word time how old is your language he asks and pauses for answers that will not come to the tongue my language of memories is buried in bone marrow spilling out in blood rich with copper salt and ancestor breath my language of touch was inherited from the first ones […]
Calling someone a “treasure” sometimes seems like an overused compliment such that the root idea of a precious gem created through time and pressure is lost. But Kalamu Chache is indeed a Bay Area treasure who has done her work for decades and deserves to be acknowledged and better known […]
Mahnaz Badihian is an Iranian poet and painter whose work reflects ideas of immigrants and exiles, women’s issues, poverty, struggles for justice and, of course, love. An award-winning poet and author of two poetry collections, and a recording of Rumi poems with her own translations with the poems read by […]
When does a person become an artist and not simply a person who at times creates art? In music it requires a certain attainment of skills to simply play music and then the line is formed as professional or an amateur musician, lines that do not necessarily reflect on one’s […]
On June 4th I made a speech for the Ina Coolbrith Poetry Circle’s 95th Poets Dinner and Award Ceremony that was held in Benicia City Park. Several people asked if they could read the speech so I offer it below. When given the theme of discovery I used my typical […]
In 1968 Black Fire literary anthology edited by Imari Baraka and Larry Neal was released creating a clarion call for the Black Arts Movement. Essays and poetry from a range of authors including Nathan Hare, Calvin C. Hernton, Sun-Ra, Henry Dumas, A.B. Spellman, Sonia Sanchez and many others. Fifty-four years […]
I have a fairly limited experience with opera. My growing years were mostly jazz with a few helpings of blues, a handful of Broadway musicals, and of course full servings of R&B and Soul as my teens beckoned. But there were also recordings of Handel’s “Messiah,” “Amahl and the Night […]
A poet, for whom I have much respect as poet and person, on reading a recently finished manuscript counseled me to reconsider my use of “I” in the poems. No specific poems were pointed to simply the observation that I could create stronger poems in that way. The poet noted that […]
A brief note on translation before I begin. It is a truism in poetry that when a poem is translated from one language to another it becomes a new, although closely related, poem. Some words are untranslatable, others are used differently so that line meaning changes. The issues of rhythm […]
My new book has just been released. Well it will be July 31. From today July 28-30 folks can get a per-publication discount by following the link. Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California, very close to that part of the […]
