OutKast ft Erykah Badu, Cee lo, Big Rube... Liberation!

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Poetry By The People~~ Community Writing INtensive

POETRY BY THE PEOPLE
Community Writing Intensive
Durham, NC
May 8-10, 2007

Dear Lovers of the Word,
You are cordially invited to write and discuss poetry in and with the Durham community. You will be surrounded by people who love poetry and believe in its transformative power. Here’s what you can expect:

Daily Schedule
1:00 ~ 3:00 Silent Writing/ Manuscript Conferences
3:00 ~ 4:00 Late Lunch/ Early Dinner
4:15 ~ 5:15 Community Sharing/ Open Mic
5:30 ~ 6:30 Poetry Exercises
6:30 ~ 8:30 Workshop/ Critique
8:30 ~ 9:00 Wrap – Up

Sponsors
This year betty’s daughter arts collaborative, broken beautiful press, and SpiritHouse-NC have graciously decided to sponsor Poetry By the People, so you don’t have to. There is no charge for attendance, just come with poems, an open heart, and a love for community art.

Funding
For poets who are not in the Durham-Raleigh-Chapel-Hill area, two very modest travel scholarships are available.
The Betty Ann Sims, Ed.D. Artist/Scholar Travel Scholarship is available to any poet who can demonstrate how expressive art will impact future or current scholarly projects.
The Talya Pierce Travel Scholarship for Emerging Poets is awarded to a woman of color who is beginning to explore the field of poetry. The recipient of this award must not hold any publications or academic degrees in creative writing.

Application
Please submit a five-page manuscript, a cover letter that explains the role of poetry in creating community, and your contact information to inthepeopleshands@gmail.com by May 6.


Contact Person
Ebony Noelle Golden, MFA
Director of betty’s daughter arts collaborative
furiousflower@gmail.com
www.myspace.com/mamashieroglyphics

Make a poem with me that answers this question...


How does poetry blossom in the midst of meditation?


respond here or on my blog at myspace.com/mamashieroglyphics


love,
e

processing process / a circular experience

Current mood: contemplative

more (quest)ioning!

so a sista friend asked me about my writing process and i invited her to lunch (you know talking about process takes time). in my ever present quest to develop a workable applicable (to everything and specifc things in my world) poetics (in which to enrich myself and the beings around me)

i think alot about the manipulation of words, sounds, spirit, images, and bodies. here is what we came up with.


processing process/ a work in progress/ a collaboration between/among the universe (especially kriti and i)


process is was use to be tangible etheral consistent full of light and absence

process will not accept a bottle or magnitude

process must (not) be or always is touch

process is (or isn't) always lack of urgency

process is presence yet anticipating reincarnation everyday

process is fullness wholeness holistic

process is looking for or waiting with language

process is the struggle for aunthenticity

process is living

process is a medium

process is patience

process is energy

and emerging

and making language

and creating

and telepathy

process is how

peace and pieces of peace slivers and wholes and splayed light

love,
e

The art of (quest)ioning

so on my consistent journey for art poetry relationship and a spiritfilled love affair with myself, i attempt to practice silence, even in a room of people. here is one installment of one of my listening sessions. look for more soon!

ebonybeinglight

always and forever,

the art of (quest)ioning / or vibing to alice coletranes harp everyday

where is the real? who is a "micro"community? when is a sista?

when is a performance? which is a trinity? where is a body?

where is the hurt? which is a critique? how is a vulva? how is the trust?

which is a soul? who is a response? where is the tear? where is the blood?

where is the power? when is a color? where is the desire? when is a voice?

so, family~~~~sometimes the answer is the (quest)ion? word! word!

take some time and get lost or found in your questions about this world and the beings on it

love and life
e

Shange and Moving Toward Healing Poetics!!!

Hey people,

Here are the notes and activities that I shared with the audience during my talk on Shange and performative healing poetics.

