Trinidad, a photosynthesis, PT. 1

This summer I had the immense pleasure of spending a week in my homeland of Trinidad and Tobago with my friend and fellow poet Queen Godis. Follow the link below to get a peek into our day in Laventille hills, through poetry, photography and digital media!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bCoHA5Hcfo

The Art of Risking

Risk is a topic artists often talk, discuss. When poets look over each others poems and give constructive thoughts, the question often comes: what is this poem risking?

What do poets risk by making our private thoughts public? By committing experiences, afflictions, lies, and shames to paper? What do we risk to gain? What do we risk to know? What do we risk to change? What do we risk to reveal? What do we risk to risk?

This risk business can become all very abstract.

I believe that every poem is a risk of some sort. Even if the risk is spending precious time on something that sucks.

We were five poets strong on this bustling Saturday in New York City. Any one of us could have been doing many other things. We risk time.

I had to tear myself away from my novel, which was actually going well for once. I risk momentum.

Joining us for the first time, Ngoma rolled out of bed and flew straight downtown to meet us. He risks a growling stomach.

This September 11, I was on my way to the Bowery Poetry Club to do a taping of the Illiad. I was to be Helen of Troy. I hopped the 6 where a veteran for peace was speaking against war, which inevitably means speaking against this country's policies.

Standing not far from him, a stalwart American, much younger in years, began shouting, dubbed him anti-American. By the time I exited the train, the two men had come to blows.

And all I could think about was PUP. We risk getting beat up.

I believe greatly in risk. Tangible risk. Risk you can rub between your fingers and smear on a wall. Risk that changes climates, not just weather.

I think to the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, who, after his poems incited revolt and got him arrested in 1938, was tortured, placed knee deep in shit on the warship where his trial was held. To survive that stench he sang at the top of his lungs every love poem he knew.

He risked everything.

Now here I was on the train listening to Adam our resident songbird, blessing our ears with:

If you all right say yeah. Yeah. If you all right say yeah. Yeah...

Though his heart may have been racing like this train, his face showed no fear. I was so inspired by his willingness to bear that burden of being first today. That risk. I never take for granted all of the work a poet must do to meet at the Ghandi statue. To swipe that card and stand clear of the closing doors. To see all of these people peacefully reading, dreaming inside their I-Pods, carrying on conversations. Then to interrupt all of that. To be so bombastic in this belief that this lump in the throat is so crucial that it must bogard the silences between us.

As Adam launched into his piece, I thought. What will I risk?

And so, I had to pull out my ode to twins.

Yes, boobs.

It is a discussion of the body. My body. Its wild ways. And toward the end, I cupped my breasts in the middle of this train car and I felt no fear. Because of this, I know I am freer today than I was yesterday. I risk nothing.



Ngoma was a crazy man! I will ride the train with this brother anytime. He filled the potentially awkward silences with his singing, swinging around, and pushing his pelvis into the pole as he made love to Nefertiti inside the imagination of his poem. He was so incredibly free.





Jon will stun the air with a poem in the voice of the black woman he once overheard on a bus in Queens, then turn around with his white boy litany, a self portrait that juxtaposes how he sees himself with how others see him-- through the prism, race.



And Marcy. Ever since the earthquake hit her mother country, this poem has been coming. It begins with a mournful song. Once people realized the poem was about Haiti they paid extra close attention. I could hear the tears rising up in her throat and wondered if she would make it. Gut wrenching, her line about Haitians worshipping a white Jesus, only to find their own faces white with dust.



Afterwards I told her that I had never heard that piece. Her response: I've never done it before.

Risk.

On one of our rides a stranger was moved to take center stage and start free styling, making us all clap and rejoice. In that brief moment between not knowing and knowing, I thought he was one of us. And he was.



Some physicists believe when you drop a stone into a pond, the ripples last forever.
These are probably the same physicists who believe that every moment lasts an infinity.
And in the physics of words, I believe both of these theories to be true.

In her poem, "One Art", Elizabeth Bishop instructs us to lose something every day.

I would like to replace lose with risk.


--Samantha Thornhill

Gleaming in Mansion and Moonlight, a Toilet Tale of South Africa

June 8, 2010. Right before I boarded my Emirates flight from Dubai to Johannesburg, I picked South Africa’s Guardian from a buffet of South African newspapers splayed out for the boarding passengers. Aside from the president’s personal affairs, most of the paper covered the World cup, which was to officially begin in three days. I could certainly feel the fever there on this here plane. A flock of Mexicans in their green Adidas soccer jerseys and gargantuan sombreros certainly added to the noise level especially with the help of all you can drink booze. I was surprised to find a smattering of empty seats—a foreshadowing of what I was to later learn. That as a whole, South Africa and FIFA expected more people. Imagine entire hotels, built in anticipation and never used. Bars that bought flat screens hoping their counters would be packed with elbows only to find them near empty, night after night.

The most compelling news of the day concerned Cape Town, a place I can see myself building a life someday. The headline “Township Toilet Wars” snagged my eye along with the photo of a simple toilet standing in broad daylight in someone’s yard. Toilet disputes were going down in Khayelitsha, the massive ghetto that accompanies one for most of the journey from Cape Town’s airport to town, miles and miles of shacks.



For decades, township residents have lived without proper sanitation. The DA, the governing party in Cape Town, installed toilets minus enclosures for families throughout the townships, inspiring feelings of insult among township residents. The rivaling political party, the ANC Youth League responded in an uproar, for the blatant lack of dignity the poor were being afforded by being expected to defecate in broad daylight. The president of the DA, however, claimed that they wanted to encourage the families to take ownership and build their own enclosures, their argument being that people should take initiative and not always expect handouts from the government. To appease the uproar, the DA began building ramshackle enclosures, some of which members of the ANC Youth League subsequently tore down, stating that they should dignify the poor by building proper concrete enclosures so that families can feel secure and well protected. These actions lead to volatile conflicts between the protestors and the police force. So here we have two political parties who once fought together against the Apartheid regime, fighting in the streets over an issue so intimate to our every day lives as Americans. Here, using the bathroom is a political act. To shit or not to shit?



*

Dusk as Langa transported me from OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg to my guest house in Pretoria, which some call the capital of Apartheid. The stunning tree canopied roads made me feel I was in a wonderland, that is, until I spotted the high, razor-wired walls encasing ashamed mansions.



Trickling from the gates of these homes are the working class, leaving after a long day to return to their respective township. I wondered for the mental shift even the most accustomed day laborer must make to leave the township so early each morning to clean the insides, manicure the grasses of these concrete monstrosities. To relieve yourself in a bucket at night to avoid having to go outside the comfort and safety your home, only to enter these high walls in the morning with 10 toilets to gleam.



