty reading at the CUNY Graduate Center. He talked about a meeting for the Poetry Society of America that he was attending where a white woman had asked if she could be a part of Cave Canem. When Mosley told her no, she replied with, "It's not fair." Mosley's thoughts were maybe it's not, but it hasn't been fair for us (meaning Black people). He talked about how Cave Canem is drawing attention for its work, and how this draws people to its positive energy that is counterbalanced by the struggles and pain born from Black life. "If you don't want the pain, you can't have the value," Mosley said. <br /><br />Mosley also related a story about attending a reading by Ruth Stone, Lucille Clifton, Carolyn Forche and Etheridge Knight. At the reading, each of the poets shared their stories about receiving money that basically saved them at crucial times in their career. Stone talked about how the money she got from a poetry award helped her finally buy a dishwasher. Clifton talked about receiving award money when she was homeless. Forche was confronting a South American dictator who then spilled the ears of her enemies on the table between them. Etheridge Knight then talked about how he had been in "the pen-i-tent-chee-airy" where he "defined himself as a poet then went to the library to figure out what he defined himself to become." Mosley went on to jokingly say that he couldn't be a poet with that kind of struggle going on, but Cave Canem is a place that helps poets become. Mosley shared a brief address in which he called Cave Canem "a school of real truth-tellers," but his critique of the larger literary world and the ongoing war of propagating literature by Black writers is still going on. Hopefully, the full text of Mosley's brief essay will be available here soon since Mosley offered to share it with Cave Canem. <br /><br />By the time the faculty were aligned and the crowd had amassed, Proshansky Auditorium was almost at its 489-seat capacity. Executive Director Alison Meyers took to the podium and announced that Lucille Clifton was unfortunately unable to make it for the reading tonight, and then introduced all the faculty in alphabetical order to avoid long introductions for the 14 faculty members who read tonight: Elizabeth Alexander, Cyrus Cassells, Kwame Dawes, Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Nikky Finney, Erica Hunt, Yusef Komunyakaa, Harryette Mullen, Marilyn Nelson, Sonia Sanchez, Tim Seibles, Patricia Smith and Afaa M. Weaver.<br /><br />Elizabeth Alexander's first poem was "Today's News" from her first book, The Venus Hottentot (originally released as part of the Callaloo Poetry series, then rereleased on Graywolf Press in 2003). Alexander prefaced the poem with the idea that she was trying to imagine a space like Cave Canem. The rest of her reading was a careful plumbing through each syllable of a few poems from her Pulitzer Prize-nominated collection American Sublime (Graywolf Press, 2005), including "Black Poets Talk About the Dead," "Ars Poetica 1002: Rally" and "Ars Poetica 17: First African American Esperantist." She closed with “Absence” and “Translator” (about <a href="http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/amistad/AMI_BCOV.HTM"> James Covey</a>), two excerpts from her long poem “Amistad.” She paused before actually reading the poems after noticing the grumbles of understanding from the audience. “If you read here, you don’t have to say anything about the Amistad,” Alexander echoed what many writers have felt. There’s not a need to explain the history that is known to people who already understand, who are familiar with its significance or at least the general details. <br /><br />If there is something to be said for knowing the details, Cyrus Cassells’ poems from his new manuscript Gospel According to Wild Indigo, set in the Carolina Sea Islands. He opened with the poem “Dayclean,” the title taken from a Gullah term for “broad daylight” and continued with a dazzling accumulation of objects and names that placed the listener directly in the geography of Gullah life. Cassells was among the faculty in one consistent trait that reappeared in the faculty’s poems—the walloping power of the concluding line in poems like “Childhood A’s” (“the music of how do and I recollect”) or “Caesars and Dreamers” (“who better to define freedom but a slave?”). Cassells veered from the new poems into “Oh,” a poem from More Than Peace And Cypresses (Copper Canyon Press, 2004) about the poignancy of burying a father and the title poem from Soul Make a Path for Shouting (Copper Canyon Press, 1994), a piece about <a href="http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=721">Elizabeth Eckford</a> set in Little Rock, Arkansas. <br /><br />Kwame Dawes shifted the tone of the room by reading from his New & Selected Poems (Peepal Tree Press, 2003) about his brother’s insanity and eventual death in “Ward Twenty-One” which drew muffled witnessing sounds humming throughout the audience. Dawes deftly shifted again to talk about how he was recently deferred on his application for a visa to the U.K. and wanted to know how Weapons of Mass Destruction have been found to justify this, a perfect segue into some of the lyrics of Bob Marley’s “Catch a Fire” and one of his popular poems “Fat Man.” This poem in the voice of a conquering power that want us all to be “his little boys” and will sell “Jesus and Hollywood.” Dawes read his third and final poem “This Skin” from Wisteria (Red Hen Press, 2006). “This Skin” builds anaphoric fury that departs from affirmation. Instead, it is a warning of sorts, “if you bite me, you likely to eat crow.” At its end, Dawes departed from the stage to receive high fives and rousing applause. <br /><br />Dawes made room for Toi Derricotte to ask, “Do you see the ancestors dancing? Let’s give the ancestors a round of applause!” In typical Derricotte fashion, she reminded us of the hurt that our ancestors suffered to make us possible now. “Joy and sorrow brought us here, and I have to accept it,” Derricotte revealed. It is these moments that are always evident in her work and push it forward. She read an excerpt from her memoir, The Black Notebooks (Norton, 1999), entitled “Revealing I’m White.” The more Derricotte read, the more I saw the shifting of women, dark and light, rustling around me, but so much of it was true. This introspection of thoughts often remains unarticulated. When is it safe to admit you are black when you seem ethnically ambiguous to some? What do you tell a black child who comes home afraid she will be chased by the n-word, the epithet loose in the neighborhood like a monster? What does it mean when other Black people say “She think she white” and they don’t say she’s acting white? Even in this tense moment, where she acknowledged how people ostracize, Derricotte brought the audience back to a point of togetherness by reading “The Journey” from Tender (University of Pittsburgh, 1997). <br /><br />Cornelius Eady broke into song, but not just any song. He chose Sam Cooke’s “A Change Gonna Come” and thanked all the people who sent emails, cards and letters during his recent surgery for prostate cancer in August. In a sense, Eady stayed true to the sense of why Cave Canem faculty is so important by reading two poems—one was inspired by a title of an AWP Conference panel title and one of his teaching experiences at Sarah Lawrence College (“Why Do So Few Blacks Study Creative Writing?”). His second poem spoke from a empathetic voice of a 36-year-old MFA student that still funneled hurt and anger into a vessel now known as the poem “Gratitude” from The Gathering of My Name (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1991). The line “I am a brick in the house that is being built around your house” is the line that often gets cited, but tonight Eady’s concentration pinpointed a certain frustration that a student might feel when he returned to the line, “I have a natural inability to sustain rage.” In short, not all poets of any persuasion are angry, and this assumption is infuriating like most assumptions, but some angers sharpen into radiant heat that burns a hole through to some painful black truth. <br /><br />Nikky Finney broke open such truths tonight with new poems such as the sweet love poems for a mother chewing her baby’s food so it can be digested in “Penguin, Mullet, Bread” and “Segregation Forever” taking in the sight of three black boys playing concluded with the foreboding line “I know history. I know what happens next.” <br /><br />None other than Condoleeza Rice was held under the magnifying glass of Finney’s pen in what Finney called three “1-minute conciertos” focus on Rice’s childhood mastery of the piano and its parallels with her current political career in “The Condoleeza Suite.” After “Concierto No. 5” and “Condoleeza and The Watergate: Concierto No. 7,” the final momentum stung in the last line of the third poem “Condoleeza and the Chicory”: “She refuses to hear how the opera might sound if she only take her eyes off the score.” When one considers that Rice, Finney, Angela Y. Davis and the four girls (Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Carol Denise McNair) killed in the <a href="http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/randall/birmingham.htm">Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham</a> were of the same generation, it is not unusual that such a suite would be born, especially when McNair was Rice’s classmate. <br /><br />Erica Hunt read all new poems tonight with her knack to play with voice and the multiple meanings of words and their unexpected relationships. Her first short poem “How It’s Done” sketched the impression of a domineering partner who expected 365 hot meals a year. With glasses pushed down on her nose and demands with a level of comedy that balances with its subtlety. “A History of Love” altered Hunt’s stance altogether as she caressed the side of the podium like a lover. Her linguistic agility only got more limber as she launched into “Invisible Hands” from Piece Logic (Carolina Wren Press, 2002) plays with the economics term coined by Adam Smith, but then flips into an image of countless hands that do incalculable amounts of undervalued labor. “Natural Mathematics” was dedicated to Hunt’s father, but the line “someone has to write it and know it” reverberated. Even her last poem “James Baldwin and Ella Baker Under a Night Sky” lets the two characters dialogue on thoughts about the stars.