Thursday, November 19, 2009
ACTION NEEDED: CALL THE WHITE HOUSE TO SAY NO MORE TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN
Monday. Nov. 23 through Wednesday, Nov. 25
Call 888-310-8637.
Now is the time to make your voice heard!
For 3 days people from every corner of the country will be flooding the White House with calls. We oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan; we want the troops that are there now to be brought home! If you cannot get through on Monday, call on Tuesday or Wednesday. Most importantly, make your call and make your voice heard.
Use this toll free number to call the White House: 888-310-8637
(After a brief message you will be connected to the White House. These messages can only be left between 9 am and 5 pm Eastern time!)
If President Obama orders more troops to Afghanistan, United for Peace and Justice calls on all member groups to protest at Federal buildings or other public places the day of or the day after the decision is announced.
News reports suggest President Obama has rejected the current proposals for additional troops until there is an exit strategy. This could be a good sign but we cannot sit by and assume the right steps will be taken. The first step is to not send more troops. The next step must be the withdrawal of the troops currently there.
The decision the president makes will have a dramatic impact on the future of Afghanistan and the stability of the region. It will have a tremendous impact on our country as well: will billions of more dollars be spent sinking us deeper into this war or will we have the money needed for health care, education, job creation and so much more here at home?
This is the moment when we can have an impact.
Call the White House – 888-310-8637 - and tell them:
* No additional troops to be sent to Afghanistan.
* Start the withdrawal of U.S. troops and begin serious diplomacy and dialogue with all parties to the conflict without preconditions.
* Redirect the tens of billions of dollars spent yearly on Afghanistan war funding to human needs in Afghanistan and at home.
It is vitally important to also keep the pressure on Congress. While you are at your phone, won't you call to your Representative and Senators? They control the money for this war and will be asked for additional funds if more troops are sent.
Representatives in the House should be asked to commit to voting NO on more war money and also to sign on to Barbara Lee's bill - H. R. 3699 - which would deny funding for more troops in Afghanistan. The more signers on this bill, the better. It means more pressure on the White House. This strong bill has 23 co-sponsors. To see the list: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3699
As a minimum every Representative should also be co-sponsoring Rep. McGovern’s bill H.R. 2404, which calls for an exit strategy from our military occupation of Afghanistan. Check to see if your Representative is among the 100 co-sponsors at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2404
Ask your Senators to introduce legislation in opposition to sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan and that calls for an exit strategy.
To call your members of Congress call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121. If you are not sure who your Representative is, click here http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/
Please share the response to your calls by posting on the website: http://NoEscalation.org
In cites and towns around the country local groups are already planning public activities and protests on either the day the President announces an escalation, or the day after. We encourage you to organize a protest and be sure to post any activity you have planned. To find out what's planned in your area click here. A sample press release can be found by clicking here.
The White House call-in days are being jointly organized by the UFPJ, American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action, CodePink, Just Foreign Policy, Voters for Peace, Pax Christi, Common Dreams, Historians Against War and others.
Call 888-310-8637.
Now is the time to make your voice heard!
For 3 days people from every corner of the country will be flooding the White House with calls. We oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan; we want the troops that are there now to be brought home! If you cannot get through on Monday, call on Tuesday or Wednesday. Most importantly, make your call and make your voice heard.
Use this toll free number to call the White House: 888-310-8637
(After a brief message you will be connected to the White House. These messages can only be left between 9 am and 5 pm Eastern time!)
If President Obama orders more troops to Afghanistan, United for Peace and Justice calls on all member groups to protest at Federal buildings or other public places the day of or the day after the decision is announced.
News reports suggest President Obama has rejected the current proposals for additional troops until there is an exit strategy. This could be a good sign but we cannot sit by and assume the right steps will be taken. The first step is to not send more troops. The next step must be the withdrawal of the troops currently there.
The decision the president makes will have a dramatic impact on the future of Afghanistan and the stability of the region. It will have a tremendous impact on our country as well: will billions of more dollars be spent sinking us deeper into this war or will we have the money needed for health care, education, job creation and so much more here at home?
This is the moment when we can have an impact.
Call the White House – 888-310-8637 - and tell them:
* No additional troops to be sent to Afghanistan.
* Start the withdrawal of U.S. troops and begin serious diplomacy and dialogue with all parties to the conflict without preconditions.
* Redirect the tens of billions of dollars spent yearly on Afghanistan war funding to human needs in Afghanistan and at home.
It is vitally important to also keep the pressure on Congress. While you are at your phone, won't you call to your Representative and Senators? They control the money for this war and will be asked for additional funds if more troops are sent.
Representatives in the House should be asked to commit to voting NO on more war money and also to sign on to Barbara Lee's bill - H. R. 3699 - which would deny funding for more troops in Afghanistan. The more signers on this bill, the better. It means more pressure on the White House. This strong bill has 23 co-sponsors. To see the list: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3699
As a minimum every Representative should also be co-sponsoring Rep. McGovern’s bill H.R. 2404, which calls for an exit strategy from our military occupation of Afghanistan. Check to see if your Representative is among the 100 co-sponsors at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2404
Ask your Senators to introduce legislation in opposition to sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan and that calls for an exit strategy.
To call your members of Congress call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or 202-225-3121. If you are not sure who your Representative is, click here http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/
Please share the response to your calls by posting on the website: http://NoEscalation.org
In cites and towns around the country local groups are already planning public activities and protests on either the day the President announces an escalation, or the day after. We encourage you to organize a protest and be sure to post any activity you have planned. To find out what's planned in your area click here. A sample press release can be found by clicking here.
The White House call-in days are being jointly organized by the UFPJ, American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action, CodePink, Just Foreign Policy, Voters for Peace, Pax Christi, Common Dreams, Historians Against War and others.
Justice Delayed, Justice Denied - from Witness Against Torture
Witness Against Torture Responds to Obama’s Statement that Guantanamo Will Not Close by January 2010.
Join us: Fast and Vigil to Shut Down Guantanamo, End Torture and Build Justice, http://www.witnesstorture.org/2010
Wednesday, November 18. President Barack Obama conceded today that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will not close within the one year mandated by the Executive Order he signed on January 22, 2009. This is a disappointment but not a surprise.
For months, the administration has been sending signals that it over-reached in its timetable. The given reasons for the delay are likewise familiar: that the Bush administration left a legal mess, requiring painstaking work to determine the ideal means for handling the remaining detainees; that it has been hard to find countries to admit detainees who cannot be resettled in their countries of origin due to fears of ill-treatment; and that unanticipated domestic resistance to Guantanamo’s closure, much of it fueled by fear-mongering and partisan politics, has slowed the process. These impediments, while real wrenches in the grinding wheels of policy, cannot excuse the moral and constitutional disaster that Guantanamo's continuing operation represents.
Since coming to office, the Obama administration has presented Guantanamo as an administrative problem, a cause of embarrassment, and a foreign policy liability. It has never faced Guantanamo for what it truly is: a grave injustice which the United States is duty bound, by the best of its traditions and basic standards of fairness and decency, to immediately set right.
"Justice Delayed is Justice Denied" — the great maxim of the Civil Rights Movement that made Barack Obama's political ascent possible — has been forgotten. Martin Luther King Jr.'s talk of "The Fierce Urgency of Now," repeatedly invoked by President Obama to push ahead with domestic reforms, has been replaced, for the Guantanamo detainees and anyone who cares about the rule of law, with "the fickle hope of eventually" and "the self-serving pledge of maybe."
All the while, the Obama administration proclaims its intent to put U.S. policies and practices in accordance with our laws and values.
Yet the United States continues to detain dozens of men at Guantanamo who have been cleared for release. In the case of the remaining Uighurs, the administration has advanced the Orwellian conclusion that they are no longer prisoners — they just have nowhere to go, and must therefore remain on the dusty gulag.
Echoing the policies of Bush, Obama proposes the indefinite detention, without charge or trial, of detainees against whom no case has been built or from whom "evidence" was obtained through torture. The Obama Justice Department repeatedly invokes the "state secrets" defense to beat back legal efforts of those kidnapped and tortured to receive acknowledgment of their injury and compensation for it. And it has steadfastly refused to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute those who designed and ordered torture policies, choosing instead a limited inquiry into the most egregious cases of "unauthorized" detainee abuse.
Finally, it has allowed obsessive attention with the truly dangerous men in U.S. detention — such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other Al Qaeda leaders — to obscure the fact the great majority of detainees held at Guantanamo have been falsely imprisoned.
How is it tolerable within the framework of American laws and values to hold for even one day longer men who, innocent of any crime, have been stolen from their families, tortured, and dehumanized?
How is it tolerable to knowingly imprison innocent men while failing to indict officials who — a preponderance of public evidence suggests — are guilty of heinous political crimes and violations of human rights? How can the rule of law be restored when U.S. laws are not even enforced?
And how can the wreckage of the past be cleared when the key monument of that wreckage, the detention facility at Guantanamo, remains intact.
The Obama administration will continue to face enormous hostility — much of it paranoid, opportunistic, and vicious — to even its inadequate efforts to undo the worst of the Bush era policies. Those efforts must be supported, for the real good they will bring and to beat back domestic forces ready to plunge the United States into a new nightmare of lawlessness and wanton cruelty in the name of "national security."
But the administration must also be held to its words and promises.
Its failures cannot be masked with rationalizations and false deference to the constraints of partisan bickering and legal complexities. The inability to fulfill the mandate of the Executive Order to close Guantanamo within a year is just such a failure, making still more urgent the demand for true justice.
##
Witness Against Torture is a grassroots organization committed to closing Guantanamo, Bagram and ending torture. The group will hold a fast and vigil in Washington, DC from January 11, 2010—the date marking eight years since Guantanamo’s beginning as a "war on terror"
prison through January 22, 2010, the date by which the Obama administration committed to closing the facility. To learn more about the fast and vigil to Shut Down Guantanamo, End Torture and Build Justice visit http://www.witnesstorture.org/2010
--
Frida Berrigan
frida.berrigan@gmail.com
Join us: Fast and Vigil to Shut Down Guantanamo, End Torture and Build Justice, http://www.witnesstorture.org/2010
Wednesday, November 18. President Barack Obama conceded today that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will not close within the one year mandated by the Executive Order he signed on January 22, 2009. This is a disappointment but not a surprise.
