Tribute to Akilah Oliver, April 8, 2011

Last month, the poet, teacher, performer, activist, mother, sister, and friend to so many, Akilah Oliver (1961-2011), admired, respected and beloved by many in the poetry community, passed away suddenly. (I wrote up a little tribute, but have not yet posted it, so that's coming.) For many this has been great loss of an important and energizing creative spirit who died far too young. This Friday, April 8, 2011, in Chicago, the Midwest Naropa Writers and Red Rover Series are co-presenting A Toast in Your House: a memorial reading to celebrate the life & work of Akilah Oliver.

Here's the info. If you can come and celebrate her life and work, want to hear her poetry, and support the engagement with art and life that she represented, please do.

***

A Tribute to Akilah Oliver

FRIDAY, APRIL 8th
8-10pm

A Toast in Your House:
a memorial reading to celebrate
the life & work of Akilah Oliver

Featuring:
Adrienne Dodt
Krista Franklin
Jenny Henry
Jennifer Karmin + dancer J’Sun Howard
John Keene
Kevin Kilroy
Marie Larson
Todd McCarty
Marissa Perel

Hosted by Rebecca George
& Luis Humberto Valadez

at Outer Space Studio
1474 N. Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL

logistics --
near CTA Damen blue line
third floor walk up
not wheelchair accessible

$4 suggested donation
All funds will be donated to assist the Oliver family with the costs
associated with Akliah’s departure and to keep her work alive!

Co-presented by the Midwest Naropa Writers & Red Rover Series
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/redroverseries

AKILAH OLIVER was a poet, a dedicated teacher, and an inspiration to the lives she touched. Her books include An Arriving Guard of Angels, Thusly Coming to Greet (Farfalla, McMillan & Parrish, 2004), The Putterer’s Notebook (Belladonna, 2006), a(A)ugust (Yo-Yo Labs, 2007), and A Toast In The House of Friends (Coffee House, 2009).  She taught poetry in New York at The New School, Pratt Institute and The Poetry Project. She also taught at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, http://www.akilaholiver.com.

This Might Explain The Applause

So, we all know that the "memorial" service for the victims of the shootings down there in Arizona was a bit weird. That is, if you consider a pep-rally-esque atmosphere "weird". If you think it's perfectly normal to yell and scream and print up T-shirts and bring signage to a memorial service, then you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But considering that you're reading this blog, you most likely do not think that is normal and think that those who behaved in such a fashion are tools to the nth degree. Do you think that whole deal could get any worse? If you didn't, you might want to sit down because it kind of did.

My utmost thanks must go to Ima Wurdibitsch of The Wordy Bitch. (I highly suggest that you check out her blog. She's hilarious. I would like to have a beer with her. I would like to have several beers with her. She's that entertaining. But now I sound like a stalker. Hmm. Oh, well. Nothing new.) For it is Ima who informed me of a possible reason why there was so much cheering and carrying on at the memorial service. She directed me to a post over at something called Gateway Pundit. It is there where Robert Gibbs was quoted as saying, "I will say that I read the speech several times and thought that there wouldn’t be a lot of applause if any. I think many of us thought that. But I think there was a celebration, again, of the lives of those who had been impacted. Not just at that grocery store but throughout the country. And I think that, if that is part of the healing process, then that’s a good thing."

Before I continue, just let me say how idiotic that statement sounds. Were any of the family members of those who were killed "celebrating" that day? I'm just going to guess that they were not. I saw pictures of them from throughout the ceremony and they did not look happy. They certainly didn't look like the softheads in the stands who acted like the University of Arizona just won the Rose Bowl or something. And I don't know what part of Robert Gibbs's "healing process" involves shouting and yelling and screaming and clapping, but I don't think I agree with him that it is "a good thing". It's a disrespectful thing. It's an inappropriate thing. It's a lot of things, but I don't think that I would say that good is one of them.