<br /><br />Yusef Komunyakaa descended on the stage. His height leaned into the podium and began his bob and weave with each word. In “Requiem,” he sounded as if he was mourning the New Orleans of his home state Louisiana. He continued with the last section of his new 33-part poem “Autobiography of my Alter-Ego.” The lines housed such stunners as “forgive the schizoid gatekeeper his book of crooked excuses.” He closed with two favorites recalled by many CC fellows—“Ode to the Drum” and the paean to the body “Anodyne.”<br /><br />Harryette Mullen stayed thoughtful of the time and read an excerpt from one of her earlier works Trimmings (Tender Buttons, 1999) that has just been reprinted with S*Perm**k*t (Singing Horse Press, 1992) and Muse & Drudge (Singing Horse Press, 1995) in one volume called Recyclopedia (Graywolf Press, 2006). <br /><br />Marilyn Nelson read work from two of her latest projects that draw heavily on Connecticut history, particularly the state’s African American residents. One of those residents was Venture Smith who was kidnapped as a child to serve as a slave in 1726. Smith did so for 30 years. He bought his wife, children and about 4 or 5 other people out of slavery. He dictated the story of his life that would become the first book published in Connecticut. This text is still in print as A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture A Native of Africa But Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America. As a result of this record and his descendants, now in their 8th and 9th generations, Smith may be the one slave who survived who can offer us a full story of Middle Passage. Nelson’s first poem “Meg” is for Venture’s wife and inspired by the negritude poet Leopold Sedar Senghor, and the poem “Farm Garden” where Smith strains to remember the dances and the praise songs, so he takes pride in the fact that he owns himself. <br /><br />Nelson also read three sonnets from Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color (Boyd’s Mills Press, 2007) by Nelson and Elizabeth Alexander. The two poets chose to write in the voices of the young black girls who studied at Prudence Crandall’s school, rather than in the often recognized teacher. One of the girls who spoke tonight was alive in “Miss Anne Eliza Hammond,” adamant in her determination to stay at the school unbudged and letting whoever’s listening know that “people’s dreams brought her here.” Again, one of the concluding lines stood triumphant when Nelson read, “I auction myself, and I make the highest bid.” <br /><br />Sonia Sanchez pulled on a myriad of influences to fortify the political awareness of the crowd by citing lyrics from the hip hop classic Rakim’s <a href="http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/eric+b.+%26+rakim/casualties+of+war_20050898.html">"Casualties of War”</a> and a quote from Camus: “The nobility of our call lies in…refusal to lie about what we know and resistance to oppression. These thinkers led Sanchez into mentioning her pending December 1, 2006 court date at 8:30 a.m. in Philadelphia’s Community Court, located at 1401 Arch Street. She urged people to come support her and the other elder women who protested the enlisting of more young people and asked that they be sent instead earlier this year. These women were arrested and detained overnight before they were sentenced to trial in December.<br /><br />Since the anniversary reminded Sanchez of the anniversary of her father’s death she talked about their conversations, what it meant for Black men like her father to prove their manhood, especially after the death of Sanchez’ mother, the strife and the reconciliation of father and son, even in the face of a daughter’s unflinching love. Sanchez was almost in tears but maintained her composure to read several pieces from the rhyme royale form blended with the Wolof spoken by African ancestral voices assumed by the father and brother in does your house have lions? (Beacon Press, 1998).<br /><br />Tim Seibles mostly read tenderly from his most recent collection Buffalo Head Solos (Cleveland State U Poetry Center, 2004). “Friend and Beloved” is based on a note passed from a child to a mother. “Ago” describes the park where Seibles played with his boyhood friends and how it looks so much smaller and only vaguely familiar. Seibles was about to close with what would eventually be his last poem “Late Shift” when a request was coming from the back of the auditorium. After much urging, Tim Seibles tried to say he couldn’t read “Faculty Meeting” from Hurdy Gurdy (Cleveland State U Poetry Center, 1992). His refusal was thwarted by what can best be described as a run-by booking where Toni Asante Lightfoot dashed from the top of the stairs to the podium with the volume in hand. Seibles was compelled to read about the paper cup man that the speaker in the poem has to draw during what has to be an unbearable faculty meeting gone bad. <br /><br />Patricia Smith told a story about an elementary class that she visited today where she told the students about the poets that she worked with at Cave Canem. Smith showed the students a picture of the 2006 graduating class. When the students saw it, one of them said, “I thought they were writers.” The statement obviously pointed to how even children do not see people like themselves as writers. In such a painful anecdote, Smith began with the first poem in her latest collection the National Poetry Series-winner Teahouse of the Almighty (Coffee House Press, 2006). “Building Nicole’s Mama” details how the children in a 6th grade class in Florida are all willing to share their stories with a visiting poet about their experiences with the reaper, including one little girl who admits that her mother is gone. She asks the poet if she can help her remember her mother. In her ongoing homage to black men of her father’s generation, Smith read the humorous poem about bluesman John Lee Hooker “How to be a Lecherous, Little Old Black Man and Make Lots of Money” and the praise poem “For My Million Fathers Still Here Past.” She publicly retired another CC favorite in the voice of Terrell Anderson Jr. cutting hair in his Afrocentric Fade Palace and Wild Style Emporium and did what she claims will be her last reading of <a href="http://voices.e-poets.net/SmithP">“Terrell’s Take on Things”</a>. Now, we’ll just have to see about that last time, won’t we? Smith may have to come back like Jay-Z after doing “The Black Album.”<br /><br />Afaa M. Weaver, ever mindful of the time ticking away on tonight’s reading, started with no mic. He talked about how he worked in a factory for 15 years and how he was entrusted with closing the warehouse every Friday night. Now as an elder, he was entrusted with guarding this house of Cave Canem. He was received warmly, but got even more applause when his microphone was restored near the beginning of a new poem entitled “American Income”—a commentary on the worth of black men in America. His second poem was “Hey Girl” for Latasha Harlins appears in volume six of the ten 10 X 10 booklets produced by Sarah Micklem featuring 100 ten-line poems by CC faculty and fellows. Weaver closed the evening with “A Chant of Saints” or a call on literary ancestors. As each of name was called for the likes of Melvin B. Tolson and June Jordan, a growing response of ashe followed each name, and the church said Amen, perhaps just as loudly as the CUNY security guards who were willing to stay a little later past their allotted time to let people mill around a little longer in the overwhelming flow of poems in a long night.Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1161295081301141762006-10-13T23:58:00.000-04:002006-10-19T20:55:54.533-04:00<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-family:georgia;" >Head Voice: The Ten-Year CC Reunion Faculty Reading</span></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Blogger</span>: Cherryl Floyd-Miller</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Who Read:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Elizabeth Alexander</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Cyrus Cassells</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Kwame Dawes</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Toi Derricotte</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Cornelius Eady</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Nikky Finney</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Erica Hunt</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Yusef Komunyakaa</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Harryette Mullen</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Marilyn Nelson</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Sonia Sanchez</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Tim Seibles</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Patricia Smith</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Afaa Weaver</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:georgia;" >*Lucille Clifton could not join us, and so I searched the archives in my head for her most memorable poems.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">**Who’s missing in my head: <span style="font-style: italic;">Michael S. Harper, Al Young, Rita Dove, Quincy Troupe, Kevin Young.</span></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Tara Betts does such an incredible job of relating the details of the faculty reading that I’ll focus my thoughts on <span style="font-style: italic;">some </span>my own subsurface self-dialogue.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">First, we went more than an hour and a half over our allotted time. <span style="font-style: italic;">Why is it that we allot time again? … oh, yeah, the space is physically owned by someone else even when it belongs to us.</span> But we seem to never grow tired of one another or of our words. I don’t know another space on the planet where this is true.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Two of the most arresting moments of the night (but there were many arresting moments, weren’t there?) came when both <span style="font-weight: bold;">Cornelius </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Kwame </span>(whose music in a room is large and invigorating) sang. Music as a poetic form just stops you at the ankles and moves slowly in goose bumps over the terrain of your skin. Makes you watch the communion between singer (poet) and muse. Between poet and audience. Between muse and audience. <span style="font-style: italic;">Where does he go, this Kwame Dawes, when he closes his eyes? How is it that he could carry a whole room with him?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Cornelius joked that Toi was the more spiritual of the CC dynamic duo -- he's always been the notoriously unspiritual of the two. I thought immediately that self-perception is certainly not the same as public reception. I have always "received" this poet as an amazingly spiritual one. What I have always admired about Cornelius Eady as a presence is the fact that he and his work seem to be deeply spiritual -- he is a protector and carrier of the sacred, but one who finds no need to belabor the merit of his myriad missions. Instead, he just does what needs to be done. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">And tonight, he needed to sing. To push words into us on the breath of a melody. An irony and a juxtaposition, an unexpected preparation for the Nikky Finney poem “Penguin, Mullet, Bread” that would come after his singing. In the moment of his song, he was a father figure chewing on the journey, softening the texture of things tough to swallow so that what we would eat of these words might be easier going down. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >Sonia Sanchez</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The eyes of Sonia Sanchez are deep rivers. You must know how to swim them, how not to be swallowed. These are eyes that know the shifting borders of distant countries, know the aftermath of both creation and destruction, eyes that know years, plus the bodies that have been scattered among the years. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">As Mama Sonia read tonight, I was drifting in and out of anguish. I remembered being at Esopus with her in 1999. It was morning and she was pacing the immense hallway just outside her room. I had just finished a walk to the river to gather rocks to take home with me. I wanted to be able to touch them and invoke the spirit of this place at whim. We had just heard Miss Lucille (Clifton) relay a story from her own life about Mama Sonia showing up at the hospital when she and her daughter were preparing to have surgery for a kidney transplant. Without opening her eyes, Miss Lucille’s daughter knew it was Sonia Sanchez in the room. Who else, Miss Lucille said, would be here at a late hour trying to tuck them in?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Hearing this from Miss Lucille had made me think of all the people over the years Sonia Sanchez must have taken care of – family and others. This was the year she would turn 65. Who would take care of her, I wondered?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">As I found her in the hallway, I asked this question. She could not look at me. She stared off in the distance with watery eyes, said, “That is the question, isn’t it, sister,” and walked away. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Last year, when she visited Atlanta for a two-day writing/reading retreat, I reminded her of this question. Again, her eyes watered. She still could not answer the question, but she thanked me for remembering it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Tonight, her eyes watered again. She remembers a friction between her late father and her late brother. She remembers the day the rift between them was mended. “My father said, ‘I’m glad to have a son.’ My father said, ‘I’m glad to have a son,’ as he talks to his daughter.” This was a moment full of pain, it seems, exacerbated by the fact that there is no longer a father here in her world to negotiate feelings with.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Mama Sonia asked us to show up on Dec. 1 when she and a group of grandmothers will be tried for attempting to enlist in the army and go to Iraq. (Is this really the charge?) They wanted to talk to grandmothers in Iraq about ending the war. Since their arrest, she said, she’s had eight gigs cancelled. No real solid reasons given, organizers of said gigs just had to get someone else. The Sanchez quote of the evening: “Every poet I know has resisted.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">This generous caretaker spirit is not one whom I believe would ask so loudly for help. But it was clear as I watched her tonight that she needs our support. She asked us to show up. I’m certain there’s a lot more she needs that she won’t ask for. To whom much has been given, much is required – isn’t that our cliché? What about … To she who has given much? What is required?</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >Tim Seibles</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The way Tim Seibles talked about intersections tonight made me approach this entry about the faculty reading in the way that I have. In 1976, he said, Sonia Sanchez came to Southern Methodist University, when he was about 20 years old. He was young and didn't quite get what she was saying. Perhaps his involvement with Cave Canem was a second-chance, he said, a way to be involved in repeating patterns.</span><br /><br />"Thank you sister Sanchez for just still being here so I could grow up and figure out some things," he said.<br /><br />Seibles also had an introduction to Cornelius' work by way of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Harper's</span> publication of work from <span style="font-style: italic;">Victims of the Latest Dance Craze</span>. He had no way to know then that he would become a faculty member for Cave Canem, but here he is.<br /><br />And perhaps, he said, conversations we are having right now are echoes of conversations already had by Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes ... this talk was the prelude to his reading of the poem "When We Met Again."<br /><br />~~~<br /><br />It is true, when we convene, when we gather, in so many ways, we <span style="font-style: italic;">really are</span> meeting again.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >Toi Derricotte</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">I don’t always pay attention to the distance between a writer and her work – the time between the first draft and the final publication version, the distance between writing and reading, the emotion of being inside the work as a writer and outside of the work as a reader/performer. Tonight, Toi made me think of all of this … and of distance. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">There was a moment as Toi was reading from her memoir <span style="font-style: italic;">The Black Notebooks</span>, when an “Oh my God … oh, shit” (half-whispered) slipped from her mouth followed by a slight pause. I wondered for a moment if I were witnessing how a writer can be surprised at what she wrote. How the words get away from you when the writing of them is done. When those words come back to you, there is a moment in which you, the writer, must become a listener, and you can be blown away by something that becomes very clear and articulate to you in a way you hadn’t yet imagined.