devorah major

“I also see all art as political, whether by commission or omission. . . The choice of what to focus on is a political act, the choice of what to reveal or conceal is a political act, the choice of what to assert or deny is a political act. The choice of writing for a broad audience, or writing a text that can only be understood with a specialized vocabulary and particular aesthetic training is a political act. The choice of being a formalist and only writing in accepted Euro- specific poetic forms, or writing experimental verse, or writing with a myriad of approaches and styles are all not just artistic choices, but because of their cultural impact, also political acts.

But that does not mean that creating art is, or should be, an act of creating propaganda. It is not about doctrine, or political parties, but about the body politic. By the same token, bringing poetry as performance, as written art, or as writing workshops to people in schools and jails, libraries and half-way houses, homeless shelters and community centers is also a political act. Encouraging people to not only listen and hear, but also to use their own voices to critically examine their selves, their lives, and the world around them, is a political act.”

“what makes a poem revolutionary

does it violently refuse the page

construct a chaos of grammar

that denies metaphor or defeats meter

is it armed and ready for prolonged struggle

is it loud and insistent assaulting your senses

full of gun powder and iron pellets

is it unavailable for canonization

despite an early death as martyr

or does it instead

find guerrilla survival

hidden

underground

exploding in unexpected places

appearing once again     just

when you thought it dead”

published in Where the River Meets Ocean

© 2003

Paper 9.95

“Baseball coach, nurse, mudbug collector, the role of a single parent is never clearly defined….The special relationship between a parent and child going it alone is one you must experience to understand.”

Poet Laureate and single mother  Devorah Major adds, “We created and discovered new ways to be–not just parent- to- child but friend- to- friend. We became best friends.”


Twelve percent of America’s mothers are single mothers.  9.9 million of you out there show us new ways of parenting and awe us with your strengths and inner resources.  You’ve raised balanced and successful children. President Barack Obama, raised with love and support from his single mom and grandparents, showed the power of your unique child-parent-friendships when he made health care his centerpiece legislation citing, as motivation, the financial struggles his mom faced as she died of cancer.

For all your love and bonding society has been slow to support you. In The Single Mother’s Companion, Senator and single mom Carol Mosely Braun calls for: affordable childcare, more flex schedules, better enforcement of child support, and the contributions of neighbors and communities to help single mothers raise America’s youth. We’re still waiting for many of these advances.

Single moms, 17 million  children are in your care. Yet you suffer poverty more than any other family structure.  In the rural South and Midwest more than 50% of you are poor.  You need more support from society and more contributions from your children’s fathers. A shocking 5.6 million of you have waited for overdue child support.

Though too many of you are overwhelmed by the demands of survival some of you, with more social and financial support, are leading this country ahead. By raising children on your own you inspire workplaces to be more parent friendly and broaden the minds of society. This weekend I send special wishes to the inspiring single mothers who’ve been in my life: Mia, Monica, Sandra, Vikki, Sybrina, Barb, and Diana and wish you all Happy Mother’s day.

I was surprised to discover that their members include Salman Rushdie, Khaled Hosseini, Thich Nhat Hanh, Stephen Colbert, Tobias Woolf and many more very familiar names.

The Red Room was founded in San Francisco by author Ivory Madison in 2002. From what I can glean from their website, The Red Room was originally created to provide an ideal physical  environment for  writers to sit down and write. Presumably, it was also a place where, in the company of other authors, one could receive support and advise from each other.

Today, The Red Room seems more of an on-line community. Authors have their own Red Room websites and blogs. Services such as editing, web and blog hosting, and numerous courses, are also offered.

Are you a Red Room author? Please share how the club has helped you. For some endorsements of Red Room from their website, click here.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/

My ignorance with regard to poetry is pitiful. Ms. Major was the Poet Laureate of San Francisco between 2002-2006.  She is the author of Brown Glass Windows, which is the story of a multi-generational African-American family, living in San Francisco’s vibrant Fillmore District, and shares both the many layers of the family and of the city.