Back to Gateway Pundit. After the quote from Gibbs, they write: "Oh really?Then why was it printed on the Jumbotron?" Wait. What now? Behold!

Good Lord. What in the world is wrong with people? Were they really asking for applause there? It certainly looks like they were. Now, I suppose that it could have been a closed-captioning thing for the hearing impaired. I suppose. (Granted, I'm not sure that would have been necessary, as anyone in that building, hearing impaired or not, would have known that the place was going bat-S.) But it really looks like they were asking for applause. I have no idea which one it was, but given as how President Barry did not ONCE ask for people to be respectful and pipe down, it would seem to be a logical jump that it was being asked for.

Whatever the reason, it doesn't look good no matter how you look at it. It doesn't look good if they asked for applause. And it also doesn't look good that they didn't tell people to stop applauding. (It also didn't look good that they handed out T-shirts with a freaking slogan on them. Not to mention that it was a slogan that had nothing to do with remembrance, healing or memorializing. Nothing. Who hands out T-shirts at a memorial for dead people?) President Barry's crew needs to step it up a bit in whatever way that they should have. It never should have happened the way that it did.

The Memorial Debacle

Yesterday, there was a pep rally memorial service for the victims of the shooting down in Arizona. I've gotta say that I have never seen a memorial service quite like that one. And I think I'm glad that's the case. It was, um, odd from the get go. I didn't think that you would need to remind people at a memorial service that they were there because people had died, but that might not have been such a bad idea yesterday. Seriously, who are you people?

I should have known something was not quite right when I saw the picture below that my friend Scott had posted on his Facebook page. Let's take a look.

Now, Scott didn't caption this or anything, so I was left to my own devices (which are few and far between these days) to figure out what in the world was going on. It appeared that they were getting ready for some sort of a sporting event by putting a T-shirt on each and every chair in the arena. Nope, turns out that they were getting ready for the memorial by putting a T-shirt on each and every chair in the arena. Because nothing says "We're in mourning" like a new shirt to commemorate the event. I knew that group T-shirts were popular for large family reunions, but here's to hoping that they never catch on for memorial services.

The place was packed. I mean packed. And while that surprised me, what surprised me even more was the number of cell phone cameras and regular cameras that people kept holding up to take pictures. It was beyond odd. I've been to a fair number of memorial services and I've definitely been to more than my share of funerals (it's what happens when you grow up in a family full of oldsters) and while I don't remember them all, I am fairly confident in saying that there was NO photography going on at any of them. NONE. I am also fairly confident in saying that if someone had tried to take pictures at either sort of service, one of the family members of the deceased would have either knocked the camera out of the moron's hand or just simply attacked the moron. There's no guarantee that it wouldn't have been both, but there is a guarantee that it would have been one of those.

Who does that? I don't care who you are or what the circumstance is, who does that? Who takes pictures at a memorial? I don't think that I'm alone in thinking that it is incredibly disrespectful, but if I had been in attendance, I obviously would have been in the vast minority that thought so. But if you think that taking pictures at a memorial was bad, allow me to show you that some folks thought that it was perfectly fine to bring signs to the memorial. Behold!

And then there was President Barry. I'm not blaming him for any of what went on when he was talking. He looked very uncomfortable when he walked out to speak at the memorial for several deceased individuals including a 9-year old little girl as the place went completely bonkers. People were clapping and cheering and taking pictures and hollering. It was the weirdest thing that I think I have seen in a long time. It wasn't a sporting event, you dimwits! It was a memorial! Who gives a fat rat's ass if it's President Barry coming out to speak? You don't clap and cheer! What part of that don't you understand?! He wasn't campaigning! You people were supposed to be mourning! You people were supposed to be in need of healing! You people were supposed to be aware of the circumstances that brought you to the place where the President would be speaking to you! And yet in spite of all of the things that you were supposed to be aware of, y'all still acted like a bunch of idiots. It was disgraceful is what it was.