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The way that Toi delivered her excerpted “Revealing I’m Black” chapter from <span style="font-style: italic;">The Black Notebooks</span> was filled with ebb-and-flow comedy. At moments, we could not contain ourselves or the laughter that swelled in us. Other moments, we hummed and nodded, acknowledgement that Toi’s words struck us deep and true. No matter how hard this book had been to write, Toi was in a place tonight where she could laugh at some of the details, and we laughed right along with her. I know at the time that many of these things happened, neither life nor the (constant) negotiation of identity could have been easy or funny. I believe, though, there is a fantastical humor that can come from making it through pain and gazing back at it from the other side. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">When Toi starts her reading, [we are serious. Attentive.]<br /><br /></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-family:georgia;" >“I still have that response when I see a dark person – not just a black person – in some nearly all-white environment. The feelings of distance and recognition …as if I were trying to push something away, a narrowing of my vision …”</span><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><blockquote style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-family:georgia;">“Perhaps I perceive others differently because I perceive myself differently.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">“I get into conversations with other black people which are so friendly, it makes me think they know I’m black.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">[We flourish with laughter.]</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Toi comes out of performance voice to speak directly to us: “It’s so weird to read this thing. I wrote this along time ago, but I guess it’s out now, right.”</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">[More hysterical laughter.] She returns to performance voice.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><blockquote style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-family:georgia;">"Or else, black people are totally more friendly than white people.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Or perhaps, I am friendlier to black people than to white, and therefore, they are friendlier back.”</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-family:georgia;" ><blockquote>“Revealing I’m black even to a black person can cause a moment of discomfort, so that twenty minutes into the conversation, often they say something that lets me know that they didn’t get it.”</blockquote></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><blockquote style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-family:georgia;">“‘Am I some kind of crazy white lady professing to black for God knows what reason?’ Some may wonder why anyone who looks white would take on such a burden.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">“I remember one time in an audience somebody said to me, ‘Toi you look like an optical illusion.’”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">My face does look different, as if the bones of my blackness have risen up to the surface.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">“How can we tell when reality has been so twisted, what we see?”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">“‘She think she white’ was one of the worst insults hurled from childhood.</span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> It was not only a judgment. It was a punishment as well, for it embodied the consequence of exile, of exclusion.</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">”</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Our laughter with Toi tonight was always sobered, though, by very affecting phrases: “’She think she white’ is not the same as ‘She wants to be white.’ It means, ‘She thinks she is white.’”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><blockquote style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-family:georgia;">“There is no dictionary to refer to. Perhaps every word we have uttered since slavery has been a contention between possibility and doubt, language twisted like a horrible face, the tension from which art itself arises.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">“It might be the key not that you wore a pretty dress, but that you wore it in a certain way, as if you were proud of it as a fact of your being [Oh my God … oh shit] [slight pause] as if you deserved it, took it as a personal accomplishment.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">"['She think she white'] aims not only to make the hearer think they have done something wrong, but to assault the very idea of the self to deal with shattering blows to the center of all thought, the self as perception. Isn’t that racism’s greatest injury?</span>"</blockquote><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >Nikky Finney</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">There is no question Nikky Finney brought down the house with these three poems (not sure about line breaks, so I’m keeping text intact without breaks):</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >“Concerto No. 5”</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><blockquote style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">“At piano you are a major sound, more than the articulate ivory key …when you open your mouth, there is that brilliant delayed count. We dive through your Shostakovich gap.”</span><br /><br /></blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >“Condoleeza at The Watergate: Concerto No. 7”</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><blockquote style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-family:georgia;">“… where she and the piano are the only black people in the room.”</span><br /></blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The final piece is what moved us all out of our seats:</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >“Condoleeza and the Chickering”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><blockquote style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><span style="font-family:georgia;">“Practice, practice, practice. Use your great mind to play and read with precision …”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">“…but the black keys even then will always be a stretch for her.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">“…she refuses to imagine grace notes, half counts, a full spontaneous pause,</span><span style="font-family:georgia;"> or how else the opera just might sound if she would only take her eyes off the score.”</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">It is what Nikky said afterwards, though, in the foyer area talking to Doug Kearney that will stick with me most whenever I read or hear these poems. “Because I love her, I had to write them,” she said. I am surrounded by people, especially artists, who love to hate on Condoleeza. This doesn’t mean that they actually hate her … just that they like to use whatever means they have access to as a criticism vehicle for Condoleeza’s words, actions, life in office. So, this admission by Finney, that she loved Condoleeza enough to place her observations (her questions) in a poem, was a warm surprise. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:georgia;" >Marilyn Nelson</span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Marilyn Nelson’s talk of <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p80.html">Venture Smith</a> who owned his property and his people this evening made me think of CC material ownership … what would it take for us as an org to own property? Retreat space? Land? Office space? Money, I know, but what else? Is this even possible if the org is nonprofit?</span>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1161370724311561172006-10-13T19:40:00.000-04:002006-10-20T14:58:44.956-04:00<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Viva la Gala!</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Blogger</span>: Cherryl Floyd-Miller<br /><br /><br />I felt so grungy from travling that I wanted to change my clothes. But what good would that have done without a shower? Since I gazed around the room and saw that many other people had on jeans, I felt safe to stay dressed as I was. Some people were dressed to impress -- of special note, our beloved Dante Michaux, who changed into a a black velour jacket, crisp white shirt and matching tie. <span style="font-style: italic;">Gorgeous! </span><br /><br />I mostly watched the room. There were so many faces that brought me joy just to see them again. But the room was so crowded, it required special maneuvering to reach people, and by the time you could get to them, they were off to the next person they had seen in the crowd. I stood in the back of the room with <a href="http://www.tarabetts.net">Tara Betts</a> and <a href="http://www.cavecanempoets.org/pages/poems/uncle.html">Sean Hill</a>. We caught up a little on each other's entrances and exits in poetry and ate generously from fancy hors d'oeuvre trays floating on the extended palms of smiling servers.