For months, the administration has been sending signals that it over-reached in its timetable. The given reasons for the delay are likewise familiar: that the Bush administration left a legal mess, requiring painstaking work to determine the ideal means for handling the remaining detainees; that it has been hard to find countries to admit detainees who cannot be resettled in their countries of origin due to fears of ill-treatment; and that unanticipated domestic resistance to Guantanamo’s closure, much of it fueled by fear-mongering and partisan politics, has slowed the process. These impediments, while real wrenches in the grinding wheels of policy, cannot excuse the moral and constitutional disaster that Guantanamo's continuing operation represents.
Since coming to office, the Obama administration has presented Guantanamo as an administrative problem, a cause of embarrassment, and a foreign policy liability. It has never faced Guantanamo for what it truly is: a grave injustice which the United States is duty bound, by the best of its traditions and basic standards of fairness and decency, to immediately set right.
"Justice Delayed is Justice Denied" — the great maxim of the Civil Rights Movement that made Barack Obama's political ascent possible — has been forgotten. Martin Luther King Jr.'s talk of "The Fierce Urgency of Now," repeatedly invoked by President Obama to push ahead with domestic reforms, has been replaced, for the Guantanamo detainees and anyone who cares about the rule of law, with "the fickle hope of eventually" and "the self-serving pledge of maybe."
All the while, the Obama administration proclaims its intent to put U.S. policies and practices in accordance with our laws and values.
Yet the United States continues to detain dozens of men at Guantanamo who have been cleared for release. In the case of the remaining Uighurs, the administration has advanced the Orwellian conclusion that they are no longer prisoners — they just have nowhere to go, and must therefore remain on the dusty gulag.
Echoing the policies of Bush, Obama proposes the indefinite detention, without charge or trial, of detainees against whom no case has been built or from whom "evidence" was obtained through torture. The Obama Justice Department repeatedly invokes the "state secrets" defense to beat back legal efforts of those kidnapped and tortured to receive acknowledgment of their injury and compensation for it. And it has steadfastly refused to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute those who designed and ordered torture policies, choosing instead a limited inquiry into the most egregious cases of "unauthorized" detainee abuse.
Finally, it has allowed obsessive attention with the truly dangerous men in U.S. detention — such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other Al Qaeda leaders — to obscure the fact the great majority of detainees held at Guantanamo have been falsely imprisoned.
How is it tolerable within the framework of American laws and values to hold for even one day longer men who, innocent of any crime, have been stolen from their families, tortured, and dehumanized?
How is it tolerable to knowingly imprison innocent men while failing to indict officials who — a preponderance of public evidence suggests — are guilty of heinous political crimes and violations of human rights? How can the rule of law be restored when U.S. laws are not even enforced?
And how can the wreckage of the past be cleared when the key monument of that wreckage, the detention facility at Guantanamo, remains intact.
The Obama administration will continue to face enormous hostility — much of it paranoid, opportunistic, and vicious — to even its inadequate efforts to undo the worst of the Bush era policies. Those efforts must be supported, for the real good they will bring and to beat back domestic forces ready to plunge the United States into a new nightmare of lawlessness and wanton cruelty in the name of "national security."
But the administration must also be held to its words and promises.
Its failures cannot be masked with rationalizations and false deference to the constraints of partisan bickering and legal complexities. The inability to fulfill the mandate of the Executive Order to close Guantanamo within a year is just such a failure, making still more urgent the demand for true justice.
##
Witness Against Torture is a grassroots organization committed to closing Guantanamo, Bagram and ending torture. The group will hold a fast and vigil in Washington, DC from January 11, 2010—the date marking eight years since Guantanamo’s beginning as a "war on terror"
prison through January 22, 2010, the date by which the Obama administration committed to closing the facility. To learn more about the fast and vigil to Shut Down Guantanamo, End Torture and Build Justice visit http://www.witnesstorture.org/2010
--
Frida Berrigan
frida.berrigan@gmail.com
Friday, November 13, 2009
Kundiman announces Poetry Prize
The Kundiman Poetry Prize for Asian American writers
Kundiman, Inc. is pleased to announce the inauguration of the Kundiman Poetry Prize in partnership with Alice James Books.
The prize is open to emerging and established Asian American poets. The award of $2,000, publication of the winning manuscript, and sponsorship of a reading make this a highly desirable prize.
Submissions are accepted from November 15, 2009 to January 15, 2010. Guidelines for submission are available to http://www.kundiman.org/%5BCLB%5D_Brightside/1.Source/prize.html
Alice James Books is a cooperative poetry press with a mission is to seek out and publish the best contemporary poetry by both established and beginning poets, with particular emphasis on involving poets in the publishing process. For more on Alice James Books, go to http://www.alicejamesbooks.org/.
Kundiman was founded in 2002 to provide opportunities for Asian American poets to perfect their skills through education and performance and to promote Asian American literature as a vital part of American letters. Its programs include a summer poetry retreat, held annually since 2004 and a reading series in New York City.
Kundiman’s partnership with Alice James Books for The Kundiman Poetry Prize is made possible through the support of Fordham University. For more information on Kundiman, go to http://www.kundiman.org.
Kundiman, Inc. is pleased to announce the inauguration of the Kundiman Poetry Prize in partnership with Alice James Books.
The prize is open to emerging and established Asian American poets. The award of $2,000, publication of the winning manuscript, and sponsorship of a reading make this a highly desirable prize.
Submissions are accepted from November 15, 2009 to January 15, 2010. Guidelines for submission are available to http://www.kundiman.org/%5BCLB%5D_Brightside/1.Source/prize.html
Alice James Books is a cooperative poetry press with a mission is to seek out and publish the best contemporary poetry by both established and beginning poets, with particular emphasis on involving poets in the publishing process. For more on Alice James Books, go to http://www.alicejamesbooks.org/.
Kundiman was founded in 2002 to provide opportunities for Asian American poets to perfect their skills through education and performance and to promote Asian American literature as a vital part of American letters. Its programs include a summer poetry retreat, held annually since 2004 and a reading series in New York City.
Kundiman’s partnership with Alice James Books for The Kundiman Poetry Prize is made possible through the support of Fordham University. For more information on Kundiman, go to http://www.kundiman.org.
One of my great heroes, Jim Hightower, gets fab recognition
Recipient of the 2009 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship Announced
November 11, 2009 (New York, NY): The Nation Institute announced today that national radio commentator and bestselling author Jim Hightower is the 2009 recipient of the $100,000 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Hightower will receive the award on December 7 at The Nation Institute Annual Dinner Gala in New York City.
An advocate for everyday people whose voices are seldom heard in Washington and on Wall Street, Hightower believes that ³politics isn¹t about left versus right; it¹s about top versus bottom.² He broadcasts daily radio commentaries on subjects ranging from public healthcare to Hamid Karzai. They air on more than 150 commercial and public stations across the country.
Each month, Hightower publishes a populist political newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown, exposing hypocrisy in Congress and targeting the abuses of big corporations. With more than 135,000 subscribers, the hard-hitting Lowdown has received both the Alternative Press Award and the Independent Press Association Award for best national newsletter. An inspiring orator, Hightower delivers up to 100 fiery speeches a year, which has justly established him as America¹s most popular populist.² Twice elected as Texas Agriculture Commissioner, his term was praised for nurturing organic production, promoting alternative crops, regulating pesticides and monitoring groundwater, among other programs.
A New York Times best-selling author, Hightower has written seven books, including Thieves in High Places; If The Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates; and There¹s Nothing In The Middle Of The Road But Yellow Stripes And Dead Armadillos. His most recent book, co-authored with longtime partner Susan DeMarco, is Swim Against The Current. Jesse Jackson, Jr. has said of him, ³Jim Hightower is a tireless champion for every American, and he has the right prescription for what ails our nation.²
Perry Rosenstein, President of the Puffin Foundation, Ltd., the co-sponsor of the Creative Citizenship award, said, ³Jim Hightower is a front line defender of our civil liberties. Swimming against the current is a challenge he welcomes at all times.² Hamilton Fish, President of The Nation Institute, the co-sponsor of the prize, said, ³Hightower is the standard bearer of progressive populism. With passion, keen intelligence and unsparing wit, he has been an indispensable leader in the struggle against concentrated power.²
You can find more information about Hightower on his website, http://www.jimhightower.com/.
Each year, The Puffin Foundation Ltd. and The Nation Institute recognize an individual who has challenged the status quo through distinctive, courageous, imaginative and socially responsible work of significance. Candidates are found in a broad range of occupations and pursuits, and the
award is intended to encourage the recipients to continue their work and to inspire others to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies they face in their careers. Jim Hightower is the ninth winner of the prestigious award. Previous recipients are environmental activist Van Jones, human rights lawyer Michael Ratner, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, educator and author Jonathan Kozol, journalist and author Barbara Ehrenreich, professor and anti-death penalty advocate David Protess, labor activist Dolores Huerta and civil rights pioneer Robert Parris Moses.
For more information on the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, go to www.nationinstitute.org/puffinnation/
November 11, 2009 (New York, NY): The Nation Institute announced today that national radio commentator and bestselling author Jim Hightower is the 2009 recipient of the $100,000 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Hightower will receive the award on December 7 at The Nation Institute Annual Dinner Gala in New York City.
An advocate for everyday people whose voices are seldom heard in Washington and on Wall Street, Hightower believes that ³politics isn¹t about left versus right; it¹s about top versus bottom.² He broadcasts daily radio commentaries on subjects ranging from public healthcare to Hamid Karzai. They air on more than 150 commercial and public stations across the country.
Each month, Hightower publishes a populist political newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown, exposing hypocrisy in Congress and targeting the abuses of big corporations. With more than 135,000 subscribers, the hard-hitting Lowdown has received both the Alternative Press Award and the Independent Press Association Award for best national newsletter. An inspiring orator, Hightower delivers up to 100 fiery speeches a year, which has justly established him as America¹s most popular populist.² Twice elected as Texas Agriculture Commissioner, his term was praised for nurturing organic production, promoting alternative crops, regulating pesticides and monitoring groundwater, among other programs.