And while I don't think that it was President Barry's "fault", I am a little bit surprised that he didn't at least frigging say something to address the inappropriate behavior by most of the crowd. I don't think that it would have been out of line at all for him to have said something to the effect of "Thank you, but let's remember that we're here to pay our respects to those who lost their lives the other day and I think it would be better if all applause was held during this ceremony for mourning." And I can't imagine why he wouldn't have said something. He did look uncomfortable, I'll give him that. But I guess that maybe it stroked his ego more than it make him feel kind of oogey.

I put a lot of thought into how I felt about this whole ordeal. At first, I was conflicted in the sense that there are some people who do not want their funeral or their wake or their memorial or whatever it is to be a somber occasion. Had that been the case in this instance, I suppose that all of the cheering (no matter how odd it may have seemed) would not have come across as reprehensible. But that wasn't the case. The people who were there who lost their family members were distraught. I don't know that I would have been able to contain myself if I had been one of them when the cheers erupted from the stands. I think I would have had to leave because I would have felt that those who were cheering were not there for the same reason that I was there and that I was clearly outnumbered. And I don't think that I would have been able to stomach being in a room with a bunch of softheads trying to get a good picture of President Barry on their cell phones while I was still completely devastated at the loss of my loved one.

I wish I could explain what in the world went on in there, but I can't. I'd really like to be able to ask those that were cheering what in the world they were cheering for and why on earth they felt it appropriate to do so in the given venue. Since it seemed to be a sporting event-like atmosphere that most of those in attendance wanted it to be like, maybe they shouldn't have put a T-shirt over every chair and instead put them inside one of the T-shirt cannons that they use at NBA games and give everyone their shirt that way. Then they could have a big wildcat mascot or something come out and do a little dance. And don't forget to send out a bunch of concessions vendors so that folks don't get hungry or parched during a memorial service. Good Lord, people. Seriously, what in the world is wrong with you? Throughout this entire ordeal it has seemed as if people's perspectives have been completely skewed. And sadly, the memorial debacle was no exception.

Focus, people! FO-CUS! For cryin' out loud...

RIP + Poem: Carolyn Rodgers

This weekend, a friend at AWP passed on to me the sad news that Carolyn M. Rodgers  had passed away. She was either 65 or 69*. A few years ago, in the fall of 2007, I wrote about a mini-symposium that my colleague Ed Roberson had hosted at the university focusing on the Chicago branch of the Black Arts Movement. One of the revelations for me and others at that event was Rodgers, whom Ed described as one the BAM's "metaphysical" poets. Rogers had studied with Pulitzer Prize-winner Gwendolyn Brooks, and had helped to found the Third World Press, before starting her own press, Eden Press, some years later.  A graduate of Roosevelt University and the University of Chicago, she had taught at a number of schools in the area, including Malcolm X and Harold Washington Colleges, and Columbia College Chicago. Though less well known than many of her peers, she was an accomplished poet, and published 9 books, including Paper Soul, Songs of a Black Bird and how I got ovah.  At John Murillo's book party, poet Randall Horton told me he was working with Rodgers on putting out a new chapbook of her work, and spoke of how excited she was that and other, future projects.

According to the Huffington Post, there will be a memorial celebration for her on May 4 (6 p.m. , at the eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave., Chicago), during which poets will read her work, and I hope to attend it.



*Though one obituary lists her age as 69, this site lists her birth year as 1945.