<br /><br />The food was certainly not retreat fare: Spicy tuna on peppered crackers, smoked salmon on toasted wheat rounds, chicken skewers with a mustard sauce, assorted sushi, mushroom cups, gargonzola and carmelized onions on miniature croissant circles ... fruit, cheese, wine.<br /><br />Live jazz played in the background.<br /><br />A silent auction table bearing these things for sale: first edition prints of harder to find books (Toi Derricotte's Captivity being one), all of Tony Kushner's plays, a reading/performance by Yusef Komunyakaa, dinner with a politician ... great finds on that table.<br /><br />An adjacent table held CC T-shirts, tote bags, 10 x 10 anniversary booklets, and books from fellows and faculty as far as the eye could see.<br /><br />I was very pleased that we took a moment to acknowledge those lovely souls who had the courage to come to that first retreat in the mountain. Phebus Etienne read the names and offered a gift to those present:<br /><br /> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal">Herman Beavers</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">Omari C. Daniel</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal">Hayes Davis</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">Ronald Dorris</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal">Michele Elliott</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">John Frazier</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">Rachel Harding</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal">Yona Harvey</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">Shayla Hawkins</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal">Terrance Hayes</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal">Major Jackson</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">Suzanne Jackson</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal">Valerie Jean</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal">Honoree Jeffers</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">A. Van Jordan</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">Sherry Quan Lee</p><p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">Carrie Allen McCray</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">Renee K. Moore</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">Dominique Porter</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal">D.J. Renegade</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="MsoNormal">James W. Richardson, Jr.</p> <p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal">Lorelei Williams</p><p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Vincent Woodard</span><br /></p> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">(Names highlighted in blue were present for this event.)</span><br /><br />These souls, too, are our founding voices. Because they dared to come together in 1996, toil over poems, talk about poetics, forge a safe space, we are all able to move in a tradition.<br /><br />I'm grateful to them all.Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1161327184853455782006-10-13T16:45:00.000-04:002006-10-20T14:00:38.183-04:00<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153); font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Blackness and the Sounds of Other Colors: New Media & African American Poetics</span> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-weight: bold;">Blogger</span>: Cherryl Floyd-Miller<br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><o:p></o:p></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal">Panelists: Tonya Foster, Duriel Harris, Mendi+ Keith Obadike</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Moderator Evie Shockley introduced this panel by owning the fact that she is “intrigued, but intimidated and lives outside the realm of black new media poetry.”<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Her first experience with this kind of art form, she said, was when Mendi + Keith Obadike, in 2001, offered Keith’s <a href="http://www.eyeshot.net/blackness.html">blackness for sale</a> on <a href="http://obadike.tripod.com/ebay.html">Ebay</a>. Evie admitted she laughed initially when she saw the advertisement, but this event made her follow the art of Mendi + Keith more closely.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>[Note: Everyone had much to say about the plus sign as opposed to an ampersand in the Mendi + Keith collaboration/partner construction ... it elicited much positive response in this panel session.]<br /></o:p><br />Some of the questions Evie <i style="">wanted</i> to pose to the panel:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Wingdings;"></span></p><blockquote style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><p class="MsoNormal">*^* What examples currently exist of black new media poetry, including hypertext video poems, sound poems, etc.? </p> <p class="MsoNormal">*^* Is there a community of black new media poets/artists? If so, how can interested poets enter that space?<o:p><br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">*^* How does someone gain the technical expertise to do new black media poetry?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">*^*<span style="font-family:Wingdings;"></span> Are there low-tech forms that allow those without the money or institutional resources to buy or use expensive equipment?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">*^* Do new media forms challenge our conventional forms of creativity?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">*^* Do new media poems have different approaches to process than poets who work primarily towards the written or performance piece?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">*^* What is the role of words in a new media poem?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">*^* What is new media poetry?</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Evie let us know that all the panelists had told her they were not going to answer these questions (though, amazingly, somehow, they did).</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/1600/tonyafoster.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/320/tonyafoster.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p style="font-weight: bold;">Tonya Foster </o:p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Tonya Foster, who could not join the panel in person, was conferenced in via speakerphone to give her presentation. She was supposed to join us by videoconference, but there was a glitch in this matrix that prevented the video from happening.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>[Note: It becomes a comedy, somewhat, the way Tonya Foster is present with us without being with us as flesh. At one point, the connection is lost and she has to ring us back right in the middle of Duriel's presentation. At another time, as we are all absorbed in Duriel's presentation, when some part of our consciousness seems to have forgotten that Tonya is still in the room with us, we hear Tonya's voice say, "Play it." She's egging Duriel to play a sound clip she's made reference to but says she won't play for us. Duriel looks at the phone, touches the receiver and says, "Tonya, you so black and lovely. The technology of this workshop -- both Tonya Foster on the phone the Mac computers plus large television monitors for the panelists presentations -- added new texure to the meaning of this gathering.]<br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Tonya Foster writes poetry, fiction, and essays. She is the co-editor of <a href="http://www.materialword.com/Writing/Foster.htm"><i style="">Third Mind: Creative Writing Through Visual Art</i></a>, published by <a href="http://twc.org/">Teachers & Writers Collaborative</a>. She has written a chapbook, <i style="">A Swarm of Bees in High Court</i> (2002, Belladonna Press). She is currently working on <i style="">The Mathematics of Chaos</i>, a cross-genre piece on <st1:city><st1:place>New Orleans</st1:place></st1:city> and <i style="">Monkey Talk</i>, an inter-genre piece about race, paranoia and surveillance. She teaches at <st1:place><st1:placename>Bard</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>College</st1:placetype></st1:place> and Cooper Union.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Tonya started her talk with these words: “I am not a real person.”<o:p><br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><br />(We laughed at this, but how did we <i style="">know</i> she was real in that moment? There was no body, no normal means of identification, as proof. There was only a voice which responded to the name Tonya Foster. Of course, we believed she was configured as flesh and bone somewhere, but today, she was a voice more than she was a real whole person. It was an amazing moment to be inside of … on a panel whose topic was “New Media Art,” our first speaker came to us as a voice, long distance from “a room in Houston somewhere,” unseen, a vibration of sound through a telephone.)<o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Tonya told us that she doesn’t consider herself an expert on new media; she’s just begun a project that <i style="">could be</i> considered new media. There is a visual component and a DVD, along with text.