*

June 10, 2010: My first evening in Cape Town, I found myself accompanying Teba (who I write snail mail letters to all year long) and Langa to the townships to run errands. We went to the Marcus Garvey a section in the Phillipa where the Rastas reside. On the way there, Teba popped in his new reggae track entitled “No!” which he wrote out of anger and grief after a member of the Marcus Garvey Rasta community was murdered unexpectedly in his home in the night.

It was well past dusk and the streets were clear, save for the sad packs of mongrel dogs. While the strays in Trinidad have a habit of lying down in the middle of the street, only to raise up just before the knowing Trini driver advances with aggression, these dogs chase your car as you leave, sometimes coming so close to the wheels it is understandable why at least one dog in the pack walks and runs on only three legs.

In Marcus Garvey, I waited outside in the quiet, semi dark. And in the front yard of one of the shacks I spotted a toilet, vulnerable and stark in the night, gleamed by the rag of moon.

Birthing the Staccatode, a nonce form

In 2001 in Tallahassee during Black on Black Rhyme week, I taught a poetry workshop to my peers. There, I shared my short poem, Prince Charmin'.

Prince Charmin'

I want
a man like
toilet paper

gentle enough
to wipe
away my tears

strong enough
to take
all my shit


We began discussing short poems (that aren't haiku.) What do short poems accomplish that longer works cannot? How does silence serve us then? And since there are so few words how is the title then forced to function in the larger message of the poem? And what to name this poem?

Thus, the staccato was born. Staccato is a short and detached note of music. Think staccato fire.

*

Two criteria for staccato:

1. Brief, though no prescribed length

2. Title should be integral, enhances the experience of the poem greatly.


*

My Half Brother

Man! What happened to your legs?

-Staccato by Keith Rodgers

*

Staccatoes come in all types ranging from raw, disturbing, thought-provoking, silly, and just downright laugh out loud funny. And yes, clever. Outside of a handful, I never did write too terribly many and felt like less than a person whenever I would speak to Keith, who would always ask, write any staccatoes lately? Keith however, has been mastering the craft and has kept the form alive on fb and in the form of poetry workshops to young people, who love them!

*

Meanwhile, thanks to Senor Pablo Neruda, I have been entertaining an obsession of my own. You guessed it...the ode. Most commonly they are said to be poems of praise, though I like to call them poems of dedication. Really for me it becomes an honest conversation to or about something that matters about stuff that matters. Robert Hass once told me that all poems were once odes.

*

Today my head is almost as empty as the sky seems. Just returned stateside from a month long poetry tour in South Africa, I have very few words. But I want to write something. And so I open my pen, and ink, all over my hands.


*

Staccato + Ode: = Staccaode!!

*
#1
Staccatode to My Rolling Writer Pen

Black woman
you explode
when we fly



Just a first stab. We'll see what happens...

Write up of Yours Truly in a South Africa paper

The below link is to an article published last week in a local paper here in South Africa. Upon my arrival to Pretoria, a journalist at Pretoria News, Kgomotso Moncho, a lover of the arts, greeted me warmly at a down town cafe where we sat for some time and conversed. As we spoke, Kgomotso's eyes flashed with the curiosity of a blade and her questions were simple and most probing. Our interaction was warm, full of laughter, and this article is the result of it. Enjoy!

http://www.tonight.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5514769

Forever young, an evening to remember

Cave Canem headquarters in DUMBO is a lovely, inviting space for a poetry, especially with Rachel Eliza Griffith's photos of Black poets splashed across the walls. Mama Lucille and Nikkey Finney, holding hands and laughing. Dear Rita, on her ballroom floor, about to take flight.

The audience consisted mostly of the middle school aged poets there to present, along with their supportive parents. Tonight was a reading celebration of young writers, who have been working hard all year on their writings with the help of Ms. Raspberry, a woman who does her job, does it well, and damn, damn, it showed, shined through each their works. Any one can tell that a whole lot of nurturing went into them in order for their pens to shine so like gems.

Thankfully, I have been privy to many talented poets and writers of the next generation, a generation said to be lost. When I first started doing this work, I often found myself surprised by the sheer intellect and imagination that springs from youthful pens. Sometimes when youth shine we adults tend to watch them in equal parts awe and surprise--underestimating them all this while. But I have learned that once a young person is handed a pen, a violin, the opportunity, guidance, encouragement, they flourish, as all flowers should, once they are given permission to tap into that magical space inside of them. The only reason it is a surprise to us is because we do not see it enough. So we gotta do what we can about that.

As I listened to the young people tonight, the 12 year old girl contemplating the purpose of socialization, the 12 year old boy who wrote a litany to jazz that made my mouth almost break under the weight of my grin. After intermission a woman sang operas to poems about the F train & Brooklyn, all written by Brooklyn youth.

I closed out the evening with a 25 minute set. My day had been long. It started with a early morning faculty meeting at Juilliard, one that lasted 3 1/2 hours as we discussed each first year student in depth. From there I rushed to the Bronx, sailing into my journalism classroom seconds after the bell rang. Fifty minutes later, I make the trek from Bronx to Brooklyn. and got there just in time to hear the first set of poets. And when I stepped on stage, my stomach was growling, awakened by the pulverized banana I had just scarfed down seconds before they called my name.

But you know, I went up there, all 5 of the youth poets watching me expectantly from the front row, and suddenly I had all the energy in the world for them. All tiredness evaporated from my shoulders, tense from hiking up the subway stairs with my books on my back. I performed a Lucille Clifton, 3 odes, and read from my chapter book as well as the first chapter of my YA novel, set in Trinidad. Vulnerable an experience as any, it was my first time reading this chapter aloud to anyone, more less and audience of kids and their parents--it felt like an anointing, a blessing. This particular chapter of Seventeen Seasons addresses the leatherback turtles that are born in Trinidad only to venture out into the wide blue world and return to their birthplace to lay their eggs.

Afterwards, I was vibing with the striking young boy that wrote the jazz litany. I noticed his eyes had been fiercely attentive as I shared my work, fixed on me 95% of the time. He's a math and science kid, who recently picked up the pen and now adores the practice. He said he enjoyed the bursts of Trinidadian culture in my novel. I revealed to him that I've had to return to Trinidad in more ways than one in order to achieve what he sensed.

And he responded: so you're the turtle.

Translating

After leaving Juilliard, where my first year students put up Pecong, set in the Caribbean. It is a beautiful monster of a play, one that left me with thoughts, heavy on my brain, as heavy as my desire for a strawberry margarita at CPK, where I went afterward, to unpack the tickles and disturbances that emerge from the witnessing. I mused on infanticide and the power dynamic between women and men--especially in the Caribbean.

But I didn't have too much time to muse. I myself was supposed to be performing at a center in the Bronx that support the drug addicted. My buddy Jon teaches a poetry workshop t here once a week and it was to be his first one. He asked me to come in as a guest poet. And when I arrive there, and enter the room, Jon is speaking Spanish to the participants and looks at me sheepishly. It turned out half of the group did not speak English!

