A Black Feminist Statement
From The Combahee River Collective

"We are a collective of black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974.1 During that time we have been involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while at the same time doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements. The most general statement of our politics ...

1.

the grain of your voice rubbed against vinyl is prayer

is a ridge (like a ridge in your bottom lip) where i oil up and tan

cause blackness is just a beginning   and the edge is where i jump to life

 2.

you say    i am the offspring of an obsolete machine

so  i guess me'shell   i ain't got nothing to prove     me standing here in all my black woman self    all dripping with spirit and legacy and rips that healed and ripped and healed   and warm hands   ...

full moon blood, july, 29, 2007

my blood has caught the full moon again

the juju has set in my skin

i am ready to shake away this month's offspring

into the world like    electrified fruit

there is a voodoo remix happening

in my tubes and box    for me to leave at the crossroads

power

the spinach and basil bath     power

the rosemary and the florida water    power

the metal and the dirt           power     the slow stream to life

pow...

In Womanist Spirituality and Popular Music we watched a film called "The Language you Cry In" which chronicles reunited family through the story of a Mende funeral dirge.  Interestingly, the song was sung before the slave trade and through the middle passage was transplanted to plantations and passed down by some enslaved African.  The film documents a family who through keeping this song alive today is able to trace thier lineag...

i dare not call this your anniversary (for new orleans)

for the city that rests at the bottom of a wellworn boot

for the city that was home before shreveport

for the city that swallows sunshine and sings out sunshine

for the city that taught me to "wobble" and "catch a wall"

for the city that made me reappreciate my southnern songified speech

for the city that is a welcomed hurricane

for the city that gave me a "...

Unpacking the Crawl or Another Look at Global Positioning

By maneuvering through Manhattan in a kinesthetic position of lowness, Pope.L poignantly engages with ideas of mobility, space, agency, and identity which grow out of repeated experiences of state violence.  In doing so, Pope.L's crawls provide a lens through which viewers experience a performance of lack which contextualizes and complicates the onto...

cycling around the full moon- august 28, 2007

there is a tickle behind flesh and vein

there is a twinge deep in the rounded darkness

there is a swoosh of beginning and the welcomed release

there is indeed a release

there is a trickle a gush   a remaining spirit

a pinch an opening and cool ice cream from chisled infinite fingers

and warm palms on the back of knees    and an extra kiss when he expects a cramp

there are many ex...

hey everyone,

below is an article i found about the queen and originator of the choreopoem- ms. mama priestess ntozake shange.  as i continue to think about black women as conjurers and radical and revolutionary and artistic and spiritual bringers of light i am looking all over everywhere for stuff that highlights our work (conjurations).  read the following article and feel free to post your thoughts here. 

article found at http://w...

U, Black Maybe:  Another Look at Global Positioning, and the Hopes of a Radical Overthrow

Suggested Readings and Viewings

Raul Zurita: Interview teleconference via skype (this maybe archived on www.hemispericinstitute.com)

Diamela Eltit:  E. Luminata

Common Sense:  Finding Forever (especially the trak U, Black Maybe)

George Schuyler: Black No More

Cheryl I. Harris:  Critical Race Theory, The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, (especia...

Life after Death

Haunting History in Suzan-Lori Parks' Venus and Dramaturgy

Possession:  1. the action or fact of possessing,

or the condition of being possessed. 

2. the holding or having of something as one's own,

 or being inhabited and controlled by a demon spirit.

-Elements of Style by

Suzan-Lori Parks

Haunting:  to inhabit, visit, or appear to in the form

 of a ghost or other supernatural ...

saartji talks to rhodessa

saartji:  you know this young sista talked about me in her class yesterday

Rhodessa:  word

saartji:  yea she did alright.  She really wanted to understand my voice.  She wanted to hear me. 

Rhodessa:  sista I know you got a story

saartji: and it aint all what the white folks wrote

Rhodessa:  it never is girl

Saartji:  well nobody thought I had anything to say  she said imagine saartji talking to nina simone or...

why exactly cant you trust a big butt and a smile

heat and curves do not kill

a jiggle you can feel in your throat/ is pleasure  

and my lips bending into a poem  is a smile  not nuclear war

              there was a world built here   some call earth

or heaven         or ocean         or god

              my butt and lips are not three card monty

are not watches sold on L's in the city mothered by oya

                   or the snap ...

you knew
         when you placed that light inside me
when you licked this gold mine like you knew x marked the spot
when you stole my eyes
when you said rest here  and waited three seasons 
for peace to dwell in my pulse
when you measured my laughs in teaspoons of rain and breath
when you wrapped my hair in your skin
               and carved an ankh on my lips
                and softened the span of my hips 
and charmed my neck roll
and said re...

"talking back" and INKHEAD on the F train to Jay St. (a poem sorta)

1.

maybe all the poems i have ever written are dedicated to anna julia cooper

2.

there are children in bed-stuy who need poetry

not the poems i write for them

but the poems they craft through

silences, out bursts or purple bubblegum

they speak place like this...

and they speak truth like this...

and they speak right like this...

their poems ...

control f.r.e.a.q.

             for alice coltrance/ e. badu/ and q-tip

after TRACE on a Saturday Nite

                      (because all poems are found poems)

1.

this is your brain

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON BADU

2.

"...transition with a real slow fade..."

3.

this is a jazz poem

because linear thought just

like linear movement is    boring

4.

this is a jazz poem    because

assata speaks across the oceans to me

her glance and foot st...

greetings, i'm experimenting with affect/emotion and poetry for a new project.  do let me know what you think.

strange fruit at north square

1.

she's a funny little girl

slurping tart juice   and bops to soul

too young to whisper over honey suckle roots

she got accepted for the junior company    strong

enuf to scub floors and love   like   happy

she take shots in the dark   like empty apartments

on w. 4    she on the risss...