TOWARDS A MORE CIVIL UNION – JIM LEACH, CHAIRMAN OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
“In our society we rightly identify hate words with racial, ethnic, and gender slurs. What are we therefore to make of the usage or what more aptly might be described as misusage of words like “communism” and “fascism”? In 1938, we now understand, it would have been the height of irresponsibility not to shout from the rafters the dangers implicit in the demagoguery of Hitler and his S.S. But if we fought a war to defeat Nazi Germany and manned the barricades to hold communism at bay, isn’t it logical to assume that if a citizen were to believe that a government official is a fascist or communist, that official’s personal safety, as well as our social cohesion, could be in jeopardy?
That is why it is so important for Americans to think through the meaning of words and the meaning of history, our own as well as others’.”
Jacqueline Trescott’s article on the NEH can be found here in today’s Washington Post. Jim Leach was formerlly a Republican member of Congress from Iowa.
BUSING POETS WITH KIM ROBERTS
Initially Kim Roberts and I were going to have coffee at Busboys and Poets, but decided to take the plunge and order some scrambled eggs for catching up and other true confessions. Kim has been writing the literary walking tours for the Big Read – D.C. since “Zora Neale Hurston’s Washington.” Kim is also editor of Beltway: The Online Poetry Journalwhich turns 10 years old in 2010. Kim is working on a schedule of activities to celebrate including a special 10th anniversary edition of Beltway. Beltway has a solid reputation in poetry circles. Some of my favorite issues explore Washington DC writer history.
Kim is also completing an anthology of poems about Washington, DC. This should be a great companion to George Pelecanos’ DC Noir anthologies (short fiction – 2nd volume is the best). The title is Full Moon On K Street: Poems About Washington, DC. The 100 poems that make up the anthology were written between 1950 and the present by writers who have lived or are currently living in DC. Our friend Thomas Sayers Ellis is included as well as Holly Bass, Grace Cavalieri (who gave me a copy of her Langston Hughes interview for her radio show “The Poet and the Poem” – I’ve got to listen to that), Sarah Browning, Essex Hemphill, Naomi Ayala, E-Notes E. Ethelbert Miller, Tony Medina, and many, many more.
The anthology is being published by Plan B Press. It will be available in January.
HEALTH CARE REFORM PAPER TRAIL – THE BAUCUS BILL
I guess “health insurance reform” didn’t stick. Nevertheless, the Baucus Bill known as the “America’s Health Future Act of 2009” coming out of the Senate Finance Committee has been designated the pony to watch, perhaps because the Senate will probably move on their bill before the House on their version. There is no public option in the Baucus bill. Senator Max Baucus, the friendless Democratic Senator from Montana, authored the bill which received no support from Democrats or Republicans. It is being used now as a draft to retool for a final Senate bill. The complete version is over 1000 pages; but there’s a 223 page over view available here.
Open Congress has a decent site for tracking and understanding the Baucus Bill here. You can add your two cents or more. You can also follow the money trail for big Pharm, insurance, and other medical business interests on Open Congress here. Unlike the health care debate, OpenCongress.org is non-partisan. Oh, come to think of it, so was the initial Hill hate on the Baucus bill.
THE FUTURE OF MUSIC COALITION POLICY SUMMIT (October 4 -6)
Health care for musicians is one of the scheduled sessions at the upcoming Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit October 4 – 6 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
FMC has a program called HINT (Health Insurance Navigation Tool) to help uninsured musicians navigate the health insurance maze and find an affordable plan.
The Policy Summit focuses on music, technology, policy and law. Basically the new business of music distribution (and the old recorded tunes as well). Speakers at the summit include Senator Al Franken (D-MN), FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski , Mike Mills of r.e.m., and Daniel Ek, founder of the music service Spotify.
I’m working with FMC to present a special screening of COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS as part of ITVS Community Cinema (October 4 at 5 PM – Georgetown University Intercultural Center Auditorium). The film’s exeuctive producer, Kimbrew McLeod, will be there for the Q&A. COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS looks at the evolution, use, profits, and legal madness of sampling in hip hop music. “Who owns the notes and who gets paid?” The screening is FREE. Additional Community Cinema screenings of COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS are scheduled for October 25 and 28. Go here for more information.
Here’s a trailer:
When DC artists come home for one of the city’s 3-H summers (hot, hazy and humid), you gotta jump on them and ask, “Why?” It’s like following Harriet Tubman south instead of north. That’s not the pattern for a DC born artist. “Go to New York, LA, Europe. Come back when you’ve made it, when the President invites you to the White House, or your momma or daddy needs you at their sick bed.”