Sorry for the curve ball, Jon said. I shrugged. I didn't mind. I was up for the challenge, an inevitable learning experience.

Performing my poems for a crowd not of my tongue was perhaps as vulnerable and as freeing as doing poems to an entire train car. To know straight off that I will not be understood by half my audience was freeing in a that's life kind of way. The circumstances forced me to ponder the idea of being not understood yet comprehended. I have to believe that something translates--every song does. My poems are songs. I know this now more than ever, especially after working long hours on my next CD.

I did three poems. I felt myself naturally working more with my hands, to let the poem speak through my body as well. Some listened with wide eyed appreciation. Others looked down in their laps. One woman shrugged afterwards, as if to say, I don't know what to say because I don't know what you said. While the man on the other side never let the smile leave his face. I appreciated the experience, and will take from it as much as I possibly can.

All I can do sometimes is thank the skies for the places its powers put me in.

PUP Barks: A Dream Fulfilled

Ever since my talk with Khadijah, where she mentioned doing poems in a grocery store, the dream has been relentless. It is a waking dream. It involves me performing my ode to picking blackberries in the produce section.

Today the dream came true, and Elana and Akua showed up to star in it, outside of Whole Foods, our next target. Moses, our filmographer was also there, ready to capture these moments, as he did on the trains with us almost a week ago.

How were we to do it? And how many poems could we get in before security arrived?

We plotted. Weighed the unknowns. But in the end, we headed downstairs not knowing what to expect, much like our unsuspecting audience. And so, as shoppers buzzed past me with their carts and their lists, I pulled out my carton of blackberries and began to recite my poem while eating them--more challenging than I thought. But it felt something like flying, as I approached customers with my discovery, these wondrous blackberries that I came across one day in the woods off the coast of Seattle.

My legs took me all over the produce section as I said my poem to whoever would listen. Some people stopped to behold the activity with clear appreciation, while others scattered like roaches in sudden light at the sight of me--particularly the couple fondling the lemons, the ones I approached to tell them about this marvelous gift.

When I ended, Elana, in the fish section, tapped a stranger on the back and began reciting her poem about eel--the first line mentions her walking to the refrigerator naked. The worker weighing tilapia raised his eyebrows at the sudden intimacy, and as the customer recieved his fish and scurried away, Elana began to continue her poem to the worker, who listened with clear amusement. The moment was beyond priceless, as customers bumped into one another in trying to flee or to catch a listen.

A few people who stopped to listen to me tuned into Elana, who was speaking to the whole store now. Workers scurried around us, not wanting to interrupt or get in the way of the camera, not quite knowing what to do. We simply took over. When Elana was finished, a small applause.

But it wasn't over. Because Akua emerged with a love poem in the flower section, nearby. The repeat customers stood and obeyed the moment, arrested by her words. By then, our number was up. A worker was on his way with a walkie talkie. We found that Whole Foods was less concerned about the fact that we broke out in poems in their store and more concerned with the fact that we were taping, and so Moses was asked to turn off his camera, as Akua finished up her poem and we dipped.

Outside, on the pavement, we rejoiced, eating the rest of my blackberries. A couple from inside, our captive audience, stopped to speak congratulate us and find out more. In true guerilla fashion, no business cards as yet, Elana tore off a piece of her eel poem and I used it to write down the information to this blog.

So nice couple with the cute baby, if you are reading this, thanks for letting us know how much you enjoyed our performances. Your encouragement meant so much. Go tell your friends that today, you got PUPPED!

PUP Barks: A Magnificent Seven

From left to right, Samantha , Jon, Ed, Elana, Akua, Adam & Jai.

A Magnificent Seven

Sunday afternoon found me at Union Square Park in the drizzling rain waiting for poets to show. Ones that promised, ones that didn't. Ones I had successfully convinced to join me in this venture I've been stewing across a string of experiences. Unhingings I like to call them.

It started almost 10 years ago in Tallahassee, where I was born into spoken word. I was younger then and much more fearless. With my poetry troupe (BACK TALK!) I used to do poems on the streets of New Orleans and everywhere else we travelled. Keith and I used to perform poetry and hustle our CD's in barbershops on Fridays (pay day). And more recently: my 40 minute featture at a 7,000 person audience in Prospect Park--99% of them definitely not there for poetry. A needle exchange program in midtown, the one by buddy Jon runs. Rikers Island Jail. The health clinic waiting room where I performed poems while people waited to get screened for HIV. Halfway through my set I asked the audience if they had ever been to a poetry venue. They watched me. I asked them if they liked poetry. The answer: we do now.

That equal parts warmed me and angered me. I do not think I should be someone's first good impression of poetry but I was happy to have to do for the time being.

Then there was Roger's poem, which was about him reading a poem he loved on a train , only for the riveted audience to learn in the end that the incident never happened.

I asked myself: well why the hell not?

And so I started PUP--Poets in Unexpected Places. And this Sunday was our first official meeting. First to show was Moses, not one of the poets, but a photographer/ aspsiring filmmaker who is passionate about our venture and was happy to capture it. Seven poets, a magnificent seven, showed on this drippy day, all in varying moods and states of mind, to gather in front of the statue of Ghandi hardly anyone knew was there until now. The locale was no coincidence. This had everything to do with being the change.

An hour later, we found ourselves underground, all seven of us boarding the Brooklyn bound Q train as perfect strangers, everyone seating themselves...except for me. And so it begins. The inst ant the doors closed I announced to the entire car:

"Miss Rosie. A poem by the late great American poet, Lucille Clifton."

Elana would later tell me that the moment I uttered the Lucille Clifton's name, a woman across from her smiled--an auspicious blessing to our debut as a collective.

And without an inch of fear in my heart, just love, I launched into one of my favorite poems in the world. The commut-iny had officially begun!

My captive audience knew not what to make of me. I hardly even looked in their faces., so I cannot say what they looked like. I reveled in not caring. How liberating. Not caring about anything but the words of Lucille Clifton belting out of me. This was the closest a poem not mine could ever be to being mine. And here I was, sharing it with 50+ new friends. What insane fun.

The commuters that put me in the crazy box lifted their eyes when in the second stanza, of "Miss Rosie" Elana rose and joined me, also off paper--a group piece! If folk didn't know it then, they knew it now: this was no accident. And if I was a crazy girl, then I wasn't being crazy all by myself. Because here was Elana, my partner in crime (literally, now) finishing my lines and meeting my gaze for an instant only to whip around attack the other end of the car.

"I stand up," Elana and I said in unison. "Through your destruction/ I stand up."

We sat down. Say Word! I yelled.