Sharing in love and light,

e

PERFORMATIVE HEALING IN NTOZAKE SHANGE’SFOR COLORED GIRLS WHO CONSIDEREDSUICIDE WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF

Working the Chakras-

Green: Love, acceptance allowance

Each character in For Colored Girls’ personifies an energy field or chakra in the body. In traditional healing arts, the color green is associated with the heart chakra thus; “Alla My Stuff” is an imperative thrust toward the Lady in Green’s reclamation of self and self love. Lady in Green reminds the audience of the universal sound/expression of love, self acceptance, and allowance. The Green lady reclaims her own “tacky skirts”, her aired out vagina, “callused feet”, her “arm wit the hot iron scar” as her story, her walk, and her meditation on freedom, awareness, and wholeness.

This reclamation and proclamation illustrates specifically black womyn reclaiming ourselves; interestingly, the pieces, bodies, desires communities have harvested, historically and recently, for consumption. Lady in Green’s monologue is indeed a celebration of the reclamation of voice and herstory; and serves as an insightful glimpse into the importance of vocalization as expressive healing.

My stuff exercise: List all of the stuff that makes you the fabulous person you are. You can list descriptions of your personality, wonderful things you have gifted this world, or something special about you that don’t mind sharing with this group. Create a list of at least five items!

Dance this Fever Away!

In “No More Love Poems # 1” Lady in Orange deconstructs her individual experience as a “colored girl”. We enter the monologue as the Lady in Orange gains of awareness of what it means to be “her colored self” against a landscape of trauma and voicelessness. Thankfully, Shange does not leave the Orange lady rambling in a disorienting space of helplessness. By the end of the piece this character opens up to the joy of tears, rebirth, and the self-realization that comes as the character exfoliates feelings and despair and sorrow.

One more point of importance in this monologue concerns the development of a body narrative through the medium of dance. Shange, a trained dancer, peppers choreography throughout the performance of this play. Dance is what I like to call the unrestrained voice of the soul. Dance similar to vocal expressiveness allows the body to make strides toward healing by quickening the breath, warming the body, and securing the space where womyn can walk whole in their own bodies.

If your body to talk: Awakening to dance is a beautiful way in engage with your own body. Choose three body parts and allow them to have a free dialogue on the page. If possible allow the parts of your body to communicate with each other. Share your body conversations with someone next to you.

Ebony Presents Lecture on Performative Healing in the Work of Ntozake Shange

Greetings folks,

In observance of Women's History Month and every month, I will present an interactive lecture based on Performative Healing in the work of Ntozake Shange.

Please attend if you can!!!

Date: 3/21/2007
Time: 7 pm
Place: Miller Morgan Auditorum on the Campus of North Carolina Central University

for more information email
furiousflower@gmail.com

peace and love,e

Yo Grits and Good as Ours: Support SpiritHouse and NCCU 2/17!!!

Yo Grits Aint Good as Mine: Support SpiritHouse and NCCU February 17!!!

Three artists, three fantastic visions, one night…

January, 08 2007

For Immediate Release
Durham, N.C. - Harry Davis, Derrick Mayo and Rodney Edwards: three artists from completely different worlds, drawn to canvas for different reasons. Harry Davis, an Army veteran and Wilmington, North Carolina native, was re-birthed through paints and canvases after an accidental shooting left him wheelchair bound. His subjects vary from tribal, to Americana to spiritual, but his masterful use of bold colors remain the same. His work is in the private collections of Halle Berry and Denzel Washington. His showings range from venues as varied as the CIA to our very own Artsplosion in Raleigh, North Carolina
Derrick Mayo looks more like an Indy rock star than the talented painter he is; sultry, brooding eyes and long dreadlocks complete the impression. His instruments are paintbrushes and his fans are the many canvases which welcome him with open arms when he begins to stroke their surfaces with a rhythm and cadence that produces such works as Expressions of Melody or Bird Lives or Lady Day. He pays homage to late, great jazz artists and angels of dance. If passion were a song it would be his alone, the words written across the surface of his canvases. His talent has been recognized and appreciated by the Durham Regional Hospital and Charlotte Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Cannon.