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">She opened her presentation with a question: <b style="">Is Projection of Verse and Voice Programmable Art?<o:p></o:p></b><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There are two ways, she said, that we come to know things: There is what we know because of what we do and what we know because it is what we think. Tonya wanted to know what this means for our ideas of new media technology or our notions of poetry.<br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The first image that comes to mind for her as she questions the meaning and impact of new media is the image of The Burning Bush – “voice of Judeo-Christian God speaks through voice called out from the midst of an object. Could this be considered as roaming voice mail?”<br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal">An irony of Tonya Foster transmitting her voice as a means of communication: She doesn’t own a cell phone. Long ago, she admitted, she joined the tribe of the IPod, laptop, digital video camera, CD/DVD player, flash drive, and voice mail. She, however, has resisted the cell phone. Having a cell phone, she said, says demands accessibility and continual interactivity.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">“When one can be reached at all times, one is expected to be an audience and/or to be in front of an audience on demand,” she said.</blockquote><o:p><br /></o:p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Tonya said she believes that despite the notion that the reader can be co-creator of the meaning of text, the direction of words generally on a page are unidirectional - flow in one direction, from the writer to the reader.<br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Computers, however, offer a different kind of exchange. It is true that the way we interface with computers is informed by books … computers are meta language, a code in which all other media are represented. The page, for example, is represented in a computer, and having a computer does not erase our dependence on the printed page.<br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">A page is “a rectangular surface containing limited info designed to be accessed in some order and having a particular relationship to other pages. Navigation of the web is dependent on our familiarity with the page. There is still a reliance on print …I still prints PDFs from the web to read them.”<br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Tonya reminded us that computer media offers exciting possibilities for invention and interaction, but sometimes the interaction that is beyond our control can be frightening:<br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">“What who is interacting with what whom and to what end? The reader, who assumes s/he is clicking privately, is being watched.”<br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The example she gave was this one: One poet/anthologist was upset that another poet/blogger had trashed her book, but the blogger, who was very tech savvy, was able to track the anthologist’s obsessive visits to the blog site (ten hours). Anonymity, she said, is not what it used to be.<br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The reader often enters an interface with text where s/he can be id’d by the writer. The reader, who has often been in a position to be the watcher, is placed in a position to be watched.</p><br />Tonya also talked about the use of computers to give rise to something called the <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/30/">Flarf Movement</a>, considered by some to be the first major literary movement of the 21st century. <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/29/hoy-flarf.html">Flarf</a> as a term seems to have been coined by poet <a href="http://garysullivan.blogspot.com/">Gary Sullivan</a> and a flarf poem is created by doing extensive googling of odd search terms and then using the search results to write something <a href="http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Sullivan/Sullivan-Gary_06_Racist-Subtxt-in-King-Kong_Segue-BPC_NY_2-4-06.mp3">hilarious and disturbing</a>. Many people <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0434,essay,56171,1.html">are not fans</a> of this kind of art.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><b style=""><o:p></o:p></b> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Tonya read a Gary Sullivan poem that she says inaugurated the Flarf movement:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">(excerpt)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Umm-hmm</span><br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yeah,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mm hmm</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s true</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Big birds make big do</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /><br /></o:p></p>Gary Sullivan submitted this poem to Poetry.com, and it prompted other artists to do the same kinds of poems. They were building an aesthetic based on google searches and their idea of "community" was generated from the idea that one idea in a poem was linked to the idea in another poem. Apparently, this movement caused a lot of fuss (scandal) when Poetry.com linked the names of poets to flarf poems that they didn't write in order to entice people to submit poems to contests.<o:p> </o:p><br /><br />The flarf art is something Tonya Foster admits she's not fond of. After she read the poem, she said, "This is a bad poem." But there are other forms of new media art that she admires -- Keith Obadike's blackness for sale, for example and damali ayo's <a href="http://www.rent-a-negro.com">Rent-A-Negro.com</a>.<br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /><br /></o:p></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">Duriel Harris</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Author of the 2003 Elixir Press published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Drag-Duriel-E-Harris/dp/1932418008"><span style="font-style: italic;">Drag</span></a>, co-founder of the Black Took Collective, and poetry editor for Obsidian III, CC alumna fellow Duriel Harris teaches at <a href="http://www.stlawu.edu/">St. Lawrence University</a> in upstate <st1:state><st1:place>New York</st1:place></st1:state>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Duriel wanted to read excerpts of a paper she had already prepared for another panel titled, "The Demands of Dis/Ease" and she wanted to segue into talking about some of the new media art she's engaged in at the moment, including the "Amnesiac Media Art Project."<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">She started by playing a recorded poem for us that used her voice, sound clips from other sources, and music. The piece was titled<o:p></o:p> “Pomofunk Memo: Notes to Myself,” and it appears in Thomas Sayers Ellis’s <a href="http://www.tsellis.com/Callaloo_Quotes.pdf"><i>Quotes Community: Notes For Black Poets</i></a>.<o:p> At some point in the course of her introducing her work to us, Duriel said, "Pomofunk is my aesthetic." I wanted to hear more about this, but was okay, too, with her leaving us with that as a statement and letting us find our way with it. It allowed me to listen to the connections between all the media of her work. Here is a small excerpt from her "Dis/Ease" paper:</o:p><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">"By vocation, poets are called to imagine, to be enthralled by words … and to invent ... <o:p></o:p>We poets are charged to be transformed by language and are granted the opportunity, by means of language, to facilitate others’ transformations ... We are also charged to pay attention."</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Duriel's current works are very focused on trauma:<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br />“Trauma is defined by its capacity to wreak havoc and to sustain itself … Unleashed, it multiplies itself, infects the sensory organs, roots in the soft tissues.”<o:p><br /><br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">She is most interested in the idea that the victims of trauma are its hosts and the vicitms of racism, poverty and sexism are more susceptible to traumatization than the general population.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>New media is giving us an opportunity to explore much of what <a href="http://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/grant_recipients/ericahunt.html">Erica Hunt</a> calls for in her <a href="http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Hunt.html">notes on oppositional poetics</a>. And new media is more than just putting technology together with poetry and language. It means to actively engage the difficult.<br /><br />One of the cautions Duriel issued about new media, though, is that it gives us an opportunity to be less concerned with concrete conditions and disparities as issues in our community than with mastubatory exercises in intellect. It is our task to develop poetics in new media that address this danger. <p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Amnesiac Media Project takes an opening quote from Olga Broumas' <span style="font-style: italic;">Artemis</span>: "I’m a woman committed to a politics of transliteration … for which, like amnesiacs in a world on fire, we must find words or burn.