Some people looked about, delightfully confused. Whose universe had they just walked into? Ours, dammit. Others remained cool like they see this every day. Liars. I was certain they were exploding inside. Some swallowed their smiles and others made billboards of them, advertising their glee.

One by one, each with their own swaggalicious attitude, the poets made themselves known. Akua liberated her hands of her umbrella, tossing it down to the floor. Pacing the car front to back, front to back, she shared with us her thoughts on "nappy headed hoes" and mused on her own cantankerous mane. She was great to watch, swinging around poles like a pro, sometimes even stooping to address certain people directly, a graceful confrontation.

Say word! Word...

They weren't quite there yet, but were starting to warm up to us. Suspicion fell away. Conversations stopped. I-pods clicked off (or turned up!); headphones remained on for protection. Especially when Jon stepped on the scene with his goofball intelligence and sharp poetic logic. His imagery is so disarmingly off the wall it makes you think. Like really think. While tickling you with its feathers that soared across the car. People began to smile with teeth now. Laughed, even. They couldn't help themselves.

Say Word! Word.

Only for Jai to rise, June Jordan book in hand. Hoodie covered head, he read with this stance , turning the train into his surf board. I've seen Jai perform countless times and I have never seen him perform like this. We were no longer on an elevated stage confined behind a microphone. We were underground, baby! Straight up guerrilla style! People to maneuver. Shopping bags to side step. Babies to consider. Poles to swing on and cling to for emphasis, safety, dramatic effect. The train became a playground. And everywhere each of us looked, at least one of the magnificent seven were there , to support the moment.

The Q train emerged from the underground, plunging the car into daylight. A stunning view of Brooklyn assaulted our gazes, its brown buildings. The dreary day created an intimacy that could only help our cause. Which is to say, finding the comfort outside of the comfortable. Which means, being much less silent than we have been. Ambassadors for our craft. Making it known that poetry lives and breathes--often right beside them. People looked about. Who would it be next? And why was no one asking for change? We were simply being it.

Say word! Word!

Awkward moments passed, even for me. Three poets left to go before we finished this round and hopped another train. Silence. Were people chickening out? Commuters looked about. No one knew who they were sitting next to. Was that the last? Others looked suspiciously about at others. Are you next? Are you? Then Ed, who had been seemingly engrossed in a text stood and began to read from his own chap book. Alien Registration Number? he asked. Cleverly weaved, with very few words, he made his point without making it, and every immigrant in the car couldn't help but smile in silent recognition, including me.

And just when they thought they heard it all, here comes Adam. Adam who is so damn charming and disarming it makes your teeth hurt. Grabbing onto the pole dramatically, like an old curmudgeon telling us youngings a tale of his wild youth, Adam spit a poem about his younger days, when he was first learning to dance to Black music. The nostalgia of remembering all the embarrassing things we did to impress our peers, we chuckled and laughed emerged from the poem incredibly warmed.

There was the demon train, where very few people showed appreciate for us. We later discovered that the cars in that particular model are considerably longer than the newer models, and the chairs aren't conducive to energy flowing, making us work incredibly hard, not realizing why. That train was draining but I loved it! The demon train. Next time we'll be ready for it.

One car in particular, the "love train" we came to call it, was so outwardly appreciative of our presence we left the car overwhelmed with the sound of their clapping trailing us. They applauded more appreciatively than some slam audiences of today. By the third poet in, they were warmed and with us, and understood what we were about. At the end of that ride with the love train, the most amazing 20 minutes of concentrated joy I've lived in recent memory, after everyone else said their piece, I stood up.

Full circle when I launched into one of my personal favorites. The first poem I ever did on a train--two months prior. It was a Wednesday morning as dreary as this Sunday afternoon. Except I was alone, and surrounded by strangers. Not alone and forever lonely. It was one of those dreaded mornings, a personal struggle to get out of bed. I was on the first of my three train commutes to Juilliard where I teach. It's a great place to be, but I wasn't quite sure how I was going to do it today. I looked around. Everyone looked as I felt. As we crammed our bodies into the car , waddling into one another like penguins in our black winter coats. Huddling without touching. Touching without being touched.

My heart racing with fear, with amazing rage, one that is growing in me with each passing day, welled up out my throat and exited in the form of "Signs", one that slipped out my pen years ago in Charlottesville, VA where I attended grad school. This is a poem that has made its travels. South African television (people, stopping me on the streets), Prospect Park Bandshell, Trinidad, prisons, Bar 13, Bowery, Nuyorican, and bars and coffee shops across the country.

And here I was. In a place I spend more time in than any of those places. And instead of the whine of the latte machine or the loquacious guests at the bar, my competition was the rattle of this express train raping its rails.

I went to the end of the car and looked at these people we demanded be our audience. The MTA frowns on this behavior because this here, was a captive audience. Captive indeed. And inside that audience, six magnificent faces stared back at me, these people I will never, ever forget. This moment. I was not alone or lonely this time.

"The same thing that slowly kills us is exactly the thing keeping us alive."

This time the response was overwhelming, as the crowd roared. Moments later, the car doors open. We thanked our audience for listening (even though they had no choice) and they thanked us profusely with their well wishes and lasting clapped. Before we left the car, we said: You just got PUPPED!

After two hours, we all ate afterwards and stewed in what had just taken place, recalling moments, trading observations, gratifying moments, disintergrated terror, what worked and what didnt. But mostly we teased: jai's surf board stance, akua's confrontation ed's stalker piece, when he yelled a line out the door to an exiting commuter right before the doors closed.

I reached home in the early evening and plunged beneath the covers, the hardest I think I ever performed. It was brutal; it was benign. It was freeing. It was draining. So much so that I did not get out of bed until the following morning, when I woke up, full and full of disbelief, bypassed breakfast, and visited my work station to write this.

Samantha & Khadijah Queen Create SPACE

Happening in:
NYC * L.A. * D.C. * Bal timore * Tampa Bay * Tallahassee * Charleston, WV * Kansas City * Seattle * Tucson, AZ * Detroit * and more!

SPACE: Simultaneous Public Acts of Creative Expression

Samantha Thornhill and Khadijah Queen have both done this before. Samantha stood up on a subway one weary day and belted out a poem that freed her from its weight. Since then, Samantha formed PUP -- Poets in Unexpected Places. In 2007 Khadijah set up canvas and easel in the middle of downtown Atlanta to paint the words passersby used to describe themselves, and in the process created an ongoing love affair with public performance art.

When we met up earlier this month and discussed our respective acts, we brainstormed further: What if all the creative people we knew around the country were doing what they do in public, all at the same time? The possibility was too electrifying to ignore.

When:
Saturday, May 1. 12:01 am - 11:59pm

Rationale:
April is Poetry Month. But we believe poetry and the creative arts should be celebrated beyond official designations. Let's b ring the arts to the people in unexpected places with the intention of connecting positively, to use the arts to energize the public sphere.