In each family there is a wild, errant child, but we love him nonetheless. This triumvirate is no different. Rodney Davis, foster child, in and out of prison since he was a teenager, was convicted of murder by the time he was nineteen. But did that kill the spirit in this man? Never. He twisted and manipulated his anger into an art form which through its sheer power made its way outside the prison walls into banks, corporations and art aficionados' personal coffers. His pain ripples across the surface of his canvases in broad strokes of darkness and light, transferring itself to the viewer. Inspirational, aching and revelatory all at once, his work will leave you emotionally dazzled.

On February 17, 2007 from 7-10pm these artists will have their work on display at a reception being held at North Carolina Central University's Law School. Hosted by the Grits and Gravy Filmmakers and Writers Festival as its first annual Artists in Motion fundraiser event, all work purchased is tax deductible for up to twenty five percent of the purchase price.

Admission is free and refreshments will be served.
For more information contact Aisha Hicks at (919) 636-1751 or at gritsandgravy08@nc.rr.com.

Call For Submissions

In The People’s Hands
(a grassroots literary zine)


Theme: Africana Women and Violence

Submission Deadline: March 5, 2007

Introduction

Africana (women of African heritage) share an interesting and distinct relationship with violence. Throughout h(er)story, and contemporary times Africana women have interfaced with police brutality, sexual assault, verbal attack, cultural brutality, academic dehumanization, reproductive injustice, political, and social disenfranchisement. Thank goddess, this is not the story of Africana women in total. We also experience and create love, joy, spirit, resilience, and fortitude that make our individual and collective journeys worth traveling. The complex relationship Africana women share with violence is reflected in our relationships with other women, men, ourselves; and is wonderfully and heartfully highlighted in the songs we sing, the stories we share, the love we make, the poems we recite, the food we cook, etc. etc.

In The People’s Hands, a SpiritHouse publication, was created to hear the voices of diverse communities. Submit work that explores your personal relationship with violence as an Africana woman or work in which explores this theme. Submit a literary creation that fits one or a combination of categories. Please note: We will not use your submission for any other purposes than creating In The People’s Hands literary zine. We will not reproduce in total or in part your submission for any other purpose than the paper-based, and online publication of this project. After publication author retains all implicit and explicit publication rights.

Criteria

Poetry
Two poems (maximum of two pages)

Short Fiction
1 story (maximum of four pages)

Essay
1 Essay (maximum of three pages)

Visual Art
2 pieces (please note one maybe chosen as the cover of collection)

Along with your creative work send:

-Two sentence biography
-picture (optional)
-contact information (phone, email address)

All submissions must be sent to:
InThePeoplesHands@gmail.com
In the subject line please type: Africana Women and Violence Issue

About the Sponsoring Organization

SpiritHouse- www.spirithouse-nc.org
SpiritHouse is a nonprofit grassroots community-based organization. We are part of a movement of progressive movements and organizations that endeavor to connect people to each other for the purpose of liberation, enlightenment, and fulfillment. We are independent. We are not supervised by any corporate, religious, or state bureaucracy. Our freedom allows us the flexibility to work and develop the partnerships of our choice. This gives us clarity and direction.

About the Editor-In-Chief www.myspace.com/mamashieroglyphics
Ebony Noelle Golden, MFA, is a poet, performer, and educator currently teaching African American Literature, Composition and Creative Writing at North Carolina Central University and Louisburg College as a Visiting Instructor. She has self-published a chap book of poems titled the sweet smell of juju funk and is currently editing mama's hieroglyphics to be released next year. In the near future, Ebony plans to undergo doctoral studies in Performance and stage her multimedia choreopoem, What Aunt Sarah Says to Siffronia When Sweet Thing is Moon-Watching and Peaches is Dancing to the Wind. Ebony can be contacted via email at furiousflower@gmail.com.

Midwives Exhibit in Durham!!!