I don’t usually cut and paste someone’s article or post into my blog. I tend to summarize and add a quote or two. But I just cannot see how to do that here. Below is Ms. Majors post in full. There is nothing that I felt I could leave out.

“I have been chewing on what it means to be an activist about the many ways we can and do act in our lives about when and how those ways are political as well as purposeful if there is a difference between those two things or if, as is more likely,  one’s purposeful acts are defined by ones conscious or unconscious politic of life and politic of community.

Certainly one sows seeds and ties up young sprouts and further nourishes small saplings through teaching and though it may seems as only an evolutionary act there is a point when the act of helping young people to see that they can think and should reason and giving them tools to do so while helping them to not only look at but see their world, themselves in these times of “dumbing down” and blurring and testing but not evaluating, training but not educating, in these times as much if not more than, ever teaching can be a revolutionary act.

Letter writing, marching, witnessing, giving money to a cause are all kinds of activism- but front lines taking over buildings for the homeless, striking and shutting down industries, seem to me to be a deeper kind of activism.  But then again, when I look at Egypt I see that for them just showing up is a far more revolutionary act than it is for me. Poetry is very much a revolutionary act. http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/egypts-revolutio…
There, as in much of the world, writing a poem, making a speech, releasing a blog entry can lead to beatings, prison, death.

I know some real revolutionaries.  People who don’t just bandy about the word but live their lives forwarding people’s struggle in word and deed.  Kiilu Nyasha kiilunyasha.blogspot.com/ was struck by a degenerative disease which has left her in a wheel chair for over two decades.  Despite the extreme weakness in her limbs she continues to teach, write, produce radio shows, connect people, make sure that struggles for people’s liberation are moved forward.

Yet what of those who spend most of their time holding family together, caring for elders, seeing that children are fed, guiding teens- is this not also a kind of activism?  In a country where we are constantly told to go for self, where radio and television ads actually applaud and celebrate selfishness is there a kind of activism that exists in just doing for others, caring for others, tending to the needs of others?

What of those elders who in the 70′s would not dream of becoming a member of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense but would, and sometimes did, hide a member in their home, protect a member, stand guard.  Were they not activists, maybe even revolutionaries?

In these times I think we all, and when I say we I am saying me and thee, need to become more active in the greater world.  But I also think that we need to be broad in what that definition of activism is.  Yet as a writer, as a poet who is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade, I am sure that writing the poem, reading the poem, however clear the political thrust, however skillful the craft, however profound the vision is simply not enough.”

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/

I am SO SORRY this is so very late! You’ll forgive me though, right? Especially if it gave you more time to finish the book?

I’ll be honest, the only reason I ever set sights on this anthology was because one of my favorite authors, Karin Lowachee, has a story published in it. Had it not been for that fact, I would’ve never known about this sucker, so I’m very glad Lowachee was a part of it. It’s not often we see a collection of science fiction and fantasy written by authors of color, and while it’s sad that it takes a themed ANTHOLOGY to get some of these writers in the public eye, I’m glad it’s out here.

However, my reading of this anthology got ROYALLY screwed up. I started it toward the end of August, with the plan I’d finish around the beginning of September and devote a mini-review to each story. That way, if I needed to re-read a story for the sake of the review, I’d have plenty of time.

I wasn’t halfway through the anthology when my gallbladder decided to rebel and I had to go to the hospital. I took this book with me, but quickly learned that there was no way in hell I could read, let alone comprehend, these stories while under the wonderful haze of painkillers. So I put it off until I was completely out of the painkiller haze and in the right frame of mind for reading. Which didn’t leave me much time for the really detailed review I wanted, let alone re-reads (because by that time, I was 1) beta-reading a pre-published novel and 2) I got a stomach bug).

It’s been a rough month. :-/

The premise: ganked from BN.com: An anthology of stories of imagined futures, written by leading writers of color from around the world.

Review style: I really don’t know how to review this, and that’s because my reading of this anthology got interrupted with surgery and pain killers. I will talk about the anthology in general and how it’s constructed, and I definitely provide the table of contents with star-rating and brief commentary. There’s also a bonus question at the end of the review! No spoilers, because what’s the point of spoiling short stories? That’s silly!