Who:
Dancers. Writers. Artists. Musicians. Famous or not. Professional or not. Children and mothers and fathers and grandparents. Mechanics and students. Your poem or Walt Whitman's. Your song or Lady Day's. If you have a desire to participate in a live act of mass creativity, grab some friends and join in.

Suggestions:
Choose creatively, but be respectful of the place. We want this to be an act of honoring the arts and presenting it to people when they least expect to see/hear it. Getting arrested or thrown out is counterproductive. Do ballet on the beach at sunset. Kick a poem in the produce section. Sit cross-legged and paint on top of your parked car in a parking lot. Bust out a haiku at the drive-thru. Be safe, and -- well -- creative!

Capturing:
If you can have a photographer or videographer document your act, great! If not, send us an email about the experience and what it meant to you. Photos are welcome also. We are creating a website where images and videos and stories will be posted.


Contact:
art.creates.space@gmail.com

Juggling

Get a call from my a dear friend today as I am walking to the train station right after workshop with the wonderful senior citizens. When he asks how I am doing, I think of the never ending to do list lodged inside my cerebrum, the joyful checking off of things. In fact, I am headed home to finish layout for the next edition of the student newspaper I generate with 15 kids in the Bronx, an undertaking that devoured my weekend whole. I think of the stack of poems to critique in time for my Juilliard students tomorrow.

To his question I can only respond with: juggling, love, juggling.

Moments later I am underground waiting for the next train, the first of three to whisk me home. Something grabs the corner of my eye and I glance. And right beside me is a man in the blue overalls of an auto mechanic, three initials stitched into the patch on his chest, his neck and knuckles tattooed like an ex gang member.

One red, one white and one blue, ADF gracefully juggles three balls.

Gig @ CSI--A day of many firsts

It was a full day of many firsts. Morning with the Juilliard actors. Afternoon with my newspaper kids in the Bronx. My third gig of the day landed me at College of Staten Island where I was to present poems and answer questions for two hours.

Now that I had a tangible purpose, this was my first time venturing to Staten Island--home of Wu-tang Clan who I danced to in Denver last week, danced hard.

At the station when I asked some women where to purchase ferry tickets, they answered it was free. I was startled and pleased. Look, I hadn't even arrived in Staten Island yet and already I felt like a tourist, a tourist in my own town. I would later learn that Guiliani, who also hailed from Staten Island explains the free ferries.

My friend Tyehimba, who invited me to read at his teaching institution was there on the other side, waiting beside his motorbike Betty, an extra helmet in his hand for me. First time in Staten Island, first time riding on a motorbike. I prepared myself for this cherry pop.

Exhilerating, vulnerable. The only two words I can use to describe riding on the back of a motorbike. At first I held on to Tyehimba for dear life, loving the breeze flying through my open helmet, making my eyes water. As I got used to the ride I began to loosen my grip on him. I knew that we would be goners if a car were to clip our back wheel. That too sharp a turn could obliterate what I know as my left hip. I learned that to ride a motorbike is to not be afraid to die.

College of Staten Island has a lovely sprawling campus full of green field and new buildings. There were posters on the doors with my face on them, advertising tonight's poetry event--two hours with yours truly. The gig was held in a school cafe, a nice vibe. The last college gig I had was in December at Rutgers-Camden, so it was nice to be in front of a college crowd again. They were a nice listening audience and responsive when they found it necessary.

My feature almost entirely consisted of odes and I rattled them off one after the other with personalizing banter in between. It was good to have that amount of time because I got to speak extensively about my friend Kenneth before sharing an ode I wrote concerning our friendship "Ode to a Flower Denied," my second time reading it in public. Overall, it felt great, as always, to share my obsession with a group of curious listeners, many of whom were wonderful enough to buy my CD's and chapbooks after the show.

Afterward, Tyehimba was kind enough to offer me a ride home on his bike. That meant the expressway, the Verrazano bridge--again, my first time. Rain fell lightly. It was us, Betty and the elements, the stunning Manhattan skyline. It all seemed within reach. And the cold air rushing at me was enough to remind me of how achingly alive it feels to be me.

Classy Brothers

the last time i sat next to an interesting Brother on the plane was in 2003. i was leaving la for the east coast, magically upgraded to first class. window seat. lucky me. a brother winds up next to me. he glances at the book in my lap. he asks: my sister, do you like to read? i look at the book, look at him and say yes, thinking: now who is this lame dude? he asks: have you ever heard of a book called finding fish? i say no. he then introduces himself as the author of finding fish, antwon fisher.

on the way to denver for the awp conference, all the way toward the back, so far back you can hear the engine coughing our swanglide across the sky, so far back that if any thing were to go down, you would either die last or first, i met a Brother. we greeted one another but only connected halfway through the flight when i recognized my friend playing the saxophone on this video of a performance playing on his laptop. jazz. he is a drummer who tours the world and teaches a steady gig at a renown arts school. i let him listen to some of the tracks i'm working on (odes) and he let me listen to some of the performance. after it was all said and done we were pretty much like yeah. legit like a mo fo.

he was on his way to denver for a gig, downtown denver, a mile from where all the conference festivities were held. how could i resist taking up on his thoughtful offer providing tickets for me and company? so i sweet talked tiphanie and christian into accompanying me to this totally unexpected gift. flurried there like leaves in wind in an overpriced cab, a cabbie who laughed along with our jokes. tree island people in a cyar? god help him.

dazzle supper club was our destination, its neon pink sign. turns out neal was drumming with this world renowned jazz pianist with a nutsy last name. his fingers were silk gazelles darting across the keys, sweetening the air. so sonorous, the sound of his heart. the hairs inside my ears, used to shrinking from the painful screech of trains, were swaying fields of wheat in this night breeze. don't know much about music. don't know minor from major. just know what sounds good to me, and that night, the night before my panel discussion fed my spirit like coconut water feeds my mouth, even now as i write this.

poetry in motion field trip

On our search for the best

classroom ever built

Darryl and I break

from Juilliard's four walls

and slow our strolls to sheepshed

meadow in central park

west hugged

by fences closed

since winter.

Skyscrapers loom

in the near distance.

Fortunate fucks.

We arrive

as the gates open.

Sun starved

actors dash

through gates,

the races of my childhood,

dropping their bags and cares

in the meadow's ample

lap, polluting

the clorophyll ocean

with their most perfect

joy. Boys will be

boys throw off

their shirts as the women lament

the sweet double standard.

Auden carves stories

into her pink moleskin.

Half clothed boys assemble

a game of touch

empty evian bottle

their pigskin. Tyrien

pirouettes. The Sisters

and I speak

on Azania,

Black people's land.