Friends,
A traveling exhibition curated by Linda Janet Holmes, and on view at the Center for Documentary Studies, Reclaiming Midwives features photographs by Robert Galbraith that explore the lives and experiences of black midwives in Georgia in the early 1950s. Galbraith was a cameraman for George C. Stoney's 1953 film All My Babies, produced by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Georgia Department of Public Health, and intended as an instructional tool for the midwives still delivering most of the babies in rural Georgia at the time. The film, featuring Albany, Georgia, midwife Mary Francis Hill Coley (1900-66), has traveled to train midwives around the world.
Please spread the word that we will be screening the film All My Babies, this Sunday, February 4, at 2 p.m. at Richard White Auditorium on Duke's East Campus. The director of the film, George Stoney, will be there for a question and answer discussion session after the screening. There is a $5 donation requested for admission. I hope to see you there!
Peace,
Courtney
--
Courtney Reid-EatonExhibitions DirectorCenter for Documentary Studiesat Duke University1317 W. Pettigrew Street Durham, NC 27705919.660.3664919.681.7600 (fax)http://cds.aas.duke.edu

altar installation and silent protest in durham sunday

Because direct and immediate action is love, and revolution, and beauty, and resistance, and ....

Because art is action all over this globe Because we are we are we are we are we are agentsloversalliessurvivorsstriversresisterssistersfightersradicalsfamily

Because nifong is not the glue that holds this case or this community togetherBecause we will not be silenced or confused in the face of white racist patriarchy and sexual violence...

beacause we need....Movement now...

If you want to sit and meditate silently in front of the Court House Sunday meet us there!Bring a flower, a poem, a candle, a stick of incense, a piece of art work and... let's collectively focus positive energy on healing our ourselves and our community.

This is not an overly choreographed event, just show up at the court house around 12 noon Sunday 1/14.

in my mother's likeness

the slack hip and urban cheek
the kitchen that slicks neck easily

not her tree limb legs
twig like fingers
piano ear or cato skin
(because my daddy is the color of ocean's edge)
but eyes

oh the seeking eyes identical shimmering
glass in both our skulls

Hocking a Wedding Ring Published at www.wombpoetry.com

Yo,

check out my moving and grooving lit life at www.wombpoetry.com.

Hocking a Wedding Ring Published in online journal for women poets!

love and light,

ebony golden,
betty's daughter literary press

for harryette~~~~~ again!

for harryette~~~~


We collect things that matter. Trinkets. Love letters. Ideas that set earth's orbit. Sunrises and warm remembrances to smooth forehead-wrinkles and soften the grimace into a smile. We collect things like malleable dirt and fresh fruit beauty. A call. A call. To the new school poetics of fresh birth. A call. A call. To what once was and was never trash. Recycled gold I say. We answer recycled gold. Old wor(l)ds. New gold.

Ebony to Publishes Review of Recyclopedia in BIBR

Renewed Treasure: Recyclopedia in Review

By: Ebony Noelle Golden, MFA


Recyclopedia. Harryette Mullen.
St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 2006.
178 pp.
Price: 15.00 USA
18.95 Canada

Thinking thought to be a body wearing language as cloth-
ing or language a body of thought which is a soul or body
the clothing of a soul, she is veiled in silence. A veiled, un-
available body makes an available space.
-from trimmings


For hip readers who were, are, and will be in love with Trimmings, S*PeRM**K*T, and Muse &

Drudge. For the hydrating drink that is Harryette Mullen’s quintessential riff on gender,

language, geography, and legacy. For the poems re-gifted as lagniappes of light to enliven our

collective intellect; Harryette Mullen, Professor of English and African American Studies and

finalist for the National Book Award offers her new collection of previously published works in

Recyclopedia published by Gray Wolf Press. Mullen, dubbed “The Queen of Hip Hyperbole” by

Sandra Cisneros, reveals an intensely intricate and bitingly fresh approach to literary craft

which politicizes diction, exfoliates imagery, and reflects the brilliant glow which situates her in a

category poets, and writers alike, work ever so vigilantly to achieve. Mullen’s poems

deconstruct archetypal ideals of consumption, value, and economic class structure. She

writes,

“Pyramids are eroding monuments. Embalmed soup stocks
the recyclable soul adrift in its newspaper boat of double
coupons. Seconds decline in descent from number one, top
of the heap. So this is generic life, feeding from a dented
cant. Devoid of colored labels, the discounted irregulars.”