A New York Times best-selling author, Hightower has written seven books, including Thieves in High Places; If The Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates; and There¹s Nothing In The Middle Of The Road But Yellow Stripes And Dead Armadillos. His most recent book, co-authored with longtime partner Susan DeMarco, is Swim Against The Current. Jesse Jackson, Jr. has said of him, ³Jim Hightower is a tireless champion for every American, and he has the right prescription for what ails our nation.²
Perry Rosenstein, President of the Puffin Foundation, Ltd., the co-sponsor of the Creative Citizenship award, said, ³Jim Hightower is a front line defender of our civil liberties. Swimming against the current is a challenge he welcomes at all times.² Hamilton Fish, President of The Nation Institute, the co-sponsor of the prize, said, ³Hightower is the standard bearer of progressive populism. With passion, keen intelligence and unsparing wit, he has been an indispensable leader in the struggle against concentrated power.²
You can find more information about Hightower on his website, http://www.jimhightower.com/.
Each year, The Puffin Foundation Ltd. and The Nation Institute recognize an individual who has challenged the status quo through distinctive, courageous, imaginative and socially responsible work of significance. Candidates are found in a broad range of occupations and pursuits, and the
award is intended to encourage the recipients to continue their work and to inspire others to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies they face in their careers. Jim Hightower is the ninth winner of the prestigious award. Previous recipients are environmental activist Van Jones, human rights lawyer Michael Ratner, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, educator and author Jonathan Kozol, journalist and author Barbara Ehrenreich, professor and anti-death penalty advocate David Protess, labor activist Dolores Huerta and civil rights pioneer Robert Parris Moses.
For more information on the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, go to www.nationinstitute.org/puffinnation/
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Poetry Vanishes from the Print Post - My Letter Ran!
Poets had gotten used to not being considered part of the "Arts" by The Post, e.g., the Sept. 13 Fall Arts Preview: Art -- Film -- Music -- Theater -- Dance. After all, we had the Literary Calendar on a Book World page and the marvelous Poet's Choice column: an actual poem in each Sunday's paper that acted as a small window into another way of seeing, amid the journalistic and opinion pieces. Now the stand-alone Book World is gone, and in its place are a few reviews in the Outlook section and a sadly foreshortened Literary Calendar. Poet's Choice is only on the Web, with a bare reference on Page B8.
Read the letter, which they ran in full, here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091703143.html
Then consider writing your own letter to letters@washpost.com or post comments on this letter. Thanks!
Read the letter, which they ran in full, here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091703143.html
Then consider writing your own letter to letters@washpost.com or post comments on this letter. Thanks!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Exciting news of the week - John Murillo's Up Jump the Boogie Forthcoming
UP JUMP THE BOOGIE
by John Murillo
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 9/15/09
Cypher Books
info@cypherbooks.org / www.cypherbooks.org
310 Bowery
New York, NY 10012
Cypher Books will release Up Jump the Boogie by John Murillo, with a foreword by Martín Espada, on February 23, 2010 ($12.95, Paperback, 112 pages). Publication date: April 6, 2010.
Up Jump the Boogie is a series of lyrical dispatches from worlds hidden or denied. Murillo has survived every difficult scene in this book, transmuted each torn scrap of life into song with his skilled and compassionate alchemy. Meanings are woven from poem to poem as Murillo creates memories in his reader and then deftly evokes them, teaching her to feel what he has felt.
And his ambitions are no less than epic. He tells on one page of tragedy spanning continents and eras, and on the next plumbs the depths of personal loss, locking it all inextricably together in the 12-canto "Flowers for Etheridge," an ode to his poetic ur-father whose chant he carries on: "We free singers be." Murillo is a man who's been saved by poetry, and this is his book of rescue.
ADVANCE PRAISE
"Up jumps the boogie. That's almost all one needs to say. Murillo is headbreakingly brilliant. I didn't have a favorite poet for this year: Now I do. But with this kind of verve and intelligence and ferocity Murillo just might be a favorite for many years to come." – Junot Díaz
"The feel of now lives in John Murillo's Up Jump the Boogie, but it's tempered by bows to the tradition of soulful music and oral poetry. The lived dimensions embodied in this collection say that here's an earned street knowledge and a measured intellectual inquiry that dare to live side by side, in one unique voice. The pages of Up Jump the Boogie breathe and sing; the tributes and cultural nods are heartfelt, and in these honest poems no one gets off the hook." – Yusef Komunyakaa
John Murillo is the current Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. A graduate of New York University's MFA program in creative writing, he has also received fellowships from the New York Times, Cave Canem, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachussetts. He is a two-time Larry Neal Writers' Award winner and the inaugural Elma P. Stuckey Visiting Emerging Poet-in-Residence at Columbia College Chicago. His poetry has appeared in such publications as Callaloo, Court Green, Ploughshares, Ninth Letter, and the anthology Writing Self and Community: African-American Poetry After the Civil Rights Movement. Up Jump the Boogie is his first collection.
TITLE: UP JUMP THE BOOGIE
AUTHOR: John Murillo
PUBLICATION DATE: April 6, 2010
PRICE: $12.95, Paperback
PAGES: 112
ISBN: 978-0-9819131-4-8
DISTRIBUTOR: Small Press Distribution • 800-869-7553 • www.spdbooks.org
by John Murillo
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 9/15/09
Cypher Books
info@cypherbooks.org / www.cypherbooks.org
310 Bowery
New York, NY 10012
Cypher Books will release Up Jump the Boogie by John Murillo, with a foreword by Martín Espada, on February 23, 2010 ($12.95, Paperback, 112 pages). Publication date: April 6, 2010.
Up Jump the Boogie is a series of lyrical dispatches from worlds hidden or denied. Murillo has survived every difficult scene in this book, transmuted each torn scrap of life into song with his skilled and compassionate alchemy. Meanings are woven from poem to poem as Murillo creates memories in his reader and then deftly evokes them, teaching her to feel what he has felt.
And his ambitions are no less than epic. He tells on one page of tragedy spanning continents and eras, and on the next plumbs the depths of personal loss, locking it all inextricably together in the 12-canto "Flowers for Etheridge," an ode to his poetic ur-father whose chant he carries on: "We free singers be." Murillo is a man who's been saved by poetry, and this is his book of rescue.
ADVANCE PRAISE
"Up jumps the boogie. That's almost all one needs to say. Murillo is headbreakingly brilliant. I didn't have a favorite poet for this year: Now I do. But with this kind of verve and intelligence and ferocity Murillo just might be a favorite for many years to come." – Junot Díaz
"The feel of now lives in John Murillo's Up Jump the Boogie, but it's tempered by bows to the tradition of soulful music and oral poetry. The lived dimensions embodied in this collection say that here's an earned street knowledge and a measured intellectual inquiry that dare to live side by side, in one unique voice. The pages of Up Jump the Boogie breathe and sing; the tributes and cultural nods are heartfelt, and in these honest poems no one gets off the hook." – Yusef Komunyakaa
John Murillo is the current Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. A graduate of New York University's MFA program in creative writing, he has also received fellowships from the New York Times, Cave Canem, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachussetts. He is a two-time Larry Neal Writers' Award winner and the inaugural Elma P. Stuckey Visiting Emerging Poet-in-Residence at Columbia College Chicago. His poetry has appeared in such publications as Callaloo, Court Green, Ploughshares, Ninth Letter, and the anthology Writing Self and Community: African-American Poetry After the Civil Rights Movement. Up Jump the Boogie is his first collection.
TITLE: UP JUMP THE BOOGIE
AUTHOR: John Murillo
PUBLICATION DATE: April 6, 2010
PRICE: $12.95, Paperback
PAGES: 112
ISBN: 978-0-9819131-4-8
DISTRIBUTOR: Small Press Distribution • 800-869-7553 • www.spdbooks.org
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Disappearing Acts: Poetry and the Washington Post
I've been home from Italy a total of six Sundays. With the loss of The Washington Post's Book World while I was gone, we are now to content ourselves with the back pages of the Outlook section on Sunday mornings, including a ridiculously foreshortened Literary Calendar. It was rare that the old Book World would review poetry in its pages, but at least our events would be listed in the Calendar.
Apparently that is no longer the case. Each of the six Sundays I have been home I have scanned the Calendar in vain for a single listing of a poetry reading. It is as if DC's entire vibrant poetry scene had disappeared. I was particularly sensitive to the question this morning, as next week's Sunday Kind of Love, September 20, will be a special one: readings from the new anthology Mourning Katrina: A Poetic Response to Tragedy, edited by Joanne Gabbin, the director of the Furious Flower Center for African American Poetry. I sent the listing to the Post weeks ago. But no, again, week 6, no poetry event listed.
I checked the Poetry News at Beltway Poetry Quarterly for comparison and found eight poetry events for the coming week, eight listed for last week.
If you dig around on the Post's website, you'll find a longer version of the Calendar, here. I counted six events listed there that include poetry. But how much traffic does the online calendar get, do we suppose? The link listed in the print version wasn't even correct. (Washingtonpost.com/Bookworld, listed in the paper, doesn't exist. The correct link is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artsandliving/books/, then you scroll down and click "Washington Literary Calendar" in tiny type half-way down the page.
Nor do poetry readings seem to rank with their cousin art forms as "going out" destinations, as I've never seen one listed in the Going Out Guide, the Style section listing that seems to have replaced the late, lamented Style On the Go. I've filled out their form with Sunday Kind of Love listings and haven't even made it to the online calendar, let alone the print version. I even wrote a letter of inquiry, but didn't hear back.
What's up? I know it's a favorite pastime of organizers and event planners to complain of inadequate coverage in the Washington Post (I can imagine the howls of protest from yesterday's teabaggers over the Post calling their numbers in the tens of thousands, when the organizers had been predicting a turn-out of 400,000...)
But on behalf of the whole poetry community, I protest our complete effacement from the Post. I think it's time for an old-fashioned letter-writing campaign. Will you join me? Letters to the editor guidelines are here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Or you can post a comment to the Literary Calendar: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artsandliving/books/. But you'll have to create an account and log in first. I'll write a letter myself and post it here soon. Also coming up: Why Poet's Choice should return to the print version of our city's paper of record.