Discussion: I don’t know why I didn’t realize this when I bought the anthology originally, but the unifying concept for this anthology isn’t simply post-colonial, it’s that all the contributors are authors of color. Which, when I first read that, gave me a chuckle, because anyone who’s met Tobias S. Buckell would think he’s the whitest, white-boy in the WORLD, but that would mean you aren’t familiar with his family: based on what I know, he just happened to get the whitest genes his genetics had to offer. His cousins, however, didn’t. And he’s Caribbean, so knowing that his genetic make-up is actually very colorful should come as no surprise.

At any rate, I just wanted to throw that out there first. Lots of readers pay lip service to wanting to read more authors of color, but when the opportunities arise, they don’t always take the bait. That’s not meant to be a criticism, not fully. There’s a difference between not being able to afford and/or get your hands on a book featuring authors of color, and not reading the book because it doesn’t interest you, despite professing your desire for wanting to read more authors of color.

My advice: unless you’re going to follow through on your public and professed desires when it comes to reading, don’t say them, okay? That’s worse than not saying anything at all, and it makes it seem like the issue that’s VERY dear to other people (especially those authors of color who have to fight for publication) is just something you’re trying to be politically correct about, you know?

Then again, just because someone is interested in fiction by authors of color, should that be the only criteria they use to select a book? Am I being too harsh on readers who do want to read more authors of color, but just aren’t interested in the stories they’re presented with? I think we’ll tackle this topic on a Maintenance Monday!

Okay, rant aside. Not sure where that came from. I’m going to blame the day-long headache that’s plaguing me while I write this. Moving on.

Knowing the unifying factor of this anthology made me think. It’s divided five distinct parts, grouping the stories according to each part’s focus. So you’ve got stories that focus on the body, on future Earth, allegory, encounters with the alien, and lastly, re-imagining the past. And readers might wonder what the big deal is. Who cares if the authors are of color or not? A good story is a good story, right?

Here’s the thing: writers are influenced by culture, society, background. While not all white people are people of economic privilege, I’d say a lot of white people haven’t had to deal with the same kind of discrimination that someone of color did, no matter how subtle. Discrimination, however blatantly or subtle, it shapes you, changes your mindset and your outlook. You don’t see the world the same way.

And then there’s culture: a lot, but not all, literature is influenced by Western society, which means there’s WHOLE OTHER SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT we don’t have access to unless we seek it out, and often, those schools of thought are provided by authors of color, authors of different ethnicity than white-bread Americans.

I say this as a white-bread American. I’m not insulting myself or anyone else. I’m just pointing out: while we’re all human, and therefore the same, there’s differences in the way we’re shaped, the way we grew up, the privileges that were granted to us depending where we live, our gender, our sexual orientation, and the color of our skin. And those differences are rarely apparent in mainstream fiction of any genre.

That’s why an anthology like this isn’t just important, but cool. Because while we’re trained to expect certain things in stories due to Western influence, we’re missing out on a whole different way of storytelling, so while reading this anthology, I told myself to let go of my expectations and really focus on the story itself to see if I couldn’t figure out what the author wanted me to get out of it, instead of projecting what I wanted to get out of the author. Does that make sense?

That doesn’t mean that every story in this anthology isn’t traditional. Some are in terms of structure and action. Others made me stop and think, and I really wish I’d had the time to re-read some of these for the sake of the review. Even the stories I liked a lot, I wish I’d had the chance to re-read. Some are just beautiful and need to be experienced again, so this will definitely be an anthology to hold on to, so I can read it again at a later time.

At any rate, I’m going to cheat. How so? Instead of talking about stories that are over a month old in my head, I’m going to rate them which a quick comment. If anyone wants to discuss any of these stories further, I’ll be happy to do so in the comment section, but for now, you’re getting a rating system of one to five stars per story. Anything above 3 stars is worth it, in my book.