<o:p> The project has four components -- a book, DVD, sound recording and website."</o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>She played an excerpt form the Amnesiac Project titled "Self-Portrait." Over music, her voice on the sound track kept repeating the lyric/words, </o:p>“Spoiled Negra is the meat.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Duriel also played another excerpt, "Living Body" to give a demonstration of an Apple software program called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GarageBand">GarageBand</a>. She showed us how she used this program to record, loop, cut, overlap and merge sounds. The program costs about $80 and makes this kind of art generation possible for people who might not have thousands of dollars or tons of resources to invest. We have many things like GarageBand at our disposal to explore.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">Mendi + Keith Obadike<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Mendi + Keith Obadike are interdisciplinary artists and have performed their work internationally. Their album, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Sour Thunder</span>, (also called an internet opera) was released on Bridge Records. They have done commissioned work for the Whitney Museum (The Interaction of Coloreds), by a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship (TaRonda Who Wore White Gloves), and most recently for Northwestern University.<br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">They decided to talk us through several projects and explain how the projects came to be and what kinds of processes created them.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal">Keeping Up Appearances</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This project, Mendi said, had its origins at Cave Canem. She was having lunch with Duriel Harris, Toi Derricotte and Harryette Mullen, and they were talking about sexual harrasment. The timing of this talk also intersected with a course Mendi was teaching on black women's autobiography, which gave a history to things that people didn't talk about.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">She was interested in exploring the theme of what lives behind language ... what's unspoken -- left out -- in a conversation, how what's left out gives a completely different narrative sometimes. Aesthetically, she and Keith were interested in playing with white space on the page and in playing with hypertext language.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>They created net-based hypertext pages in which some text which tells a story appears on the page. Some of the backstory and subtext for the seen text does not appear, though, until a cursor is moved over the white space.<br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">This device helped them explore, Mendi said, all the things we might see if we could see what was behind the language that we see up front.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Keith added that the way hypertext usually works is that it links you to a new page. For this project, it was important to keep all of the text contained on the same page.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Sour Thunder</span><br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This musical project is called an internet opera, defined broadly by the Obadikes as music and poetry coming together to tell an epic story. The structure of this project as performance art explored the positioning of audiences. The opera is a live performance piece first performed at Yale Caberet and the Afro-American Cultural Center on Yale's campus simultaneously. At the same time, audiences online could see both of those spaces at the same time. This online audience could also read backstory and download MP3s. In real time, the actors were moving back and forth between theatre spaces on the Yale campus. At intermission, the audiences switched spaces.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><a href="http://rhizome.org/object.rhiz?3366"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></a></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><a href="http://rhizome.org/object.rhiz?3366"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Sour Thunder</span></a> is an art piece that Mendi described as "half autobiographical and half speculative." The autobiographical component arose from Mendi going to the Dominican Republic and learning to speak Spanish. She learned how changing language changes reality. The speculative component tells the story of Sesom, who goes to another world on a mission to find something called The Sour Thunder. In this other world, scent is a language.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />Keith said <span style="font-style: italic;">Thunder </span>is grounded in the idea that language is akind of technology, something that people created to make their lives easier. In that way, it was technology ... and a technology in flux, as it is constantly changing and adapting to our needs.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Keith played an excerpt of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Sour Thunder</span> called "Trouble." This piece uses text from other artists, including a few CC fellows (Dawn Lundy Martin, John Keene, and Duriel Harris, to name a few.)<br /></o:p></p><br /><o:p></o:p><o:p> </o:p> <p style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal">The Pink of Stealth</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Pink of Stealth</span> was a project commissioned by the <a href="http://www.africanfilmny.org/"><st1:state><st1:place>New York</st1:place></st1:state> African Film Festival</a> and <a href="http://www.eai.org/eai/">Electronic Arts Intermix</a>. Keith and Mendi created the work for this commission for a show called "Digital Africa."</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The artistic ideas for this project came from thinking about how the color pink worked in two films, one of which was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Separation_%28film%29"><span style="font-style: italic;">Six Degrees of Separation</span></a>. In this film, Will Smith plays a black con man who charms his way into the lives of wealthy white people. He tells them he’s the son of Sidney Poitier. They like him so much they give him a pink shirt. He wears that shirt throughout the film and it functions like a piece of skin.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">The other film that motivated this project was <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/8762/pink/">Pretty in Pink</a>. This is the (early Molly Ringwald) story of a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks who falls in love with a rich guy ... she wants to be "pink enough," so to speak.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><br />The third element that inspired <span style="font-style: italic;">The Pink of Stealth</span> was the British Parliament debate about whether to outlaw <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/449139.stm">foxhunting</a>. They vote on it every couple of years. Mendi and Keith were thinking about how foxhunting related to the color pink. There’s a term: “To be in the pink of health”…which, believe it or not, came from foxhunting. Thomas Pink first became known for making English hunting jackets about two hundred years ago. If you were doing well, you were said to be "in the pink." Another saying suggested if you were doing physically well, you were "in the pink of health." (There is now a corporate entity called <a href="http://www.thomaspink.co.uk/">Thomas Pink</a>, which makes specialty clothing. The company gets its name from the Thomas Pink who made the jackets a couple centuries ago.)<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Pink of Stealth</span> uses a videogame of foxhunting, which Keith and Mendi played us an excerpt of.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the same way, Mendi + Keith's other projects draw on story and art from other sources: <span style="font-style: italic;">Four Electric Ghosts</span> is inspired by a novel by <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/tutuola.htm">Amos Tutuola</a>, <span style="font-style: italic;">My Life in the Bush of Ghosts </span>and the age old videogame, Pacman; T<o:p style="font-style: italic;"></o:p><span style="font-style: italic;">aRonda Who Wore White Gloves</span>, about a woman who goes through a transformation while trying to become a lady, is based on Frantz Fanon's <a href="http://scholars.nus.edu.sg/post/poldiscourse/fanon/fanon4.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Black Skin, White Masks</span></a> and the notion of the debutante ball. (With the <span style="font-style: italic;">TaRonda</span> work, your body triggers music when you enter the space and your movement in the space constructs the walls.)