Apparently that is no longer the case. Each of the six Sundays I have been home I have scanned the Calendar in vain for a single listing of a poetry reading. It is as if DC's entire vibrant poetry scene had disappeared. I was particularly sensitive to the question this morning, as next week's Sunday Kind of Love, September 20, will be a special one: readings from the new anthology Mourning Katrina: A Poetic Response to Tragedy, edited by Joanne Gabbin, the director of the Furious Flower Center for African American Poetry. I sent the listing to the Post weeks ago. But no, again, week 6, no poetry event listed.
I checked the Poetry News at Beltway Poetry Quarterly for comparison and found eight poetry events for the coming week, eight listed for last week.
If you dig around on the Post's website, you'll find a longer version of the Calendar, here. I counted six events listed there that include poetry. But how much traffic does the online calendar get, do we suppose? The link listed in the print version wasn't even correct. (Washingtonpost.com/Bookworld, listed in the paper, doesn't exist. The correct link is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artsandliving/books/, then you scroll down and click "Washington Literary Calendar" in tiny type half-way down the page.
Nor do poetry readings seem to rank with their cousin art forms as "going out" destinations, as I've never seen one listed in the Going Out Guide, the Style section listing that seems to have replaced the late, lamented Style On the Go. I've filled out their form with Sunday Kind of Love listings and haven't even made it to the online calendar, let alone the print version. I even wrote a letter of inquiry, but didn't hear back.
What's up? I know it's a favorite pastime of organizers and event planners to complain of inadequate coverage in the Washington Post (I can imagine the howls of protest from yesterday's teabaggers over the Post calling their numbers in the tens of thousands, when the organizers had been predicting a turn-out of 400,000...)
But on behalf of the whole poetry community, I protest our complete effacement from the Post. I think it's time for an old-fashioned letter-writing campaign. Will you join me? Letters to the editor guidelines are here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Or you can post a comment to the Literary Calendar: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artsandliving/books/. But you'll have to create an account and log in first. I'll write a letter myself and post it here soon. Also coming up: Why Poet's Choice should return to the print version of our city's paper of record.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Split This Rock on YouTube
With support from the Humanities Council of Washington, we've posted 15 clips of Split This Rock's inaugural poetry festival on YouTube. Watch readings by Naomi Ayala, Kenny Carroll, Mark Doty, Carolyn Forche, and Galway Kinnell, as well as a short piece on the culminating event of the festival, the march to Lafayette Park where 132 poets and activists each contributed one line to a Cento poem, a gorgeous patchwork of voices calling for social justice and peace.
Watch Split This Rock on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/splitthisrock#
Watch Split This Rock on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/splitthisrock#
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
The Poetics of Labor Reading Series @ The Smithsonian
From the marvelous Francisco Aragón, Director of Letras Latinas and Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2010 featured poet:
PLEASE CIRCULATE, FORWARD, POST, DISSEMINATE:
THE POETICS OF LABOR READING SERIES
@The Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.
To mark Hispanic Heritage Month, the Smithsonian’s National Museum Of American History presents two Latino poets who will performing selections from their works. These special readings are on the occasion of the Museum’s special exhibit
“Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program 1942 – 1964”
which will be on display this fall until early 2010
The poets are DIANA GARCÍA, who is from California’s San Joaquin Valley and author of the collection, When Living Was a Labor Camp (University of Arizona Press), and QUIQUE AVILÉS, a native of El Salvador who graduated from D.C.'s Duke Ellington School of the Arts and has been writing and performing in the U.S. for over 20 years
There will be four opportunities to hear these poets read from their work:
Saturday, September 26: 11 AM and 2 PM
Sunday, September 27: 12 noon and 3 PM
The readings will take place in the exhibition space, 2nd floor, West
For my information about “Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program,” please visit:
https://owa.nd.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=e82ac1503c454628bc9df76e7c4d7cf0&URL=http%3a%2f%2famericanhistory.si.edu%2fexhibitions%2fexhibition.cfm%3fkey%3d38%26exkey%3d1357
The museum is on the National Mall, 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
“The Poetics of Labor” reading series is a collaboration with Letras Latinas, the literary program of Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
PLEASE CIRCULATE, FORWARD, POST, DISSEMINATE:
THE POETICS OF LABOR READING SERIES
@The Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.
To mark Hispanic Heritage Month, the Smithsonian’s National Museum Of American History presents two Latino poets who will performing selections from their works. These special readings are on the occasion of the Museum’s special exhibit
“Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program 1942 – 1964”
which will be on display this fall until early 2010
The poets are DIANA GARCÍA, who is from California’s San Joaquin Valley and author of the collection, When Living Was a Labor Camp (University of Arizona Press), and QUIQUE AVILÉS, a native of El Salvador who graduated from D.C.'s Duke Ellington School of the Arts and has been writing and performing in the U.S. for over 20 years
There will be four opportunities to hear these poets read from their work:
Saturday, September 26: 11 AM and 2 PM
Sunday, September 27: 12 noon and 3 PM
The readings will take place in the exhibition space, 2nd floor, West
For my information about “Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program,” please visit:
https://owa.nd.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=e82ac1503c454628bc9df76e7c4d7cf0&URL=http%3a%2f%2famericanhistory.si.edu%2fexhibitions%2fexhibition.cfm%3fkey%3d38%26exkey%3d1357
The museum is on the National Mall, 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
“The Poetics of Labor” reading series is a collaboration with Letras Latinas, the literary program of Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Who Gets to Write Political Poems - A Riff Off Eileen Myles on Harriet
I woke up this morning intending to weigh in on the Poetry Foundation blog, Harriet, about Eileen Myles' response to Sean Patrick Hill's review in Rain Taxi (not available online) of State of the Union, the anthology of political poems published by Wave Books. I haven't seen the anthology yet, or read Hill's review, and I certainly don't have time to read the hundreds of comments generated by Myles' opinion piece. Still, I have a lot to say about political poetry and Myles makes good points in her critique of Hill, who apparently voices the tired position that in order to have the standing to write a political poem one has to have directly experienced war or some other form of violence and persecution.But every time I try to go to the site today my browser seizes up - I can't scroll, I can't do anything. And the Wave Books page on the anthology seems to be down so I'm having trouble finding out who's included in the collection. Telling? Hmmm - technological helplessness... as metaphor for women's relative powerlessness in cyberspace? Should I write a political poem?
Of course I'm being glib, but let's examine at Hill's basic premise (assuming Myles got it right): that only certain people -- veterans of conventionally understood war zones -- have the standing, the right, to write poems about the broader world. Only in America have I heard this position asserted. In Italy I had to explain at length why we needed Poets Against the War or Split This Rock. Italians couldn't imagine poets who write socially engaged works feeling isolated from the poetry mainstream.
We are all citizens of this fast-dying planet; we are responsible for its death. As Americans we consume the cheap products of poorly paid and otherwise exploited workers in our own country and around the world. We were governed for 8 years by a murderous, lying political regime. Even today, the Obama administration continues to wage wars in our name, to turn a blind eye to Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinians, to impose US military bases all over the world, to support economic policies here at home that keep the poor and working classes powerless. Our systems of education, criminal justice, and health care are grossly inequitable.
Myles makes the critical point that if we are female or queer or a person of color, everyday life is a war zone in the United States: rape, hate crimes, violence in our neighborhoods and homes.
But even if we are "comfortably middle class," as Hill apparently accuses the poets in State of Union of being, it seems to me that we’re not given a pass. Indeed, we have an extra responsibility to speak out, to expose the inequities, to make clear the ways in which we benefit every day from, as in my case, white skin, education, heterosexual marriage.
I also deeply resent the notion that we should take some part of our lives (our relationship to the wider world) and rope it off, not write about it. Please don’t tell me what I can’t write about. I assert: Any topic is worthy of poetry. John Updike wrote a poem to a particular turd he “struck off” one afternoon. Childish? Perhaps. But no one told Updike what topics he should consider worthy of poetry.
I have read hundreds – perhaps thousands – of “political” poems while editing Poets Against the War anthologies, curating the Sunday Kind of Love reading series at Busboys and Poets in DC, and organizing now two Split This Rock Poetry Festivals. The fact of the matter is that there are as many ways to write a political poem as there are poets. More, in fact, since many poets write lots of different kinds of such poems. Poets are writing challenging, funny, grieving, confounding, angry, hopeful poems about our benighted and beautiful world. American poets are doing this and doing it in all kinds of interesting ways, far more poets than we can hope to feature in a decade of biannual festivals. I salute you all.
Rather than tread the tired territory of whether one should write political poems, and who deserves to do the writing, again and again, let’s read this work, spread the good word, celebrate these poems and poets. We could begin – and I will – with the poets who will read at Split This Rock next year, March 10-13, 2010. Check out this list: Chris Abani, Lillian Allen, Sinan Antoon, Francisco Aragón, Jan Beatty, Martha Collins, Cornelius Eady, Martín Espada, Allison Hedge Coke, Andrea Gibson, Natalie Illum, Fady Joudah, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Richard McCann, Jeffrey McDaniel, Lenelle Moïse, Nancy Morejón, Mark Nowak, Wang Ping, Patricia Smith, A.B. Spellman, Arthur Sze, Quincy Troupe, and Bruce Weigl.
All of these poets are in the world, are poet-citizens, in a variety of ways. Lillian Allen is an originator of dub poetry and a leader on diversity and culture in Canada. Fady Joudah was a field doctor with Doctors Without Borders. Cornelius Eady is a founder of Cave Canem, the organization for African American poets. Jan Beatty has worked as a welfare caseworker and an abortion counselor. Mark Nowak facilitates “poetry dialogues” with Ford autoworkers in the US and South Africa.
And their poetry reflects this diversity of experience and background: Jan Beatty’s plainspoken explorations of gender and working class life; Mark Nowak’s documentary poetics, weaving news accounts and corporate instructional guides into the poems; poem-songs of Lenelle Moïse; the often short sharp lyrics of Cornelius Eady; A.B. Spellman’s jazz-inflected sounds.