In honor and memory of her, I'm posting one of her poems below. Like so many of her poems, it focuses on the lives and experiences of black women, speaking directly about and to them. As the poem suggests, the pressures on black women are tremendous, and one of the results is a refrain of the poem, "we are lonely"; this isn't news, but Rodgers' skill endows it with power and beauty, undercutting the pain with sly humor and a cold recognition that one answer to this plight is acknowledge of the pain, of the stresses and struggles, the coping behavior and its results--one answer is knowledge, and recognition, that this is what so many black women go through, and it's that knowledge that Rodgers's work so often imparts, in its distinctive way. And so:

Poem for Some Black Women

i am lonely,
all the people i know
i know too well
   
there was comfort in that
at first but now
we know each others miseries
          too well.
 
we are
          lonely women, who spend time waiting for
          occasional flings
we live with fear.
we are lonely.
we are talented, dedicated, well read
          BLACK, COMMITTED,
 
we are lonely,
we understand the world problems
Black women’s problems with Black men
          but all
we really understand is
          lonely.
 
when we laugh,
we are so happy to laugh
we cry when we laugh
          we are lonely.
we are busy people
always doing things
fearing getting trapped in rooms
loud with empty…
                              yet
knowing the music of silence/hating it/hoarding it
loving it/treasuring it,
          it often birthing our creativity
                              we are lonely
 
being soft and being hard
supporting our selves, earning our own bread
soft/hard/hard/soft
knowing that need must not show
                              will frighten away
knowing that we must
walk back-wards nonchalantly on our tip-toeness
          into
happiness,
          if only for stingy moments
 
we know too much
we learn to understand everything,
to make too much sense out
of the world,
of pain
                              of lonely…
 
we buy clothes, we take trips,
we wish, we pray, we meditate, we curse, we crave, we coo,
we caw,
 
                              we need ourselves sick, we need, we need
we lonely we grow tired of tears we grow tired of fear
we grow tired but must always be soft and not too serious…
                              not too smart not too bitchy not too sapphire
                              not too dumb not too not too not too
a little less a little more
                                        add here detract there
                                                  .lonely.

Copyright © Carolyn M. Rodgers, 1992, 2010. All rights reserved.

Goodbye to Ai (1947-2010)

I learned today that the poet Ai (born Florence Anthony, in 1947), passed away on Friday. Perhaps she isn't as well known these days as many of her peers, but when I was in my 20s, she was a poet many writers I knew talked about, with excitement and awe. Her mastery of the dramatic monologue form; her vivid, searing poetic images and narrators, who included murderers, lusty spouses, people on the very brink of life, as well as famous historical figures; the visionary quality of her voice; her lyric consistency; and her control of the line all thrilled the writers and readers I knew. We would wonder to ourselves and to each other: how does she inhabit these disparate voices so? How does she balance the beauty and pain in them so well? Who is she and where did she come from? What would it be like to hear her read her work live, to talk with her, to study with her? What is she like as a person?



There was an air of mystery about her, beginning with her single name, a dipthong, an exclamation, a breath, which was Japanese and meant "love," we'd heard, and the images of her (she looked to be very beautiful black and mixed-race woman), and her productivity (she had written 3-4 flawless books), and her skill (she knew her way into and out of a lyric moment, how to sketch in a historical backdrop in just a few lines, how to create pathos in a detail or two). Though I'd not seen a single poem of hers in class, he was one of the poets whose books I bought as soon as they hit the shelves and I could afford them. It seemed poetic justice, then, when she finally received the National Book Award in 1999, for her collection Vice: New and Selected Poems, after having received an American Book Award (which once represented a special seal of approval) for her 1986 volume Sin. During my literary journal years, I had the good fortune to communicate with her directly, though I did not get to know her, nor did I keep in touch with her after those days ended.  But I still kept an eye ready for her poetry, which has lost none of its power, and which testifies to the gifts she wielded during her career. Her books also include the poetry collections Cruelty, Houghton, 1973; Killing Floor (Lamont poetry selection), Houghton, 1979; Fate, Houghton, 1991; Greed, W.W. Norton, 1993; and most recently Dread, W.W. Norton, 2003. Additionally she published the novel Black Blood (novel), W.W. Norton, 1997.

Goodbye Ai; your voices will still haunt and disquiet us for years to come.