<br /></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Team Obadike is now working on a new piece commissioned by the black museum at Northwestern University titled "____ Disclosure" (couldn't catch the full name of this). It's a dance piece to commemorate the 200<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the British abolition of the slave trade. They let us know the piece is leaning towards a 200-hour long series of house music. The project gets its name partially from the citywide Chicago law that if you do business with the city of <st1:city><st1:place>Chicago</st1:place></st1:city>, you have to disclose whether you profited from slavery.<br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight: bold;">A snippet of Q&A</span>:<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Brandon Johnson recommended open source software, <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>, for those with limited funds who are interested in trying to make new media projects but might not have the resources or equipment to do so.<br /></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Q</span>: I'm concercerned with the idea of the term "interdisciplinary" vs. "collaboration." What are the aesthetic values that are native to new media that allow us to reach a hybrid form and not just a different form of production?<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight: bold;">A</span>: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Keith</span> : "I do not really have a conviction to new media. Poetry is always at the root of what we do." <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mendi</span>: "We are using tools that are at our disposal, tools that will be old. Some people will come up and say, 'You're using hypertext. That's kind of passe.' I don't care. I'm using hypertext. The idea is that I do something I really want to do." <span style="font-weight: bold;">Duriel</span>: “When I started moving in this direction, it was because <span style="font-style: italic;">Drag</span> as a book was not enough. The printed media was not enough. I like the digital option because it gives you these different kinds of texts and different layers and different ways for people to access them.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Q</span>: (for Duriel) Are you suggesting that a specific gender, race is akin to a kind of trauma or are you saying that those experiences make you more susceptible to trauma? How does new media relate to all of this?</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><span style="font-weight: bold;">A</span>: I think I"m saying both. What I see as possible with new media is that I can create actual spaces for bodies to inhabit. My challenge is to make sure that I don't retrigger the trauma.Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1160944864064941832006-10-13T14:40:00.000-04:002006-10-17T09:13:10.923-04:00<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">Arrivals and Departures</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Blogger</span>: Cherryl Floyd-Miller<br /><br /><br />Arriving in New York and at the CUNY Graduate Center was no easy task, but after navigating my way from Penn Station, around bodies that will not move for you, through chatty lunchtime New Yorkers, the successive, small pockets of smells (bodies and street food and heavy, greasy air), and a huge red Macy's sign (yay!), I made it. The buildings here made me feel tall, as opposed to how they always dwarf me. I think it's because here in New York, just as much occurs closer to the ground as it does in the busy-ness of a highrise or a skyline. There is something happening at every level of the view.<br /><br />I arrived at the CUNY center, met the beautiful face of Phebus Etienne, who had a conference pass waiting for me, and turned to hug Carolyn Micklem ... deeply ... <span style="font-style: italic;">extralong</span>! Time has not diminished her capacity to love you bone deep in the limitless space of a hug. My ears were cold from the walk and she didn't mind at all letting me warm them for a moment against her face.<br /><br />In the foyer area, Executive Director Alison Meyers and Executive Multi-tasker Dante Michaux were setting up the tables for the auction that would come later in the evening. They both stopped what they were doing for a moment to introduce themselves. This was an important gesture and a kindness from the universe after the long trip that brought me here. Another table in the foyer had so many lovely and distracting book covers that I stopped to let myself get engrossed. It was a large moment within a small one in which I realized I had met almost every author who had a book on the table! On an historical occasion like this observance of the orgin and projection of this incredible community -- this dream that we all dreamed and then dreamed some more in order to live -- I quietly retraced our history-making evolution.<br /><br />I moved in on the first panel session already in progress (actually, almost at its end) and took a seat on the floor to try to find a listening entryway into the conversation. It didn't really happen. I had missed most of the panel discussion, so I took the time breathe at arriving, to peek from my low position on the floor to find faces among the audience. Since I attended my 20-year class reunion last year, I was prepared for the small blaze of heat that expands in your chest when you see someone you haven't seen in a very long time. The sun rises in you. Perhaps you don't recognize them, but something -- the way they dart their eyes, the way a cheekbone lifts on the upswing of a smile, the special way they make their nose wrinkle -- triggers a familiarity and all you can do is just smile to contain yourself. I immediately spotted John Keene, who did not have dredlocs the last time I saw him, but whose bright eyes always let me know he's John. Where I hear the name Tyehimba Jess, I will always turn and look for one of his signature hats. Tara Betts always, always is a smiling, inviting face, even when she's cussing. Toni Asante Lightfoot, who hugged me before saying a word, is always a voice to me. It is the sound of her that always invokes my familiar, how her voice has just enough smoke in it to seep into you and linger even after she's left the room.<br /><br />I remember Toi saying (when the CC retreat space was Mt. St. Alphonsus) that from year-to-year she could see that the bones in our faces shifted each time we return to Cave Canem; she would stand smiling in the hallway and watch us (absorb us) as we returned to the mountain, like a mother welcoming you home from college or war (when those are two separate events). It was like she was really seeing us become ourselves. Whenever I needed to know about my own humanity, how it came out of me, I needed only to find Toi's face. Those eyes, intense, told me everything I needed to know.<br /><br />In this moment, too, I noticed how bones and bodies have reconfigured among us. I vaguely heard Greg Tate in the background being challenged by some serious sistervoices in the room about the misogyny of rap lyrics, heard Elizabeth Alexander read poems, saw Yusef Komunyakaa lean into the table to check out Greg Tate's response to the challenge from the sistervoices ... before the panel was declared out of time.<br /><br />I was thinking that this has nothing to do with the panel -- is departure -- and therefore is not relevant to this blog space ... but only for a minute. I soon remembered that I am among people whose very existence inside a tradition called Cave Canem is a departure, and completely relevant, and what has sustained and charged us.<br /><br />Alas, coming in at the conclusion of a panel was an almost perfect way to enter the communion of these spirits ... <span style="font-style: italic;">in medias res</span>, the work and the joy already in progress, because they always are. I had time to be close to all my people while stealing some internal time to reflect on all that we have become - are becoming.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Posting Note</span>: <span style="font-style: italic;">I thought I would be able to blog continuously while the reunion was happening, but the fullness of such an event does not sanely allow for that. I wanted to be fully present, so I took notes and used my tape recorder in order to start giving accounts after the reunion retreat. I am decompressing now, but will keep transcribing and reporting on the reunion, so keep watching the space for more.</span>Cave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29601863.post-1160750123613867622006-10-13T10:21:00.000-04:002006-10-13T10:36:19.486-04:00Photos from Prize Winners Reading by Amanda Johnston<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/1600/prizewinners%202.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/400/prizewinners%202.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Tracy K. Smith, Major Jackson, Constance Quarterman Bridges, Kyle Dargan, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Amber Flora Thomas, Dawn Lundy Martin<br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/1600/afaamajor.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5855/3157/400/afaamajor.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /> Afaa M. Weaver and Major JacksonCave Canem Poetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14785178629939050966noreply@blogger.com0