We be cliches so

unique. Danielle

hat is

not quite

church

but holier

than cathedral

bells. My tongue is

a bell, ringing in a full

elevator, it's door closing,

closing. We sit

on the dew and stew

haiku. Lamenting

new friends from old towns.

Mark's red shoes singing

of parsley. The rusty man

hole sleeping yards

away face up

like the dead.

Its haiku

crouches under my skin

my skin my

skin my skin

high off the sun's

vitamin

E smear.

Workshop with the Seniors

Poets & Writers contracted me to teach an 8 week creative writing workshop to senior citizens, starting today! The last time they asked me to teach a senior workshop was 4 years ago, when I first moved to NYC. I adored that experience, and it will forever leave a sweet place in my memory, especially when I think of Bobbi Lynn, a woman with cerebral palsey and the heart of a warrior. Man, her pen was fierce! Bobbi Lynn went on to publish a memoir, which she had originally started in my class.

Needless to say, I was thrilled when P&W called me up again after all this time to offer another such experience. When I walked into the center, the director of senior services informed me that my workshop was going to have stiff competition--bingo. I couldn't help but smile at that. She then pointed me to a room at the end of the long vibrant hallway; she called it the therapy room. Another smile spread across my face. How fitting.

There, in the therapy room, I was greeted by a handful of people twice my age with shiny eyes, their notebooks open and ready. We fell right into lively, stimulating discussion. In a matter of minutes we traveled from Catholicism to health care to the Korean war, thanks to our veteran in the room. By the vibrations I felt like we were on our fifth week of workshop, not the first.

They had been craving this workshop ever since December, when the last one ended. Needless to say, the exchange of gratitude was the sweetest currency. Immediately I felt their trust, their trust of my expertise. They are just so open, so generous, and so game, ready to have fun with language. They brought the world to the table; everything, that got them to that point is game. Intoxicating it was to be in their presence.

I have always had an affinity for older people. I think its partly because by the time I reached 10, all four of my grandparents were dead; two of them died before I was even born. It is a void I have always walked with. What I also admire is their understanding of who they are, what they are made of and generally they could give two shits about what other people think.

We had a fun lesson today, and composed six word memoirs. Here are a few I wrote:

"Left Trinidad age seven. Returned American."

and along the same theme:

"Returned home after 20 years. Myself."

and another:

"Using the pen as a microphone."


The two hours flew. I left there smiling so hard, I thought my face was going to crack in two. I look forward to next week, and all of the wonderful writing that will emerge into the world as a result of this divine time. God knows we need it.

Receipts

I wish not to dread any day that passes. Because each day, even the worst days, are gifts--even if it seems broken off of something and given just so, no gift wrap, no explanation.

But here we are, back here, again. Tax season. And its time to bite the bullet with my front teeth.

All year this shoebox has been staring me. It once carried winter boots. Now it contains every bank statement, credit card statement, bill, and receipt from 2009. The box has been waiting patiently for me to open its belly like a surgeon and sort through its guts, a highlighter my scalpel.

As a writer, performer, aka independent contractor, everything is a tax write off. For the past few years, I have conditioned myself to expense everything. Every cup of tea I drink outside. Every film or play. Every book I buy or outfit I snatch off a store hanger.

It is time to go in there and make sense of it all. To reminisce on every dollar I spent last year, and see how that matches up to every dollar I earned. I hope it all works out in my favor. I am crossing my fingers and toes. Please tax gods. Please don't make me pay.

Chinua Achebe at the 92Y

Chinua Achebe at the 92Y


Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat. Amalinze was a great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten, from Umuofia to Mbaine. He was called the Cat because his back would never touch the earth.

Ah, the opening lines of “Things Fall Apart,” Chinua Achebe’s monumental novel that captures the humanity inside the colonization of Africa—Nigeria specifically. It had been years since I read this stellar text and I found myself falling into its rabbit hole of story, enchanted by its magic all over again as the 4 train shot me uptown to the 92 Street Y where Achebe was to be speaking.

It occurs to me now that Achebe never touched the stage--fitting. Paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident, Achebe appeared to us in a wheelchair. A man well into his golden years, he spoke to the sold out auditorium with the heft of a person steeped deeply in the totality of the human experience. How he spoke: imagine an endless sting of pearls in his belly. To speak was to pull each pearl, each word, from his throat one by one—making him easy to transcribe. All around me, I could hear the furious scrawlings of fellow note takers.

I am deeply intrigued by various responses to oppression, as it is a conversation that circles right back into the question of human nature. Etheridge Knight’s “A Fable” is a timeless examination of this and I return to this poem often when certain questions resurrect like dust in me. Achebe’s obsession as a writer has been the examination of how Western customs impacted traditional African societies. His father, a teacher, was one of the first to become Christian in his village, soon after the missionaries arrived. While other Nigerians deeply resisted the inevitable, his father considered this “new faith” the path to salvation, truly believing Christianity would solve the problems of the world, a commentary in itself on his dissatisfaction with the affairs of the day. I wonder if Achebe's father would still feel that today, if he were alive in present times.

As a boy, Achebe attended a government college and described walking into the library as being in another world. His school had a law called the Textbook Act. Three days a week students could not touch a single textbook after school and were only allowed to read novels and biographies, for excessive bookwork they deemed dangerous.

Achebe described himself as “skeptically grateful” of some of the things Westernisms brought to African society—as the good things came with a price. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first president, received an American education and returned to enrich West Africa with the concept of free education for everyone, resulting in Nigeria’s fecund literary tradition, or as Achebe said, less illiterates reading the newspaper upside down. On the flip, Achebe was shocked to hear of extremist Christians in his village back home destroying shrines, deeming them idols. Ah, the heartbreaks of cultural erasure. I think of my buddy Bob Holman, who has travelled to West Africa on his mission to preserve endangered languages. His question is: why should we care more about endangered animals than about entire systems of consciousness?

Achebe discussed his extraordinary love hate relationship with Nigeria, which sounded similar to how say, Chicagoans and Trinidadians speak about their homes. This precise tension Achebe speaks of spells the undercurrent of my own life, my own relationship with this beautiful and terrible world. My love and hatred for it are one in the same. I don't know if or where one ends and the other begins but its totality is what fuels my odes and lesson plans; informs my decision to disconnect the cable and overdose on reggae. It is why I see an ad for 1-800-Flowers and think of the flower fields in Ethiopia, and indulge in frivolous delights, like hibiscus sorbet. It is why I smile when I wake up and slap my insides when I catch myself complaining about anything. Why I stay inspired.

It gave me a charge, seeing Chinua Achebe. To listen to him was to drink more fuel for the conflagration that already rages in me like the brush fire that loves its forest.