Long time Mullen enthusiasts and new readers can look forward to poems that spark critical

thought and conversation about local and global issues without heavily ladled didactic

overtures. Recyclopedia is elegantly spiced with imagistically rich verse, written in

short-lined stanzas, and concerned with historical, spiritual, and body narratives.

For example,

“bring money bring love
lucky floorwash seven
powers of Africa la mano
poderosa ayudame numeros suenos

…sister mystery listens
helps souls in misery
get to the square root
of evil and render in moot…”

This excerpt examines Yoruba spirituality and the cultural significance of the

conjure woman; but moreover, illustrates Mullen’s masterful and singular

approach to exploring Africana motif and symbology without clichéd

language and skin-deep imagery.

Harryette Mullen’s body of work, in general, and Recyclopedia, in

specific, demands readers to re-imagine and re-envision the possibilities of poetry. Additionally,

this collection urges readers to retire static assumptions about what creates readable, relevant,

and resonant poems. I highly recommend Mullen’s newest addition to the overpopulated

literary landscape for its quick wit, sharp intellect, and colorful approach to literary craft. Read

Recyclopedia and experience or re-acquaint yourself with one of contemporary poetry’s most

important treasures.

Author’s Biography

Ebony Noelle Golden, MFA, is a poet, performer, and educator currently teaching African American Literature, Composition and Creative Writing at North Carolina Central University and Louisburg College as a Visiting Instructor. She has self-published a chap book of poems titled the sweet smell of juju funk and is currently editing mama's hieroglyphics to be released in 2007. In the near future, Ebony plans to undergo doctoral studies in Performance and stage her multimedia choreopoem, What Aunt Sarah Says to Siffronia When Sweet Thing is Moon-Watching and Peaches is Dancing to the Wind. Ebony can be contacted via email at goldendharma@yahoo.com or www.goldendharma.blogspot.com.

one long umbilical breath

i took one long umbilical breath and threaded the needle black thread sung through needle head like cat's lip. i never though the first morning one of my cylndrical scalp fingers would kiss her sisters and brothers and sisters goodbye and slip away like emancipated DNA a cardinal would fly back from the edge of florida and oracle the next ten months. i never thought a shower loosening effect would work a pores voodoo and lasso a surprise twinge at the nape of the neck loose hairs on fingers and a half smile half cry whirling exhale. like any undernurtured mother i wanted to hold closes and closer.

my mother would squeeze my nostrils shut and tell me to blow, girl blow. instinctively i would blow out my mouth and she should shred my ear drums. no girl out of your nose. couldn't couldn't could not just could not! but mucus lined nostrils remind me of the unhealth closeness i felt to this splinter of hair that decided to take an amistad leap.

so as water rushed from the peppermint crevices i took a lethargic sprint around the apartment leaving peppermint suds and microscopic shards of black thread in each room.

one long umbilical breath.

and perched before a sheer canary curtain and a cardinal slipping a note under my screened bathroom window i licked a thin piece of black thread and tried to reattach baby girl hair to the nape of my neck. i counted my belly eggs to see if she would fit gulped incensed air and blinked 1,2,3 and pushed the teeny twirl of black thread through the needle head, through the needle head to bring baby girl hair back to me.

the cardinal knows a bles and whitles desyncopated grunts through perched beak, i don't know if that cardinal ever left for orlandos balmy bosooms or if her nestled in the leaves composting inthe back yard and waited for a perrermint morning to spring and she would come to me tell me how it is time to coount by bell eggs and say farewell to one caritin offspring, even just one even for a moment.

a drop of shower fell right out of my eye corner and shimmied down a centimeter of thread and right onto the needle eye. solid. and i took one umbilical breath and watched the postmas gazing through canary curtain watching peppermint suds slide down unclothed backside and wondered if the cardinal was done with the bathroom message.

Artist Biography

Ebony began her journey as an artist, activist, and educator twenty-eight years ago in the Bayou City, Houston, TX. Born to Dr. Betty Sims and Harry Hicks, Ebony was encouraged to pursue a myriad of creative outlets including dance, theater, writing, and community activism. Organizations such as Girl Scouts, Girls in Action, and Young Professionals of Houston encouraged Ebony to join a cadre of activists and artists near and far and to dedicate her life to uplifting and empowering individuals and communities. Ebonys mission is to empower individuals to pursue creative expression, social change, and the divine spirit through the arts.