• Nisi Shawl, “Deep End” (3 stars: story didn’t end in any sort of traditional fashion, but it did make me think, and it’s not a story I’ll forget.)
• Andrea Hairston, “Griots of the Galaxy” (3.5 stars: really cool world-building, but I’m still puzzling the ending)
• Suzette Mayr, “Toot Sweet Matricia” (4.5 stars: I loved the narrative structure of this one, and it’s one of the more unique Selkie stories I’ve read)
• Larissa Lai, “Rachel” (1 star: see THE QUESTION below)
• Eden Robinson, “Terminal Avenue” (4 stars: another intellectually satisfying structure, and a chilling story at that)
• Nnedi Okorafor, “When Scarabs Multiply” (5 stars: sue me, it’s got a more traditional arc, but the world-building’s unique for a fantasy and it really engaged me with each page. I can’t wait to read more by this author!)
• Vandana Singh, “Delhi” (4.5 stars: while it felt at times a wee bit long, I was fascinated by the world-building and the introspection driving this piece.)
• Tamai Kobayashi, “Panopte’s Eye” (4 stars: the focus of women in a post-apocalyptic society was quite gripping)
• Sheree Thomas, “The Grassdreaming Tree” (2.5 stars: unfortunately, this story bears the brunt of the transition of me being healthy to being in the hospital to being on painkillers. Not a fair rating, I know, but it’s a long piece that felt longer when I didn’t feel well, and I’m still not sure what I was supposed to get out of it)
• Wayde Compton, “The Blue Road: A Fairy Tale” (4 stars: this was quite the entertaining piece, rather clever and witty. I’m still puzzling over the ending, but I enjoyed the story nonetheless)
• Karin Lowachee, “The Forgotten Ones” (4.5 stars: ah, I’m biased, as Lowachee’s the whole reason I bought the anthology! But I loved the shift in this story, in terms of who we see as human and who we don’t see as human in this story, and at the end, the truth is fascinating.)
• Greg van Eekhout, “Native Aliens” (5 stars: I wish I’d read this before his novel debut, but this is a great story that jumps between the future and the past with thematic relish. Loved the structure, as well as the message)
• Celu Amberstone, “Refugees” (4.5 stars: really fascinating SF story with a Native American foundation to the world-building. The ending I felt was a little rushed, and I wish we’d gotten a few more answers, but it’s a good piece)
• Devorah Major, “Trade Winds” (4 stars: a solid SF story that questions the particulars of what it means to be home)
• Carole McDonnell, “Lingua Franca” (4 stars: something of a heart-breaking story that focuses on colonization and the divide between parent and child. A good piece)
• Ven Begamudré, “Out of Sync” (3.5 stars: I liked this piece for its world-building and relationships, but I’m not quite sure what to get out of it. It’s one that would’ve benefited from a re-read, but I still liked it)
• Opal Palmer Adisa, “The Living Roots” (3 stars: my expectations worked against me here: I loved the world-building, but I kept expecting tensions to explode and then they wouldn’t. I expected conflict and got none. And I didn’t fully believe that Es’s people had been truly liberated from slavery, which made it hard to be happy for them.)
• Maya Khankhoje, “Journey Into the Vortex” (4 stars: oooh, I loved the way this piece played with time and place. A good story (and a love story to boot!), but dear author: if you read this, please change the font on your website from yellow to black. It’ll be SO MUCH EASIER TO READ!)
• Tobias S. Buckell, “Necahual” (3.5 stars: I have to admit, I was both pleased and disappointed to see a story set in the same world as his Crystal Rain series: pleased because he pulls it off well and you don’t feel like you’re missing anything, but disappointed because I wish he’d done something else, something not related. Still, it’s a good piece, and a great introduction to his work if you’re curious about Crystral Rain and its sequels.)

The Question

This is in regards to Larissa Lai’s “Rachel.”

I need someone to explain to me how copyright and public domain works. I know that public domain happens when the copyright has expired, which allows a work of fiction to be used by anyone for the sake of profit. This is why books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies can be published without fear of a lawsuit, and I believe Sherlock Holmes is public domain as well, which means authors can write all the Holmes and Watson romances they want, and, provided the work is good enough, get it published.