Political poetry – even the term is tainted, in America; at Split This Rock we often call it socially engaged poetry or social justice poetry –contains multitudes. To further adapt Walt Whitman, the godfather of these poets, social justice poetry is not a bit tamed, it too is untranslatable, it sounds its barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Edward Kennedy, 1932-2009
A quiet poem for such a public man, but reading "Mountain Dulcimer" on the Poetry Foundation web site this morning, I was moved by the poem's ability to embody both mourning and celebration at once, what I feel at the death of Ted Kennedy, the extraordinary senator from Massachusetts. And so I offer it below, with gratitude for Ted's lifelong commitment to justice.
Mountain Dulcimer
by Robert Morgan
Where does such sadness in wood come
from? How could longing live in these
wires? The box looks like the most fragile
coffin tuned for sound. And laid
across the knees of this woman
it looks less like a baby nursed
than some symbolic Pietà,
and the stretched body on her lap
yields modalities of lament
and blood, yields sacrifice and sliding
chants of grief that dance and dance toward
a new measure, a new threshold,
a new instant and new year which
we always celebrate by
remembering the old and by
recalling the lost and honoring
those no longer here to strike these
strings like secrets of the most
satisfying harmonies, as
voices join in sadness and joy
and tell again what we already
know, have always known but forget,
from way back in the farthest cove,
from highest on the peaks of love.
Mountain Dulcimer
by Robert Morgan
Where does such sadness in wood come
from? How could longing live in these
wires? The box looks like the most fragile
coffin tuned for sound. And laid
across the knees of this woman
it looks less like a baby nursed
than some symbolic Pietà,
and the stretched body on her lap
yields modalities of lament
and blood, yields sacrifice and sliding
chants of grief that dance and dance toward
a new measure, a new threshold,
a new instant and new year which
we always celebrate by
remembering the old and by
recalling the lost and honoring
those no longer here to strike these
strings like secrets of the most
satisfying harmonies, as
voices join in sadness and joy
and tell again what we already
know, have always known but forget,
from way back in the farthest cove,
from highest on the peaks of love.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Summer Reading, Part 2: Ambroggio and Dixon
Two very different poets in the mix of men of color I happen to be reading this summer. But each political in his particular way.
Melvin Dixon died of AIDS-related illness in 1992, the height of the epidemic. He gave the keynote address at the OutWrite Conference that year, and this is how he finished up:
As for me... I may not be well enough or alive next year to attend the lesbian and gay writers conference, but I'll be somewhere listening for my name.
I may not be around to celebrate with you the publication of gay literary history. But I'll be somewhere listening for my name.
...
You, then, are charged by the possibility of your good health, by the broadness of your vision, to remember me.
Included in the posthumous collection of poems, Love's Instruments (Tia Chucha Press, 1995).
Melvin Dixon died of AIDS-related illness in 1992, the height of the epidemic. He gave the keynote address at the OutWrite Conference that year, and this is how he finished up:
As for me... I may not be well enough or alive next year to attend the lesbian and gay writers conference, but I'll be somewhere listening for my name.
I may not be around to celebrate with you the publication of gay literary history. But I'll be somewhere listening for my name.
...
You, then, are charged by the possibility of your good health, by the broadness of your vision, to remember me.
Included in the posthumous collection of poems, Love's Instruments (Tia Chucha Press, 1995).
Here's a poem from the book:
Keeping Time
This night so gently
we circle the clock of streets.
I hear your feet before we meet,
I’ve come empty like this before.
My mouth parched on “hello”
fracturing me inside, my eyes
blurring like seaglass
at other faces you’ve shown.
So come with me again.
What we call ourselves they have
no names for, nor the peeled
fruit offered between us.
And with lips round in even
cadence, we shall recall
this night so gently.
- Melvin Dixon, from Love’s Instruments
This night so gently
we circle the clock of streets.
I hear your feet before we meet,
I’ve come empty like this before.
My mouth parched on “hello”
fracturing me inside, my eyes
blurring like seaglass
at other faces you’ve shown.
So come with me again.
What we call ourselves they have
no names for, nor the peeled
fruit offered between us.
And with lips round in even
cadence, we shall recall
this night so gently.
- Melvin Dixon, from Love’s Instruments
**
And one in Luis Alberto Ambroggio's new Collected, edited by Yvette Neisser Moreno:
U.S. Landscapes
If each brick could speak;
if each bridge could speak;
if the parks, plants, flowers could speak;
if each piece of pavement could speak,
they would speak Spanish.
If the towers, roofs,
air conditioners could speak;
if the churches, airports, factories could speak,
they would speak Spanish.
If the toils could bloom with a name,
they would be called González, Garcia, Rodriguez or Peña.
But they cannot speak.
They are hands, works, scars,
that for now keep silent.
- Luis Alberto Ambroggio, translated by Yvette Neisser Moreno, from Difficult Beauty: Selected Poems, 1987-2006
If each brick could speak;
if each bridge could speak;
if the parks, plants, flowers could speak;
if each piece of pavement could speak,
they would speak Spanish.
If the towers, roofs,
air conditioners could speak;
if the churches, airports, factories could speak,
they would speak Spanish.
If the toils could bloom with a name,
they would be called González, Garcia, Rodriguez or Peña.
But they cannot speak.
They are hands, works, scars,
that for now keep silent.
- Luis Alberto Ambroggio, translated by Yvette Neisser Moreno, from Difficult Beauty: Selected Poems, 1987-2006
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Summer Reading: Abani and Shepherd
By chance I've been reading poems by men of color this summer: Chris Abani and A.B. Spellman, featured poets at 2010's Split This Rock Poetry Festival; Reginald Shepherd and Melvin Dixon, both no longer with us, found at a used book store in Itaca, NY; Terrance Hayes, who read at Sunday Kind of Love last weekend; Luis Alberto Ambroggio, who kindly gave me his new book, Difficult Beauty, at last month's Sunday Love; and Rafael Campo, whose The Other Man Was Me I happened to grab off the shelf to read the day after we got home from Italy.
Of course themes of identity run through all their books. Also masculinity and sexuality, the body. Abani is Nigerian, displaced by the Biafran War, exiled by his country. War, exile, the search for home are ever present in his work.
I offer poems by Abani and Shepherd below and will try to post work by the others later this week.
Of course themes of identity run through all their books. Also masculinity and sexuality, the body. Abani is Nigerian, displaced by the Biafran War, exiled by his country. War, exile, the search for home are ever present in his work.
I offer poems by Abani and Shepherd below and will try to post work by the others later this week.
The New Religion
The body is a nation I have never known.
The pure joy of air: the moment between leaping
from a cliff into the wall of blue below. Like that.
Or to feel the rub of tired lungs against skin-
covered bone, like a hand against the rough of bark.
Like that. "The body is a savage," I said.
For years I said that: the body is a savage.
As if this safety of the mind were virtue
not cowardice. For years I have snubbed
the dark rub of it, said, "I am better, Lord,
I am better," but sometimes, in an unguarded
moment of sun, I remember the cowdung-scent
of my childhood skin thick with dirt and sweat
and the screaming grass.
But this distance I keep is not divine,
for what was Christ if not God's desire
to smell his own armpit? And when I
see him, I know he will smile,
fingers glued to his nose, and say, "Next time
I will send you down as a dog
to taste this pure hunger."
- Chris Abani, from Hands Washing Water
The body is a nation I have never known.
The pure joy of air: the moment between leaping
from a cliff into the wall of blue below. Like that.
Or to feel the rub of tired lungs against skin-
covered bone, like a hand against the rough of bark.
Like that. "The body is a savage," I said.
For years I said that: the body is a savage.
As if this safety of the mind were virtue
not cowardice. For years I have snubbed
the dark rub of it, said, "I am better, Lord,
I am better," but sometimes, in an unguarded
moment of sun, I remember the cowdung-scent
of my childhood skin thick with dirt and sweat
and the screaming grass.
But this distance I keep is not divine,
for what was Christ if not God's desire
to smell his own armpit? And when I
see him, I know he will smile,
fingers glued to his nose, and say, "Next time
I will send you down as a dog
to taste this pure hunger."
- Chris Abani, from Hands Washing Water
**
Kneeling Self-Portrait
Fluencies of light daily
with olive groves, pensive
green and silver leaves reflect on
noon lies. Unlovely Nemesis loves Narcissus
forced into fruitless bloom, and visits on him
the sins of bees. Strange boy
adoring water’s nothing, shadows
water captivates: this stream
shatters glass for every stone. Mirrors
are evil, held overhead as sky.
Persephone’s heralds string their gold
and black through pollen-addled air, singing
without respite, stinging light
into food for dead gods.
He doesn’t recognize his body
has no rights, no luck with bees.
- Reginald Shepherd, from Wrong
Fluencies of light daily
with olive groves, pensive
green and silver leaves reflect on
noon lies. Unlovely Nemesis loves Narcissus
forced into fruitless bloom, and visits on him
the sins of bees. Strange boy
adoring water’s nothing, shadows
water captivates: this stream
shatters glass for every stone. Mirrors
are evil, held overhead as sky.
Persephone’s heralds string their gold
and black through pollen-addled air, singing
without respite, stinging light
into food for dead gods.
He doesn’t recognize his body
has no rights, no luck with bees.
- Reginald Shepherd, from Wrong
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Party with Split This Rock August 27, 6 pm
Featuring A.B. Spellman and Regie Cabico with the DC Youth Slam Team!
Thursday, August 27, 6-8 pm
Langston Room, Busboys and Poets
14th & V Streets, NW
Washington, DC
Split This Rock invites you to a party Thursday, August 27, 2009, 6-8 pm, in the Langston Room, Busboys and Poets at 14th and V Streets, NW. Busboys will be donating fabulous refreshments and creating a couple of funky Split This Rock cocktails.
Why party? Split This Rock has recently received nonprofit status, a crucial step on the road to becoming a permanent home for socially engaged poets from DC and nationwide. Plus, believe it or not, it's just 6 months until the second Split This Rock Poetry Festival. So we figure it's time to celebrate.