Ebony matriculated through the English department at Texas A & M University as an Undergraduate Research Fellow. As an undergrad, Ebony etched out a reputation as a choreographer, poet, and performer in plays such as Our Town and the Fade To Black Dance Ensemble.


Ebony worked with the world-famous Ensemble Theater as a choreographer where she choreographed The Not-So-Brave Prince, The Velveteen Rabbit, To Be Young Gifted and Black, and The Wiz. She also served as a writer-in-residence with Texas Southern Universitys Project Graduation and Project Row Houses Summer Arts Program in Houston's 3rd Ward.


Ebony earned a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from American University in Washington, DC. As a grad student Ebony performed in The Vagina Monologues, co-founded MoonSong Performance Ensemble, and directed For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. She served as a writer-in-residence for DC Writers Corps, and Montgomery Community Colleges Young Writers Workshop. Ebonys graduate school experience culminated in the completion of a poetry thesis entitled, jigaboo princess.


Ebony has studied with Willie Perdomo, Saul Williams, Ruth Forman, Henry Taylor, Ishmael Reed, Myra Sklarew, Lenard Moore, and a host of dynamite artists, activist, and teachers. She has been awarded fellowships by Atlantic Center of the Arts, Voices of Our Nations, and Soul Mountain Retreat Center.


Ebony is a Visiting English Instructor at North Carolina Central University and an Adjunct English Instructor at Louisburg College. She continues to serve the community as a volunteer with SpiritHouse and UBUNTU and in the wake of recent events has joined a cadre of arts activists to educate and help to eradicate violence against women. Her first poetry chapbook, the sweet smell of juju funk, was published by her grassroots literary press, bettys daughter, April 2006.

jazzy pump-your-fist women. wrap themselves in guaze and disappear behind philosophical hyperbolic musings of what if but rarely what it be when it be.

thinking women. materialize and dissect feathered fettered walls. soonah will be done with the whiteness of the world. and see with timbuktuu brain waves and digable planets and rootwork ligaments.

find with fallable tongue
the skin that archives
embryo sky
i mean
goddess could give to you, but what
you gone do with it

So it is better to Write, Artistic Response Team, Activate!

SO IT IS BETTER TO WRITE,

and love, and prevail, and dance, and commune, and insist on change!

Date: Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Time: 7 PM-9 PMLocation: The Center for Doc. Studies
1317 W. Pettigrew Street,
Durham, North Carolina, 27705

Join UBUNTU as we engage in discussion and creative expression about the literal and metaphorical importance of midwifery and its relationship to "birthing" communities rid of sexual violence.

For more info email goldendharma@yahoo.com

Performance and say what, workshops!

I Be Who I Be: Media Poetry and Re-Imagining Identity

IBeWhoIBe: Media, Poetry, and Re-Imagining Identity
by Ebony Golden

(see brokenbeautifulpress.blogspot.com for copies of the love note journal "i be who i be")

Overview

This workshop is designed to debunk and recreate ideas and popular notions of identity that work to warp the minds and self-esteem of young brothas and sistas. This workshop is necessary because the constant barage of negative press, media, and art constructed to confuse and tear down our children is doing just that.

This workshop is necessary because it empowers young brothas and sistas to write and construct (a la Bearden, a la hip hop, a la Lucille Clifton, a la my aunties lemon pound cake) a self-portrait that builds them up and builds us up in the process.

Procedures
Read my poem entitled Self-Portrait: July, 2005
Discuss the self-image of the speaker in the poemShow several popular images from magazines
Have the participants create a cut-and-paste list poem based onthe responses
Have the students paste their poem on poster board
Have the students rip out/ and paste pictures that represent who they orwhat they want to be and what they want their communities to be
Have students write 8-word poems to describe who they be or who they want to be

Open Mic Arts Installation
Find a space where we can post our collages and do a impromptu poetry reading

Take Away Activity
Give each participant a journal (i can make these) and pen to continue writing a love letter to themselves and other stuff too.