Where I’m confused is with Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. It would stand to reason that the characters are now public domain, based on the date the book was originally published (which was 1968 . . . wait a minute: that’s not 75 years!). But then there was this little movie called Blade Runner that came out back in 1982, and that copyright, for whatever it’s worth to the studio who owns it, definitely hasn’t expired (Am I wrong in thinking that things go public domain after 75 years?).

So what’s my problem? This story, “Rachel,” is essentially Blade Runner fanfic. And I’m not trying to insult the story by using that term, but I’m calling it like I see it. It quotes the movie exactly in certain parts, and clearly uses SCENES from the movie (scenes that were NOT in the book), and it’s all told from Rachel’s, the android’s, POV.

Not only am I confused about how this story was allowed to be published to make money for someone OTHER than the copyright holder, which I thought was a no-no for fanfic featuring characters that aren’t public domain, but I’m also just flat-out disappointed. The author takes what I found to be a very creepy scene in the movie and makes it something positive instead of creepy. I want creepy! I don’t want someone else’s interpretation of this scene, let alone any of the other scenes in the movie, no matter how fascinating they might be to the author. And I don’t want to know what’s in Rachel’s head either. Sure, it’s an interesting thought experiment, but if I wanted those answers, I’d buy some tribute anthology to Blade Runner, or go to fanfiction.net. I feel tricked into reading this story, and I would’ve much rather read an original work by this author, even if it was, essentially, the same kind of story, which is the story of an android who doesn’t know she’s an android living in a world where androids aren’t loved. That premise alone is great, and you can do a lot with it. I wish the author had taken that route instead of her tribute to a classic film.

But maybe I’m on crack and this story is perfectly legit and I’m therefore being a snob? I don’t have a dog in the fanfic debate: I’m not a published author whose work inspires fanfic, nor am I fanfic writer, so my thoughts on fanfic are moot. That said, I was always under the impression (indeed, my fanfic friends used this defense over and over when defending their work) that as long as proper disclaimers are given introducing the story (these aren’t my characters and I don’t own them, blah, blah, blah), and as long as said fanfic author isn’t making money on said fanfic story, that fanfic was legit. This story strikes out on both of those counts.

Have I been wrong all this time?

My Rating: 7 – Good Read

Overall, I was very pleased with this anthology. There are MANY stories here that deserve a re-read, so I suspect I’ll keep this sucker around so I can come back to it again and see what more I can get out of each story. There were a few stories that disappointed me, but overall, I was fascinated, engaged, and impressed. There’s solid writing in this anthology, and I’ve found some new authors to check out, which is always a good thing. If you’re interested in science fiction and fantasy written by authors of color, this is a fantastic place to start.

Cover Commentary: This cover has always appealed to me. I love the rich, earth colors, and for once, we have people of color on the cover! Could you imagine if this anthology had been white-washed? That would’ve been HORRIBLE. But anyway, I really like this cover, because it definitely tells the reader what they’re getting, although, the cover doesn’t scream SF or Fantasy, so I guess it doesn’t COMPLETELY tell you what you’re going to get…

Further Reading: for more themed short-story anthologies that I’ve reviewed, just click here. For more reviews of books by authors of color, click here.

More Reviews: If you reviewed this book but are not featured here, please comment below with a link to your review and I’ll add it below.

And as you already know, the October Book Club selection is Feed, by Mira Grant. Some of you may have started it already, but if need additional details on the title, just click here. Be sure to sign up here!

I first stumbled upon So Long Been Dreaming over at The Hathor Legacy, where Maria gave it a glowing review. Its subtitle is Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy, something which intrigued me. While I look for science fiction and fantasy that doesn’t involve the colonization narrative or are based on medieval Europe, I think only The Gaslight Dogs addressed a colonial narrative at all. (Karin Lowachee, who wrote The Gaslight Dogs, actually contributed a story to this collection.) I checked the Georgia PINES library system and discovered that there was exactly one copy of So Long Been Dreaming in circulation in all of Georgia. That, to me, is a bingo.