Reading and performing will be 2010 featured poet and DC leading light A.B. Spellman, along with Regie Cabico and the DC Youth Slam Team. See below for more details. Entry will be $10-$25, sliding scale, and you'll have a chance to bid on amazing prizes at auction. Come prepared for readings, for fun, for volunteer opportunities, and for celebrating! For more information: info@splitthisrock.org or 202-787-5210.
Can't make the party? You can still volunteer - just contact us at the above email or phone. We'd love to have you involved! And you can definitely still make a donation. Just click here or copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://splitthisrock.org/donate.html. Many thanks!
In peace and poetry,
Split This Rock
**
Poets Celebrating with Split This Rock August 27 - Join Us!
A. B. Spellman is an author, poet, critic, and lecturer. His poetry collection, Things I Must Have Known, was recently was published by Coffee House Press. He has published numerous books and articles on the arts, including Art Tatum: A Critical Biography (a chapbook), The Beautiful Days (poetry), and Four Lives in the Bebop Business, now available as Four Jazz Lives (University of Michigan Press). In recognition of Spellman's commitment and service to jazz, the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005 named one of its prestigious Jazz Masters awards the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy. He was a poet-in-residence at Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he taught various courses in African-American culture, and at Emory, Rutgers, and Harvard Universities, where he offered courses in modern poetry, creative writing, and jazz.
The DC Youth Slam Team - These young poets utilize their vocal energy and strength to channel emotions, to generate a message, or to just participate in the artistic field they enjoy. Through their poetic works, they rejuvenate the art of poetry and create individual identities with distinct voices. These teens are the future voices of Amerca. Welcome to the beginning of a movement.
Regie Cabico is the Director of Split This Rock's World & Me youth poetry contest and Artistic Director of Sol & Soul. Cabico is a poet, playwright, and spoken word performer. He took top prizes at the 1993, 1994, and 1997 National Poetry Slams. His work appears in over 30 anthologies and he co-edited Poetry Nation: A North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry. He received a NYFA Artist Fellowship for Poetry in 1997, NYFAs in 2003 for Poetry and Performance Art, and two Brooklyn Arts Council Poetry Awards. Cabico has been a teacher for Urban Word and developed a poetry and performance program for teens with psychiatric illness at Bellevue Hospital. He received the 2006 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers in recognition of his work with diverse communities.
Thursday, August 27, 6-8 pm
Langston Room, Busboys and Poets
14th & V Streets, NW
Washington, DC
Split This Rock invites you to a party Thursday, August 27, 2009, 6-8 pm, in the Langston Room, Busboys and Poets at 14th and V Streets, NW. Busboys will be donating fabulous refreshments and creating a couple of funky Split This Rock cocktails.
Why party? Split This Rock has recently received nonprofit status, a crucial step on the road to becoming a permanent home for socially engaged poets from DC and nationwide. Plus, believe it or not, it's just 6 months until the second Split This Rock Poetry Festival. So we figure it's time to celebrate.
Reading and performing will be 2010 featured poet and DC leading light A.B. Spellman, along with Regie Cabico and the DC Youth Slam Team. See below for more details. Entry will be $10-$25, sliding scale, and you'll have a chance to bid on amazing prizes at auction. Come prepared for readings, for fun, for volunteer opportunities, and for celebrating! For more information: info@splitthisrock.org or 202-787-5210.
Can't make the party? You can still volunteer - just contact us at the above email or phone. We'd love to have you involved! And you can definitely still make a donation. Just click here or copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://splitthisrock.org/donate.html. Many thanks!
In peace and poetry,
Split This Rock
**
Poets Celebrating with Split This Rock August 27 - Join Us!
A. B. Spellman is an author, poet, critic, and lecturer. His poetry collection, Things I Must Have Known, was recently was published by Coffee House Press. He has published numerous books and articles on the arts, including Art Tatum: A Critical Biography (a chapbook), The Beautiful Days (poetry), and Four Lives in the Bebop Business, now available as Four Jazz Lives (University of Michigan Press). In recognition of Spellman's commitment and service to jazz, the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005 named one of its prestigious Jazz Masters awards the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy. He was a poet-in-residence at Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he taught various courses in African-American culture, and at Emory, Rutgers, and Harvard Universities, where he offered courses in modern poetry, creative writing, and jazz.
The DC Youth Slam Team - These young poets utilize their vocal energy and strength to channel emotions, to generate a message, or to just participate in the artistic field they enjoy. Through their poetic works, they rejuvenate the art of poetry and create individual identities with distinct voices. These teens are the future voices of Amerca. Welcome to the beginning of a movement.
Regie Cabico is the Director of Split This Rock's World & Me youth poetry contest and Artistic Director of Sol & Soul. Cabico is a poet, playwright, and spoken word performer. He took top prizes at the 1993, 1994, and 1997 National Poetry Slams. His work appears in over 30 anthologies and he co-edited Poetry Nation: A North American Anthology of Fusion Poetry. He received a NYFA Artist Fellowship for Poetry in 1997, NYFAs in 2003 for Poetry and Performance Art, and two Brooklyn Arts Council Poetry Awards. Cabico has been a teacher for Urban Word and developed a poetry and performance program for teens with psychiatric illness at Bellevue Hospital. He received the 2006 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers in recognition of his work with diverse communities.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Brookland Poetry Series 2009 Line Up
From the redoubtable Michael Gushue, the remaining 2009 readings in this terrific DC series, below.
Dear poetry, literature and Brookland aficionados:
Here’s an omnibus note on readings coming up at the Brookland Poetry Series for the remainder of 2009.
Brookland Poetry Series # 66 - August 12, 2009 @ 7:00 PM
Our annual Iced Tea Social Poetry Reading.
Poems designed to cool you off and a variety of special iced drinks to quaff. An illustrative list: Lemon Ginger Tea, Rosemary Lemonade, Cherry Balsamic Iced Tea, Nectarine Basil Lemonade, Cucumber Mint Lemonade, Lemon Fennel Iced Tea, Watermelon Lemonade, Raspberry Limeade.
Brookland Poetry Series # 67 - September 9, 2009 @ 7:00 PM
Our annual Sterling A. Brown Brookland Invitational Poetry Reading.
Celebrating the legacy and poetry of Brookland’s own Sterling Brown—D.C.’s first poet laureate. Readings of Sterling Brown’s poetry, poetry honoring Brown and his legacy, and poetry by others taught or influenced by Brown. Come hear Sterling Brown’s vibrant, scintillating and deeply moving verse.
Brookland Poetry Series # 68 - October 14, 2009 @ 7:00 PM
It Came From Beneath Brookland.
The monster of all poetry readings. Celebrating monsters, the monstrous, Godzilla, Gojira, and other teratogenic-, teratophobic- and teratophilic-related matters.
Brookland Poetry Series # 69 - November 11, 2009 @ 7:00 PM
Lament for the Makers.
A celebration of departed poets. Poems by some of the poets who have died in the last two years will be read, along with brief bios or appreciations, or both. Poems by Tom Disch, Grace Paley, Aimé Césaire, Mahmoud Darwish, Hayden Carruth, W. D. Snodgrass, John Updike, Deborah Digges, Craig Arnold, Kamala Das and others.
Brookland Poetry Series # 70 - December 9, 2009 @ 7:00 PM
St. Lucie’s Day reading.
A celebration of light during the year’s midnight. Poems in honor of the winter solstice, the winter season, and the wintry subjects. Poems by Kenneth Rexroth, Jonh Donne, Kathleen Raine and others.
Join us for these readings at the Brookland Visitors Center, 3420 9th Street, NE. The BVC is 1/2 block from Brookland/CUA Red Line Metro across Monroe Street, and right across 9th Street from Colonel Brooks' Tavern. This reading is free and open to all. For further information call (202) 526-1632 or email mgushuedc@yahoo.com.
AND…please check out our website at http://www.bawadc.com/ for addition information, fabulous-looking posters for the readings, and other Brookland Area Writers and Artists* related matters.
Dear poetry, literature and Brookland aficionados:
Here’s an omnibus note on readings coming up at the Brookland Poetry Series for the remainder of 2009.
Brookland Poetry Series # 66 - August 12, 2009 @ 7:00 PM
Our annual Iced Tea Social Poetry Reading.
Poems designed to cool you off and a variety of special iced drinks to quaff. An illustrative list: Lemon Ginger Tea, Rosemary Lemonade, Cherry Balsamic Iced Tea, Nectarine Basil Lemonade, Cucumber Mint Lemonade, Lemon Fennel Iced Tea, Watermelon Lemonade, Raspberry Limeade.
Brookland Poetry Series # 67 - September 9, 2009 @ 7:00 PM
Our annual Sterling A. Brown Brookland Invitational Poetry Reading.
Celebrating the legacy and poetry of Brookland’s own Sterling Brown—D.C.’s first poet laureate. Readings of Sterling Brown’s poetry, poetry honoring Brown and his legacy, and poetry by others taught or influenced by Brown. Come hear Sterling Brown’s vibrant, scintillating and deeply moving verse.
Brookland Poetry Series # 68 - October 14, 2009 @ 7:00 PM
It Came From Beneath Brookland.
The monster of all poetry readings. Celebrating monsters, the monstrous, Godzilla, Gojira, and other teratogenic-, teratophobic- and teratophilic-related matters.
Brookland Poetry Series # 69 - November 11, 2009 @ 7:00 PM
Lament for the Makers.
A celebration of departed poets. Poems by some of the poets who have died in the last two years will be read, along with brief bios or appreciations, or both. Poems by Tom Disch, Grace Paley, Aimé Césaire, Mahmoud Darwish, Hayden Carruth, W. D. Snodgrass, John Updike, Deborah Digges, Craig Arnold, Kamala Das and others.
Brookland Poetry Series # 70 - December 9, 2009 @ 7:00 PM
St. Lucie’s Day reading.
A celebration of light during the year’s midnight. Poems in honor of the winter solstice, the winter season, and the wintry subjects. Poems by Kenneth Rexroth, Jonh Donne, Kathleen Raine and others.