Summer of Sam, Pt. 3: San Francisco

On his way to work Kevin dropped me off on Polk Street and said explore. I was to belong to my own curiosity for the next few hours until he got off. I poked around Polk, then wandered into Good Vibrations, past the display of antique vibrators the size of car engines, past the rainbow of dildos and tubes of lube and found myself in the back room where Kevin was to read poems the next evening--my task as his friend to introduce him.The space was simple, its walls white, cheap chairs set up. On the walls was an installation exhibit on the gentrification of Polk Street.

Ah, gentrification. A word on the tip of lips lately. Mounted on all four walls were photographs printed on canvas. They were photographs of people in the neighborhood, headphones hanging below—each headphone promising five minutes of this person’s story, take, or stake. Totally ignorant to the history of this area, from the stories I gathered that Polk Street back in the day was a seedy safe haven where homeless drug addicts, prostitutes and gay teens redefined home for themselves. Polk street: the seedy Castro, necessary and specific in its allure. Teens from as far as the Midwest, after being banished from home after coming out to their red state families, gravitated all the way to the legendary Polk Street.

Out of the 15 or so on the walls, the story that will remain with me is Donna’s. Her photo most striking. She stands with a searching stance in the middle of a desolate street at night, empty syringes blooming out of one hand, gripping plastic armbands with the other. She runs a one woman needle exchange for heroin addicted teens. Her thing is: look, they’re using. Might as well ensure clean needles to prevent infections. She didn’t elaborate, but her childhood was “not cool” and she and her brother started shooting up when she was 14 and he, 12. I assume she’s clean now and out of her own pocket buys clean syringes for teen users. This is Polk Street.

Boutique hotels are replacing the halfway houses that provided beds to homeless gay teens. The seeds that made the area seedy are being swept into the gutters of oblivion. Other denizens of Polk Street welcome the bulldozers of change, the improvements that are happening in the neighborhood.

I keep wondering. All these people that are getting pushed out. The vagabonds. The artists. The insane. Where do they go when they go bye bye?

After leaving Good Vibrations I walk down Polk and turn left on Ellis, toward the Union Square I find inferior to the Union Square of my beloved New York City. I only vaguely know I am walking into the Tenderloin district, through which Polk Street serves as a major artery. Kevin told me last night why they call it the Tenderloin: back in the day it was such a dangerous part of town, that the cops brave enough to cover the area got salary enough to be able to afford steak.

It’s broad daylight. I am walking down Ellis Street in an inspired state, thanks to Donna’s story. Little do I know I am about to get even more inspiration—more than I would know what to do with. Damn these funkified Moleskines. These notebooks are so delightful to work in, they can get your ass killed or in some kind of trouble. Back in the black bullet days I used to whip it 70 mph on the highway between one gig and the next, thoughts avalanching. Now here I am, walking through the heart of the tenderloin district with red palm sized moleskine in hand, scribble scratching verses. My eyes are not seeing eyes.

A man appears beside me. If he’s not homeless he’s damn close. I do not feel threatened by his broken. He asks what I’m writing. I tell him a poem. He asks if I will write down his poem and then moves to recite his phone number. I stop him cold with warmth. He stops his step and allows me to walk off. He is defeated.

I put away the Moleskin and look around. I begin to really take in my surroundings. I am the only non addict on this street. Crack addicts, Meth heads, Dope fiends—you name it. Walking the streets like ghosts. I walk in front of a halfway house, a throng of folk lining up hoping to get a bed for the night. In my pencil skirt and goddess sandals, I walk past the throng, smiling at some, nodding at others.

When I tell folk this story they often ask me if I was frightened. The answer is no. More saddened than anything to be witness to this boulevard of broken souls.

I pass a dude posted on a fire hydrant with a stack of little manilla envelopes in his hand. The broken form a loose line,it echoes the line of us grand slam hopefuls at bar 13 just minutes before the slam list opens at 7. The addicts hobble up to their dealer. The transaction is as swift as it is blatant. It is daylight. At the end of that block, I pass the law. Blue uniform and badge, he is wathcing the entire scene with the eyes in the back of his head.

Two blocks later I find myself staring at the Banana Republic.

Summer of Sam, Pt. 2: Whidbey Island

After a rather public week in Seattle, the staff at Hedgebrook invited me to come stay the weekend before shooting off to my next destination: San Francisco. What a gift to be reimmersed in the energies of this magical place, even if for such a short while. I vowed to usurp the blessing by writing my most magnificent verses.

The moment I set foot on Hedgebrook's 48 acre property, the memories flooded back from my time there last August. The bench where I first saw Suheir, a book in her lap. Mary's cottage, right up the path from mine. The barn where we watched the presidential debate after being cut off from television for a month. The figs, sprouting from their branches like testicles. Golden raspberries. Cottages. Fresh milk. Baskets. Exquisite food, straight from earth. Baths. Woods. Walks. Nightly fires.

Again I found myself humble inside this caliber of women Hedgebrook has at its fingertips. Women from all parts of the world, tackling difficult issues with their pens while doing amazing things with their lives. This time around I found the degrees of separation to be much smaller. This time I met women who shared some of my closest friends and I could feel the circle ever widening. We are a network in ways we are often astonished to find.

There was a moment at dinner when we were discussing the politics of channelling, Gloria Steinem at the head of the table, as well as the head of this surreal conversation. Glorida is a soft spoken woman engaged with everything that is the world. She has come to call herself a feminist iconoclast and hope a holic. She says the feminist movement is any woman that is not living on her ass. The organizer that she is, she considers hope a form of planning and as a result says it with a curious gleam in her eye. She is one of the most optimistic people I have ever met and loves to tell a good story where laughing is usually involved. And as Gloria is telling some story, Holly Near, the fierce folk singer is to my right, laughing and sometimes heckling her old friend. And I thought to myself, wow. How blessed am I? Just days ago I was at this town hall in Seattle and at the sight of these two women 800 people rose to their feet and clapped long and hard. And here I am among them, breaking bread and discussing the intricacies of our lives.

One of my last nights there, the women decided to commune after dinner to share the writing we've been working on. At first I decided against reading from Seventeen Seasons due to my own insecurities about where I feel it is. I figured I would just share some poems. As the night went on I grew more and more inspired by how Gloria, Holly and the other women who opened up beautifully by sharing their work in such raw stages. So, I decided to read from my first current chapter of the novel, quaking beneath my skin.

After I finished reading, I took in the positive responses of the other women, who listened attentively. Gloria asked if the novel was for teens. I said yes. She smiled and said to me: Samantha, you are going to inspire a whole generation of poets.

It was about the most powerful thing someone has ever said to me. I knew I was ready for the world again. Two mornings later, Hedgebrook released me from its grace. And I found myself on a shuttle, a ferry, then on a plane to San Francisco.