So Long Been Dreaming is a collection of short science fiction and fantasy stories written solely by authors of color. Some deal with war, some deal with assimilation, some deal with colonization–but all deal with the binary of the colonized and the colonizer, the native and the alien. By decentralizing traditionally Western stories, these authors get at some deeper truths concerning postcolonialism.

I don’t usually read short story collections by different authors; heck, I don’t usually read short story collections at all. (This is the second one I’ve ever read. No, I’m not kidding.) The quality tends to be a little uneven, and So Long Been Dreaming is no exception. There are wonderful short stories here, as well as other short stories that fall short of their potential. But even though some of these latter stories are fleeting or disregard the traditional plot structure (even short stories need those!), they still propose interesting viewpoints and decentralize the typical Western eye of speculative fiction, so they’re not a total loss as a contribution to postcolonial literature.

So Long Been Dreaming is split up into five sections–The Body, Future Earth, Allegory, Encounters with the Alien, and Re-Imagining the Past. Encounters with the Alien, simply because it is so large, is the best section, containing three of the best stories in the collection. Re-Imagining the Past is the least effective, perhaps because it comes after such a wonderful section and perhaps because the alternate history to some of the stories feels a little slapdash. Most of the stories in this collection are science fiction, since it naturally lends itself to a colonial narrative to deconstruct, but there are two fantasy stories included that make very good use of the genre; “When Scarabs Multiply” and “The Blue Road: A Fairy Tale”.

After a pair of mildly disappointing stories, the collection really picks up with Larissa Lai’s “Rachel”, which reimagines Rachel from Blade Runner as Chinese-American. The idea of coloring a character, as it were, is something that’s not new to fandom–I seem to recall there’s a small festival doing just that. But, as ever, I’m excited to see anything fannish in print alongside work that’s not, so I quite enjoyed “Rachel” on more than one level. The collection continues very strongly until the aforementioned last section, which I suppose suffers the same problem as the first two stories–they’re not fleshed out enough or obey traditional plot structure enough.

But the meat of the collection is quite good. The best stories are “When Scarabs Multiply”, “The Blue Road: A Fairy Tale”, “Trade Winds”, and “Lingua Franca”–the last of which is, I feel, the best story in the entire collection. “When Scarabs Multiply” is written by Nnedi Okorafor, credited as Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu here, a Nigerian-American author you might know for penning Who Fears Death, which, if her short story indicates anything about her skill, I need to read very soon. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic Sahara, as an egalitarian society reverts to an oppressive patriarchy. The writing is wonderful, the worldbuilding deft for such a short space, and the main character, a young girl, is interestingly complex. The poet Wayde Compton’s “The Blue Road: A Fairy Tale” ponders the narrative of a gentleman of color who immigrates to a city and assimilates more successfully than any other immigrant–but we’re left with the haunting image of him as a compromised human being. “Trade Winds”, by devorah major, plays on one of my favorite implications of science fiction–how do you truly understand a language that is so alien to you? It plays with it so beautifully that you almost don’t realize it’s a horror story until too late.

But I feel “Lingua Franca” is the standout of this collection. Carole McDonnell, the author, has only written one novel, Wind Follower, and you can bet it’s been put immediately on my reading list. “Lingua Franca” takes place on a world where humans cannot hear or speak; instead, they sign. But increasing pressure from the speaking humans they trade with has started a trend of surgeries that allow the colonized people to speak and hear, but it goes against one of the main religious tenets of their culture. It follows one woman as she struggles to keep her culture alive even as the next generation turns away from it. It’s impressively well done, and, as the best stories in this collection do, leaves the reader with a haunting image. So Long Been Dreaming is well worth a rental if only to read “Lingua Franca”, but it would be a shame to ignore all the other amazing postcolonial stories collected here.

Bottom line: The quality of the short stories in So Long Been Dreaming can be variant, but it’s still an amazing collection of postcolonial science fiction, with two fantasy stories thrown in for good measure. Carole McDonnell’s haunting “Lingua Franca” steals the show, but each story decentralizes the typical Western viewpoint of speculative fiction and contributes to postcolonial literature.

I rented this book from the public library.