Join us for these readings at the Brookland Visitors Center, 3420 9th Street, NE. The BVC is 1/2 block from Brookland/CUA Red Line Metro across Monroe Street, and right across 9th Street from Colonel Brooks' Tavern. This reading is free and open to all. For further information call (202) 526-1632 or email mgushuedc@yahoo.com.
AND…please check out our website at http://www.bawadc.com/ for addition information, fabulous-looking posters for the readings, and other Brookland Area Writers and Artists* related matters.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Summer Issue of Beltway on It's Your Mug
Great new issue of Beltway, with photos by the incomparable Thomas Sayers Ellis!
Beltway Poetry Quarterly
http://www.beltwaypoetry.com
A terrific new issue of Beltway Poetry Quarterly is now posted online! The IT’S YOUR MUG ANNIVERSARY ISSUE celebrates the first spoken word venue in Washington, DC, founded 15 years ago by Toni Asante Lightfoot. This special issue, guest edited by Toni Asante Lightfoot, with an introduction by Holly Bass, and photographs by Thomas Sayers Ellis, features 18 contributors, all active in the Mug Series:
Eric Antonio * Holly Bass * Toni Blackman * Jane Alberdeston Coralin * Joel Dias-Porter * Twain Dooley * Thomas Sayers Ellis * Brian Gilmore * Monica A. Hand * Reuben Jackson * Brandon D. Johnson * A. Van Jordan * Carolyn Joyner * Dehejia Maat * Ernesto Mercer * Lisa Pegram * Venus Thrash * Patrick Washington
As Holly Bass writes in the introduction: “Running from February 1, 1994 to August 20th 1996, the It's Your Mug's Tuesday night poetry reading was a community event had a lasting impact on Washington’s poetry scene. So many prize-winning books, plays, reading series, recordings and writing careers can trace their beginnings back to that humble little café. So much of DC spoken word community owes a debt to this reading series.” Holly tracks this rich history, including the artist collectives and reading series that were an outgrowth of this pioneering venue.
The issue includes 46 new poems. Read and be inspired!
Beltway Poetry Quarterly
http://www.beltwaypoetry.com
Beltway Poetry Quarterly
http://www.beltwaypoetry.com
A terrific new issue of Beltway Poetry Quarterly is now posted online! The IT’S YOUR MUG ANNIVERSARY ISSUE celebrates the first spoken word venue in Washington, DC, founded 15 years ago by Toni Asante Lightfoot. This special issue, guest edited by Toni Asante Lightfoot, with an introduction by Holly Bass, and photographs by Thomas Sayers Ellis, features 18 contributors, all active in the Mug Series:
Eric Antonio * Holly Bass * Toni Blackman * Jane Alberdeston Coralin * Joel Dias-Porter * Twain Dooley * Thomas Sayers Ellis * Brian Gilmore * Monica A. Hand * Reuben Jackson * Brandon D. Johnson * A. Van Jordan * Carolyn Joyner * Dehejia Maat * Ernesto Mercer * Lisa Pegram * Venus Thrash * Patrick Washington
As Holly Bass writes in the introduction: “Running from February 1, 1994 to August 20th 1996, the It's Your Mug's Tuesday night poetry reading was a community event had a lasting impact on Washington’s poetry scene. So many prize-winning books, plays, reading series, recordings and writing careers can trace their beginnings back to that humble little café. So much of DC spoken word community owes a debt to this reading series.” Holly tracks this rich history, including the artist collectives and reading series that were an outgrowth of this pioneering venue.
The issue includes 46 new poems. Read and be inspired!
Beltway Poetry Quarterly
http://www.beltwaypoetry.com
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
"Who" is correct
Many thanks to my Dad, Preston Browning, Jr., who let me know that in fact "who" is correct in the following sentence:
Plus a bunch of nonfiction writers who I'm sure are just as cool.
This was in a previous post about Sweet Literary Journal -- I had thought that the correct usage in that sentence was "whom," but Dad, the expert, says that: "'who' is correct since it's the subject of the verb 'are.' Using 'whom' in such a construction is sometimes done today but it's incorrect."
Thanks, Dad!
Plus a bunch of nonfiction writers who I'm sure are just as cool.
This was in a previous post about Sweet Literary Journal -- I had thought that the correct usage in that sentence was "whom," but Dad, the expert, says that: "'who' is correct since it's the subject of the verb 'are.' Using 'whom' in such a construction is sometimes done today but it's incorrect."
Thanks, Dad!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Happy Birthday, Gwendolyn Brooks!
From the good folks at the Poetry Foundation:
Remember that poetry is life distilled.
—Gwendolyn Brooks
June 7, 2009, would have been Gwendolyn Brooks's 92nd birthday; to join us in celebrating one of America's greatest poets, check out the Hall Library stop on the Chicago Poetry Tour, which features archival recordings of Brooks reading from and speaking about the impressive span of her work. The program ranges from the intimate neighborhood portraits included in her first collection, A Street in Bronzeville, such as "kitchenette building" and "the rites for Cousin Vit," to the political turn her poetry took in the '60s as she became involved with the black arts movement:
And we did such exciting things. And we went into the park and recited our poetry and we went to city jail. And the most exciting thing we did was just to walk into a tavern, and someone like Haki Madhubuti, once known as Don L. Lee, would say, "Look folks, we're gonna lay some poetry on you!" . . . And they would turn from their drinks, temporarily, and listen to poetry, which they hadn't come to the tavern to hear, of course.
The Poetry Foundation website offers a critical biography of Brooks, as well as contemporary articles, including Danielle Chapman's "Sweet Bombs," a review of the recently issued collection The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks.
For a broader look at Brooks’s effect on Chicago poetry, listen to "Confronting the Warpland," an original one-hour radio documentary produced by the Poetry Foundation. The show presents African American poets who have found influence and inspiration living in the city, and features Brooks, Tyehimba Jess, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Haki Madhubuti, Sterling Plumpp, and Margaret Walker in interviews, readings, and archival recordings.
Finally, Brooks is showcased in the Essential American Poets archive, selected by Donald Hall during his poet laureateship in 2006. Recorded at the Library of Congress in 1961, Brooks, in her early 30s, reads several poems not available on the Chicago Poetry Tour, including "the mother," "of De Witt Williams on his way to Lincoln Cemetery," and "A Sunset of the City," which ends,
Tin intimations of a quiet core to be my
Desert and my dear relief
Come: there shall be such islanding from grief,
And small communion with the master shore.
Twang they. And I incline this ear to tin,
Consult a dual dilemma. Whether to dry
In humming pallor or to leap and die.Somebody muffed it? Somebody wanted to joke.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
America's Sorry Policy
On Obama's Speech in Cairo and US Policy in the Middle East
by John Feffer, the always-astute co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus
In 1697, five years after the judges of Salem, Massachusetts sent 20 suspected witches to the gallows, one man stood up in front of his congregation and apologized. Samuel Sewall was one of the nine judges that gave official sanction to the hysteria of the witch trials. In a remarkable act of contrition, Sewall took upon his head the "blame and shame" of the tragedy and wore a hair shirt until the day of his death to remind him of his sin. More intriguingly, he went on to become a champion of civil rights and an early abolitionist.
It would be truly breathtaking if George W. Bush - or any of the architects of the U.S. foreign policy fiascos of the 21st century - donned a hair shirt, repented of his actions, and performed an ideological about-face. The parallels with Salem are not trivial: the hysteria, the torture, the legal travesties. But don't hold your breath waiting for a mea culpa from the 43rd president. Instead, it's left to Barack Obama to come to terms with the Bush legacy.
Last week in Cairo, President Obama gave a much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world. In many ways the speech was extraordinary. The president reaffirmed his own personal ties to the Islamic world, quoted from the Koran, lauded religious tolerance, upheld the rule of law, recognized that "the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable," called on Israel to stop settlements, reaffirmed his commitment to nuclear abolition, and tactically refocused U.S. military campaigns against "violent extremism in all forms."
The speech "reflected a significant shift away from the ideological framework of militarism and unilateralism that shaped the Bush administration's war-based policy toward the Arab and Muslim worlds," observes Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributor Phyllis Bennis in Changing the Discourse. It will be remembered, as Akiva Eldar writes in Haaretz, "as the last day of the 9/11 era." And the speech could also help shift the U.S. public's attitudes about Islam, which have been largely negative. "If it reduces American prejudice against Arabs and Muslims, then his address would truly mark a new beginning for U.S.-Muslim relations," writes FPIF contributor R.S. Zaharna in Improving U.S.-Muslim Relations.
For all its strong points, however, the speech didn't contain any apologies. The president might have taken the opportunity to apologize for the way the Bush administration demonized Islam, killed countless Muslim civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, supported repressive states in the region, and abrogated the civil liberties of Muslim and Arab-Americans in the United States. But the United States rarely does apologies. And Obama prefers to focus on the future rather than the past.
The closest the president came to an apology was when he mentioned U.S. complicity in the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected government in 1953. He didn't apologize for the act (nor did Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000 when she too acknowledged U.S. involvement in the coup). "Rather than remain trapped in the past," Obama said in Cairo, "I have made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward."
The president no doubt fears a slippery slope - apologize for one U.S. policy and the demands will escalate to apologize for them all. For the conservative attack dogs, meanwhile, the word "sorry" is like the scent of fear and weakness. At the merest mention of an apology, they will leap at Obama's throat.
And then there's the problem of current U.S. actions. We continue to support autocratic leaders in the Arab world. "Many Arabs and Muslims have expressed frustration that Obama failed to use this opportunity to call on the autocratic Saudi and Egyptian leaders with whom he had visited on his Middle Eastern trip to end their repression and open up their corrupt and tightly controlled political systems," writes FPIF senior analyst Stephen Zunes in How Not to Support Democracy in the Middle East. The Egyptian government's crackdown on dissent prior to Obama's visit was a painful reminder of U.S. double standards on democracy in the region.
Obama pledged to adhere to the timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq, noted that the United States desires no military bases in Afghanistan, and referred to the $1.5 billion in infrastructure assistance for Pakistan. But we're still at war in these countries, and apologies, if they come at all, are issued long after the last shot is fired.