Summer of Sam, Pt. 1: Seattle, WA

Seattle, WA

Hedgebrook Retreat for women writers throws an annual fundraiser in Seattle. Much Depends Upon Dinner: a $1,000 a plate dinner in a swanky location, 50 seats open to only women, a family style meal cooked by the finest female chefs Seattle has to offer, and most importantly, writers. Fly writers. Female writers. Inspiring writers, reading their work throughout the evening.

So when HB asked me to MC and as well as featured alongside Gloria Steinem, Stephanie Kallos and Nassim Assefi, I said hell yes! So I secured two more gigs in the area and off to Washington I went, the first stop of my Summer of Sam Tour.

Poetrynight in Bellingham was to be my first public appearance for the week. I would later be delighted to find that my summer tour couldn't have started off on a better mic. Nicole, who housed and spoiled me, let me borrow her wheels for the night since Bellingham was 2 hours from Seattle. I deeply appreaciated her trust and the opportunity to relive my road warrior days. I had sold my black bullet upon moving to New York and though I don't miss driving on a daily basis, I miss it every time I do it again.

I drove to lovely Bellingham with the silence of a samurai, poems in my brain begging to be voiced to this new set of ears. I decided in the end to do solely odes, my obsession for the past year. Man, the Poetrynight vibe was exuberant and warm, just like the walls of the cafe. Old school cat on a standing bass, playing throughout the night. Slug killer poster on the bathroom wall. The Podfather of Soul, tabulating slam scores. Writing that contained so much grace and integrity. And then there was Robert, a killer host with the kind of generous energy that he spreads so evenly across the night, Robert who I wished I could have spent more time with. But I had to head back to Seattle right after the show; once again I had a two hour drive ahead of me and half asleep was not the way to do it. I learned that lesson once before the soft way.

My second gig in the area was Seattle Slam, which in conjunction with Bellingham has made me an eternal fan of the Seattle scene. Daemond, the engine behind it all showed me a lot of love after my set. Again, I couldn't help but drench the audience with odes: slug, picking blackberries, twins, trojan, starfig, gentrification, apron, mermaids--well, you get the idea. Good thing was, the audience was totally game and I felt very confident standing before them, naked in my vunlerable, whimsical, indulgent, and sometimes silly ode poetry.

The third event was the big one, the one that flew me out that way. Much Depends Upon Dinner. So it was held in this place called the Sanctuary, which used to be this Christian Science church--a stunning establishment in West Seattle on a clandestine block, partly shielded by trees. Since CS is on the endangered species list of religions, the membership of the church dwindled to sawdust so they eventually had to sell it. An independantly wealthy real estate broker acquired it at some point and lived in it with her two daughters. I walked into the sanctuary; the place was exquisite and a rather outlandish place to live--but hey, if you could, why not? She since moved out and now rents it out for functions such as this. Large painted portraits of her daughters still hang on the walls to cover up quotes by the founder of Christian science, Mary Baker Eddy.

The tables were set up in long rows. There was an open bar, the special drink of the night, lavendar martinis, the lavendar coming straight from the Korean lady's lavendar farm around the corner from Hedgebrook. If I wasn't such an integral part of the evening, I would have been knocking those back like it was nobody's business. But I restrained myself with two--or was it three? People socialized a bit but once all the women were seated in the big open dining area, I kicked the evening off with Ode to Picking Blackberries from the balcony that overlooked the whole scene. Surprised by the tactic, the audience looked up at me in awe, like they were all girls again. From my recollections, it was my first time performing from a balcony. It was so dramatic for no reason. I loved it. Juliet all the way. And later, for further dramatic effect, I performed Ode to Apron wearing one. My first time doing that, too.

I also vibed hard with Nassim Assefi, and Iranian novelist who just came back from the middle east. A doctor by trade she made a switch in her life by taking on her writing as a career and now she practices medicine just for fun--all over the world! How fly is that?

Gloria Steinem showed up looking smart and lovely in her all black--pants and a simple top, clean lines--a rocking red bag. I loved her energy as she greeted me with a warm sisterly embrace, with a curious familiarity, as if we had met once or twice before. When it was her time to speak she thanked me for "rescuing poetry from obscurity." She read from her next nonfiction project on her life as an organizer and this particular essay was about discerning the surreal of every day life. She's been excersizing the practice of, well, looking for the surreal in every day life. For instance, I find it surreal that Walt Staton, a volunteer for this organization "No More Deaths" was arrested and charged for littering. Want to know why? For leaving jugs of water in the desert, a nature preserve, for the illegal families that cross those lands and so often die of thirst from doing so. He was sentenced to 300 hours of community service of picking up trash on the highway.

Thats my first stab at discerning the kind of surreal Gloria is talking about. She herself had some damn compelling examples, but you'll just have to wait till the book drops to find out what they are :)

The next evening was a town hall Hedgebrook put together starring Gloria, legendary folk singer Holly Near, Nassim, Stephanie Kallos and Pramila Jayapal. I was not familiar with Holly's music prior to meeting her but since then I have become hip to her. Later, after we bonded she was kind enough to slide me some of her CD's and I looooove her music! Wow! Where has this woman been all my life? A fierce sassy freedom fighter, she is. Holly's songs are sonorous weapons against war, sexism, homophobia, oppressions and woes of all kinds. Though she approaches her art with so much love for whoever she is directing her songs toward.That's the fiercest thing about her work is the generosity of her love even in a musical onslaught of critique. Hugely inspiring. She has lived an amazing life, knee deep in the times.

The auditorium was packed with 800 people solid, sold out, line down the block. The moment the panelists appeared on stage the anxious audience stood up clapping long and hard. The exuberance in the room for both Gloria and Holly, the stars of the evening, was infectious. HB had asked me to open up the evening with a poem of my choice, so I chose Audre Lorde's "Litany for Survival", a manifesto in itself. I was followed by two other Hedgebrook alums who read poems by Sylvia Plath and June Jordan.

The panelists then spent the next hour in conversation about women writers that have altered their realities. A nice thing to think about isn't it? After a lush two hours of conversation, Holly singing in between, and questions from the audience (some of them not questions, but pontifications and declarations and testimonies), i ended the evening with my poem, "House of the Rising Daughter" a poem I had written last year on the birth of singer Eddie Vedder's baby girl. Really though, its a celebratory meditation on all the little warrior goddesses arriving into these chaotic times.Call it another ode, if you will. It was a cool experience to perform that poem in Vedder's hometown. I had not occured to me to mention who I had written it specifically for but Gloria suggested I do as she felt it would resonate in a special way with the audience, and it did.

All in all, I felt honored and blessed to have opened and closed the evening, and loved sitting off to the side, letting the wisdom of these brilliant women wash over my consciousness like ocean waves. I left Seattle that night, and journeyed to Whidbey Island for the weekend to join Gloria, Holly, and the other sisters currently in residence at Hedgebrook.