Until then, here are some summer recommendations from some authors you may know. Thanks to John McMurtrie from the SF Chronicle for the compilation:

Tamin Ansary: The Witch’s Trinity by Erika Mailman

Susie Bright: Pagan Time: An American Childhood by Michael Perks

Terry Castle: The Best of It: New and Selected Poems by Kay Ryan

Michael Chabon: The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson

Caroline De Robertis: Broken April by Ismail Kadare

Dave Eggers: The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

Zoe Ferraris: Small Kingdoms by Anastasia Hobbet

Charlie Haas: Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deidre Madden

Diane Johnson: Kitchen Chinese: A Novel About Food, Family and Finding Yourself  by Ann Mah

Michael Lewis: Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro’s Gulag by Armando Valladares

Yiyuan Li: Hunts in Dreams by Tom Drury

devorah major: Yellow Moon by Jewell Parker

Geoffrey Numberg: Parisians: An Adventure of Paris by Graham Robb

Arnold Rampersad: White Egrets by Derek Walcott

Mary Roach: Poorly Made in China: An Insiders Account of the Tactics Behind China’s Production Game by Paul Midler

TJ Stiles: Hadji Murad by Leo Tolstoy

David Thompson: Wolf Solent by John Cowper

Abraham Verghese: Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin’s Disease by Charlotte Jacobs

Vendela Vida: Popular Music From Vittula by Mikael Niemi

Nei giorni 17, 18 e 19 luglio 2009 nell’incredibile scenario naturale e paesaggistico del Parco dei Camaldoli, nell’Anfiteatro del Golfo, si svolgerà una nuova straordinaria edizione di Napolipoesia nel Parco.

L’evento, promosso dall’Ente Parco Metropolitano delle Colline di Napoli e curato da Casa della poesia, vedrà la partecipazione di grandi autori internazionali, spesso in interazione con musicisti di varie aree musicali.
L’obiettivo è duplice: realizzare a Napoli uno dei più importanti ed ampi eventi poetici internazionali e valorizzare un progetto così straordinario e innovativo, come il Parco Metropolitano delle Colline di Napoli, attraverso un prodotto culturale, spettacolare, di eccellenza.

Gli Incontri internazionali prevedono la presenza di 15 tra i maggiori poeti contemporanei, provenienti da diverse nazioni e continenti. I poeti vivranno per almeno tre giorni la città e il Parco, insieme ai loro colleghi e amici, ai musicisti, a studenti, giovani scrittori e appassionati.

Il tema di questa edizione “lo spirito dei luoghi”, vuole analizzare il legame tra tradizione e modernità, tra culture dei territori e sviluppo sostenibile, tra necessità di comunicazioni globali ed esigenza di tutela delle diversità.

Tra i poeti invitati alcune autentiche star e grandi poeti emergenti, ampiamente riconosciuti nel proprio paese, stelle in ascesa a livello internazionale.

Personaggio straordinario, Taslima Nasrin, del Bandladesh, donna e scrittrice, perseguitata e in fuga, icona di libertà, di lotta, di resistenza, di emancipazione della donna nel mondo islamico.

Tony Harrison, probabilmente il maggiore poeta di lingua inglese contemporaneo e uno dei più famosi e pubblicati al mondo. Poeta come “corrispondente dal fronte e come storico e coscienza della sua epoca”.

Dalla California, tre straordinarie poetesse e tre interpreti di una poesia performativa, di forte interazione con la musica jazz, l’afroamericana Devorah Major, Genny Lim, di discendenze cinesi e inuit, Opal Palmer Adisa, di discendenza caraibica jamaicana. Tre grandi voci, e tre grandi canti di libertà e amore.

Viene dalla Spagna, Juan Carlos Mestre, poeta-cantastorie visionario che con la sua fisarmonica propone immagini nelle quali realtà e invenzione si miscelano in maniera sublime in atmosfere incantate.

Paul Polansky, personaggio quasi leggendario di americano che vive da anni nei Balcani. “Voce dei senza voce”, “voce degli esclusi”, megafono poetico del popolo più maltrattato ed oppresso della storia, quello “rom”.
Viene dal deserto del Sahara, il grido di resistenza del popolo tuareg nella poesia e nel canto di Hawad, poeta, calligrafo, ambasciatore di una cultura nomade di cui è erede.