For all of the president's attempts to focus the debate on "violent extremists," U.S. aerial assaults and counterinsurgency operations are still claiming civilian lives in the Muslim world. This is particularly problematic in Afghanistan, as FPIF contributor Farrah Hassen points out. In his Cairo speech, the president "failed to acknowledge the growing civilian casualties due to increased U.S. drone attacks ostensibly aimed at dismantling the Taliban - a reality that only increases the risk of blowback against the United States, as opposed to winning the hearts and minds of Afghans, and of Muslims, alike," she writes in Lifting the Veil. "Indeed, a military investigation concluded the United States made mistakes after the May 4 airstrikes in the western province of Farah that killed dozens of civilians."
On the ground in Afghanistan, where support for NATO military operations has declined precipitously over the years, U.S. forces are experimenting with a new policy of prompt apologies for civilian casualties. The apologies are welcome in the region, but words can only go so far. "Apologies are good things," Maolawi Hezatullah, provincial council head in Kunar where U.S. troops killed six civilians in April, told Reuters. "But the foreign troops should convince the people that there will be no more such incidents."
Samuel Sewall didn't simply apologize for his role in the Salem witch trials. He tried to remedy his errors by working to ensure that such atrocities would never reoccur. We may not see apologies for U.S. conduct in the Muslim world coming from top U.S. officials. But if Obama manages to end the "collateral damage" to civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, then U.S. policy will change indeed.
Links
Eve LaPlante, "The Opposite of Thanksgiving," The Boston Globe, November 18, 2007; http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2007/11/18/the_opposite_of_thanksgiving/?page=full
"A New Beginning: Obama's Egypt Speech," The Huffington Post, June 4, 2009; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/04/obama-egypt-speech-video_n_211216.html
Phyllis Bennis, "Changing the Discourse: First Step Toward Changing the Policy," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6169); Obama's approach toward the Muslim world may be diplomatic, but it remains the work of mobilized people across the United States to end Obama's war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, halt the occupation of Iraq immediately rather than years from now, stop U.S. military aid to Israel, and launch new negotiations with Iran not based on military threats.
Akiva Eldar, "Obama's Cairo Speech Signals End of 9/11 Era," Haaretz, June 8, 2009; http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090535.html
R. S. Zaharna, "Improving U.S.-Muslim Relations," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6171); For the United States to focus only on improving its image in the Arab and Muslim world is to see only half of the picture.
Madeleine Albright, "American-Iranian Relations," March 17, 2000; http://www.fas.org/news/iran/2000/000317.htm
Stephen Zunes, "How Not to Support Democracy in the Middle East," Foreign Policy In Focus, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6173; Obama failed to address Egyptian and Saudi repression in his address to the Muslim world.
Hossam el-Hamalawy, "Cairo Under Siege Ahead of Obama's Speech," The Huffington Post, June 3, 2009; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/03/cairo-under-siege-ahead-o_n_211154.html
Farrah Hassen, "Lifting the Veil," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6170); A Muslim-American reflects on Obama's Cairo speech.
Peter Graff, "New Tactic for U.S., NATO in Afghanistan," Reuters, April 17, 2009; http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE53G3L620090417?sp=true
by John Feffer, the always-astute co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus
In 1697, five years after the judges of Salem, Massachusetts sent 20 suspected witches to the gallows, one man stood up in front of his congregation and apologized. Samuel Sewall was one of the nine judges that gave official sanction to the hysteria of the witch trials. In a remarkable act of contrition, Sewall took upon his head the "blame and shame" of the tragedy and wore a hair shirt until the day of his death to remind him of his sin. More intriguingly, he went on to become a champion of civil rights and an early abolitionist.
It would be truly breathtaking if George W. Bush - or any of the architects of the U.S. foreign policy fiascos of the 21st century - donned a hair shirt, repented of his actions, and performed an ideological about-face. The parallels with Salem are not trivial: the hysteria, the torture, the legal travesties. But don't hold your breath waiting for a mea culpa from the 43rd president. Instead, it's left to Barack Obama to come to terms with the Bush legacy.
Last week in Cairo, President Obama gave a much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world. In many ways the speech was extraordinary. The president reaffirmed his own personal ties to the Islamic world, quoted from the Koran, lauded religious tolerance, upheld the rule of law, recognized that "the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable," called on Israel to stop settlements, reaffirmed his commitment to nuclear abolition, and tactically refocused U.S. military campaigns against "violent extremism in all forms."
The speech "reflected a significant shift away from the ideological framework of militarism and unilateralism that shaped the Bush administration's war-based policy toward the Arab and Muslim worlds," observes Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributor Phyllis Bennis in Changing the Discourse. It will be remembered, as Akiva Eldar writes in Haaretz, "as the last day of the 9/11 era." And the speech could also help shift the U.S. public's attitudes about Islam, which have been largely negative. "If it reduces American prejudice against Arabs and Muslims, then his address would truly mark a new beginning for U.S.-Muslim relations," writes FPIF contributor R.S. Zaharna in Improving U.S.-Muslim Relations.
For all its strong points, however, the speech didn't contain any apologies. The president might have taken the opportunity to apologize for the way the Bush administration demonized Islam, killed countless Muslim civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, supported repressive states in the region, and abrogated the civil liberties of Muslim and Arab-Americans in the United States. But the United States rarely does apologies. And Obama prefers to focus on the future rather than the past.
The closest the president came to an apology was when he mentioned U.S. complicity in the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected government in 1953. He didn't apologize for the act (nor did Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000 when she too acknowledged U.S. involvement in the coup). "Rather than remain trapped in the past," Obama said in Cairo, "I have made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward."
The president no doubt fears a slippery slope - apologize for one U.S. policy and the demands will escalate to apologize for them all. For the conservative attack dogs, meanwhile, the word "sorry" is like the scent of fear and weakness. At the merest mention of an apology, they will leap at Obama's throat.
And then there's the problem of current U.S. actions. We continue to support autocratic leaders in the Arab world. "Many Arabs and Muslims have expressed frustration that Obama failed to use this opportunity to call on the autocratic Saudi and Egyptian leaders with whom he had visited on his Middle Eastern trip to end their repression and open up their corrupt and tightly controlled political systems," writes FPIF senior analyst Stephen Zunes in How Not to Support Democracy in the Middle East. The Egyptian government's crackdown on dissent prior to Obama's visit was a painful reminder of U.S. double standards on democracy in the region.
Obama pledged to adhere to the timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq, noted that the United States desires no military bases in Afghanistan, and referred to the $1.5 billion in infrastructure assistance for Pakistan. But we're still at war in these countries, and apologies, if they come at all, are issued long after the last shot is fired.
For all of the president's attempts to focus the debate on "violent extremists," U.S. aerial assaults and counterinsurgency operations are still claiming civilian lives in the Muslim world. This is particularly problematic in Afghanistan, as FPIF contributor Farrah Hassen points out. In his Cairo speech, the president "failed to acknowledge the growing civilian casualties due to increased U.S. drone attacks ostensibly aimed at dismantling the Taliban - a reality that only increases the risk of blowback against the United States, as opposed to winning the hearts and minds of Afghans, and of Muslims, alike," she writes in Lifting the Veil. "Indeed, a military investigation concluded the United States made mistakes after the May 4 airstrikes in the western province of Farah that killed dozens of civilians."
On the ground in Afghanistan, where support for NATO military operations has declined precipitously over the years, U.S. forces are experimenting with a new policy of prompt apologies for civilian casualties. The apologies are welcome in the region, but words can only go so far. "Apologies are good things," Maolawi Hezatullah, provincial council head in Kunar where U.S. troops killed six civilians in April, told Reuters. "But the foreign troops should convince the people that there will be no more such incidents."
Samuel Sewall didn't simply apologize for his role in the Salem witch trials. He tried to remedy his errors by working to ensure that such atrocities would never reoccur. We may not see apologies for U.S. conduct in the Muslim world coming from top U.S. officials. But if Obama manages to end the "collateral damage" to civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, then U.S. policy will change indeed.
Links
Eve LaPlante, "The Opposite of Thanksgiving," The Boston Globe, November 18, 2007; http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2007/11/18/the_opposite_of_thanksgiving/?page=full
"A New Beginning: Obama's Egypt Speech," The Huffington Post, June 4, 2009; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/04/obama-egypt-speech-video_n_211216.html
Phyllis Bennis, "Changing the Discourse: First Step Toward Changing the Policy," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6169); Obama's approach toward the Muslim world may be diplomatic, but it remains the work of mobilized people across the United States to end Obama's war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, halt the occupation of Iraq immediately rather than years from now, stop U.S. military aid to Israel, and launch new negotiations with Iran not based on military threats.
Akiva Eldar, "Obama's Cairo Speech Signals End of 9/11 Era," Haaretz, June 8, 2009; http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090535.html
R. S. Zaharna, "Improving U.S.-Muslim Relations," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6171); For the United States to focus only on improving its image in the Arab and Muslim world is to see only half of the picture.
Madeleine Albright, "American-Iranian Relations," March 17, 2000; http://www.fas.org/news/iran/2000/000317.htm
Stephen Zunes, "How Not to Support Democracy in the Middle East," Foreign Policy In Focus, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6173; Obama failed to address Egyptian and Saudi repression in his address to the Muslim world.
Hossam el-Hamalawy, "Cairo Under Siege Ahead of Obama's Speech," The Huffington Post, June 3, 2009; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/03/cairo-under-siege-ahead-o_n_211154.html
Farrah Hassen, "Lifting the Veil," Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6170); A Muslim-American reflects on Obama's Cairo speech.
Peter Graff, "New Tactic for U.S., NATO in Afghanistan," Reuters, April 17, 2009; http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE53G3L620090417?sp=true
Friday, June 05, 2009
Sweet is sweet!
The new issue of Sweet: A Literary Confection is online, happily including my poem, "Kissing Girls" from The Smart Girl Poems. I'm very happy to be in the company of the magnificent Tim Seibles, as well as poets Barbara Daniels, Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Laura McCullough, and Emily K. Bright. Plus a bunch of nonfiction writers who I'm sure are just as cool. (Should be "whom" but that would be um... uncool). Check it out here: http://www.sweetlit.com/issue1.3.html