Here is one of her very fine early ones, on none other than Leon Trotsky (i.e., Lev Davidovich Bronstein).

KILLING FLOOR

by Ai

1. RUSSIA, 1927

On the day the sienna-skinned man
held my shoulders between his spade-shaped hands,
easing me down into the azure water of Jordan,
I woke ninety-three million miles from myself,
Lev Davidovich Bronstein,
shoulder-deep in the Volga,
while the cheap dye of my black silk shirt darkened the water.

My head wet, water caught in my lashes.
Am I blind?
I rub my eyes, then wade back to shore,
undress and lie down,
until Stalin comes from his place beneath the birch tree.
He folds my clothes
and I button myself in my marmot coat,
and together we start the long walk back to Moscow.
He doesn’t ask, what did you see in the river?,
but I hear the hosts of a man drowning in water and holiness,
the castrati voices I can’t recognize,
skating on knives, from trees, from air
on the thin ice of my last night in Russia.
Leon Trotsky. Bread.
I want to scream, but silence holds my tongue
with small spade-shaped hands
and only this comes, so quietly
Stalin has to press his ear to my mouth:
I have only myself. Put me on the train.
I won’t look back.


2. MEXICO, 1940

At noon today, I woke from a nightmare:
my friend Jacques ran toward me with an ax,
as I stepped from the train in Alma-Ata.
He was dressed in yellow satin pants and shirt.
A marigold in winter.
When I held out my arms to embrace him,
he raised the ax and struck me at the neck,
my head fell to one side, hanging only by skin.
A river of sighs poured from the cut.


3. MEXICO, August 20, 1940

The machine-gun bullets
hit my wife in the legs,
then zigzagged up her body.
I took the shears, cut open her gown
and lay on top of her for hours.
Blood soaked through my clothes
and when I tried to rise, I couldn’t.

I wake then. Another nightmare.
I rise from my desk, walk to the bedroom
and sit down at my wife’s mirrored vanity.
I rouge my cheeks and lips,
stare at my bone-white, speckled egg of a face:
lined and empty.
I lean forward and see Jacques’s reflection.
I half-turn, smile, then turn back to the mirror.
He moves from the doorway,
lifts the pickax
and strikes the top of my head.
My brain splits.
The pickax keeps going
and when it hits the tile floor,
it flies from his hands,
a black dove on whose back I ride,
two men, one cursing,
the other blessing all things:
Lev Davidovich Bronstein,
I step from Jordan without you.

Ai, “Killing Floor” from Vice: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1999 by Ai. Reprinted with the permission of W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., www.nortonpoets.com.

Source: Vice: New and Selected Poems (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1999)

Remembering Vincent Woodard

At the Noctuary, Reggie H. has posted a loving tribute, "Safe Journeys," to poet Vincent Woodard, who recently passed away in Boulder, Colorado. I didn't know Vincent, who was at Cave Canem during my phantom (1997) year, but I often heard very good things about him and his work, and am sorry I never had the opportunity to meet him (I thought I had, when Evie described him, but now I realize I never did).

Here's what Reggie writes:

Vincent's critical/academic work explored issues of sexuality and gender in African American studies. But to me his real work was Spiritual. His readings and performances were more like revivals, visitations of the spirits, than what we usually think of as 'readings.' Relatively straightforward recitations would suddenly turn into incantations, sermons, divinations. His body and voice would shake as if possessed by the words, or the spirit of the words, he was the vessel for. "Moving" doesn't even come close to the experience of hearing him perform. The man could shake you to your foundations without seeming to break a sweat. Many of us remember him as someone who seemed made more of Light than of Flesh, radiating peace, wisdom, and a great deal of strength and courage.

And, yes, I think I fell a little in love with him when we first met. How could anyone resist such an Angel? I will miss his dear, beautiful soul.

If you knew Vincent, please post your thoughts on Reggie's comment section. If you didn't please visit his site to learn a little about one of the many not well known angels in our literature.