Adel Karasholi, siriano, tra i più importanti poeti arabi contemporanei. Vivendo da molti anni in Germania è diventato un vero ponte tra la cultura araba e quella europea. Appassionato e studioso di Brecht, riesce a far incontrare tradizione araba, densa di emozioni e di canto, ricca di metafore, con la tradizione “profana” della poesia tedesca moderna.

Dai Carabi, dalla bellissima e poverissima Haiti Louis-Philippe Dalembert, uomo-tartaruga, come si definisce lui stesso, trascina il suo “sogno di ritorno” dall’Europa all’Africa del Nord, dal Medio Oriente all’Africa Nera, passando per le Americhe e per gli altri paesi dei Carabi, in un canto malinconico dell’erranza e della memoria.

E da altre isole, le Azzorre, viene il portoghese Ivo Machado, portando con sé, come ogni isolano, nell’espressione, nel sentimento, nel tempo, la memoria insondabile di venti, onde, maree, il desiderio del viaggio assieme a quello del ritorno, il desiderio di libertà e di conoscenza.

Dall’Africa nera, la magia, i colori, i ritmi del continente bellissimo e martoriato, una delle figure emergenti della nuova poesia africana, Gabriel Okoundji.

Michel Cassir è nato in Egitto, cresciuto in Libano, vissuto in Messico e ora in Francia. Quella di Cassir è una vera poesia del Mediterraneo, che profuma di spezie e di salsedine, che fa incontrare uomini e culture, che diventa luogo d’arrivo di memorie collettive e condivise.

A rappresentare la poesia italiana contemporanea due tra i migliori interpreti napoletani, da tempo ormai assurti a livello nazionale ed internazionale e tra le voci più originali ed importanti del circuito, Mariano Bàino e Michele Sovente.

Mariano Bàino è stato tra i poeti che negli anni ’90 hanno animato in Italia un dibattito su moderno e postmoderno, avanguardia e tradizione, e, più in generale, sul mutare delle strutture comunicative e sugli effetti di derealizzazione nella società massmediale, utilizzando spesso ironia e giocosità.

Michele Sovente è certamente uno dei più originali ed apprezzati poeti italiani contemporanei. Le tre lingue nelle quali si esprime si propongono come tre lingue diverse, ma sorelle, che si rincorrono e s’insinuano l’una nell’altra: il latino, l’italiano, il dialetto di Cuma.

Una magnifica occasione per i napoletani e tutti i campani per riscoprire questo luogo magnifico ricco di storia e di natura preservata che è il Parco dei Camaldoli, poco conosciuto e frequentato, di ammirare lo splendido panorama dell’anfiteatro che si affaccia su tutto il Golfo con l’isola di Capri di fronte.

Un’occasione irripetibile, per i non napoletani, di visitare una città bellissima, di immergersi nelle sue bellezze e nella sua cultura e di trascorrere tre serate ascoltando versi di poeti di tutto il mondo.
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Ulteriori informazioni sui poeti e sull’evento:
http://www.napolipoesia.org
http://www.casadellapoesia.org

Parco Metropolitano delle Colline di Napoli
081/7966966 – 081/7966060

Casa della poesia
089/951621 – 089/953869 – 347/6275911 – 328/8459483

(Piazza Plebiscito, Napoli, foto di Bianca Madeccia)

For October, five Cave Canem poets will be present. The Cave Canem Foundation is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.

Four of the poets are the featured readers. These include award-winning poet and prose writer Opal Palmer Adisa; Tap-Root author Indigo Moor; former San Francisco Poet Laureate devorah major; and, Marvin K. White, author of two LAMBDA Literary Award-nominated poetry collections. Poet Camille Dungy will emcee. More information about Cave Canem can be found at www.cavecanempoets.org.

This evening starts at 7 p.m. and ends at 9 p.m. We welcome all who enjoy the opportunity to share the love of poetry with others. Questions? Email to jwinkelstein@aclibrary.org