But Thomas Sayers Ellis came home to DC and he’s taking some of the goods back with him.
I was introduced to Ellis’ work via the internet, mainly through E-Notes, and finally got a formal introduction at this year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival where he was a guest artist for the “Giving Voice: The Power of Words in African American Culture” exhibit. He had his camera on him.
Thomas Sayers Ellis was born and raised in DC. He took inspiration from DC’s Go-Go music scene, its percussive and poetic pulse. He attended Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. Ellis co-founded The Dark Room Collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1988, and earned a M.F.A. from Brown University in 1995. His work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Poetry, Grand Street, Tin House, Ploughshares and The Best American Poetry. He has received fellowships and grants from The Fine Arts Work Center, the Ohio Arts Council, Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony. Sayers is a contributing editor to Callaloo and Poets and Writers. His first, full collection, The Maverick Room, was published by Graywolf Press in 2005 and awarded The 2006 John C. Zacharis First Book Award. He is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College and a faculty member of The Lesley University low-residency M.F.A program (Cambridge, Massachusetts).
You can read his articles and see more at his website genuinegro.
E916: When I emailed you, I asked if you’d share with my blog readers what you did during your summer in DC. A clichéd question, but nevertheless, to the point. Being that you’re a DC native and an artist–poet, photographer, journalist and you can fill in the blanks on the rest–who resides in Brooklyn, what brought you home for the summer? Is DC still “home”?
TSE: I walk during the summer, strolling humidity. I invent things like statues.
I am looking for a place to put a Statue of Sterling Brown and not at Howard University either, some place kids can climb it and say who was that old man and have his just be an old man. The city is change and I walk to witness it, to prevent it, to record it.
I write early in the morning and then I walk and take pictures for my project The Go-Go Book: People in the Pocket in Washington. I carry old Go-Go records and a poster around and beg strangers to let me photograph with them. At night I am usually at some band’s practice or at a show. I do Go-Go weddings and Go-Go funerals too.
DC is still home; it carries me. I carry it despite the fact that I saw two gentrifiers kissing their dog in the mouth in Columbia Heights.
E916: When did you leave DC and why? Did you have any thoughts of returning? Or was this flight?
TSE: I didn’t want to leave. I left in 1986, to Boston/Cambridge––school, again and to become a writer or a filmmaker. I left for the bride of ideas. I left because I couldn’t get an apartment along the canal in Georgetown and because the city dug up the street in my neighborhood, Shaw, to insert train tracks and gray walls that we couldn’t. Flight, nope, I hate flying but I did feel the war zone of local progress (CHANGE) breathing down my neck.
I was reading a lot of Oscar Wilde then so there was no way I was going to buy or sell crack or get caught between those who were buying and selling crack. No way I was going to help with gentrification flight. The night Doug Williams raised his fist inside of his Redskins’ helmet, I was at the Chapter III listening to Little Benny and the Masters. I had my camera with me and Benny gave me the PA recording to take back to Cambridge with me.
E916: Where else have you lived? What impressions did these places leave on you?
TSE: The dull, metallic watercolors of Providence, Rhode Island for graduate school.
Boston – Haitians, Cape Verdians, Jamaicans and the intellectual interracial air traffic of progressive leisure. All I did was watch movies and write poems; be with black people. The whites were invisible to me.
Cleveland, where my funk matured and I learned to teach, my way,
and to interrupt my prose with lyric motion. The Sayers really started to show in my writing there. I was so bored I bought a Used SAAB (and drove to the Motown house/museum [in Detroit]) after swearing I’d never drive.
E16:I bought a copy of The Maverick Room . I’m enjoying it. On the cover is a photograph of what I believe is an alley community maybe in the old South West with the view of the Capitol dome in the background. When I read the caption, it said, “View of Slum Area with Capitol Building, 1940.” I guess the word “slum” pushed my button. I knew people from those alley neighborhoods, before they were razed during the urban renewal experiment in the 1950s. A lot of these people have passed on. I never recall thinking “slum,” although many of the alleys were. I do remember people who lived in them saying they’ve never felt any real connection to a community since leaving. Did you select this photo for the cover? If so, why or how does the photo work as a door to the poems in The Maverick Room? What community in DC do you still feel connected yet physically removed from?
TSE: I chose the photo.
I wished I had taken it.
I had it with me throughout High School taped inside my locker.
The view in the photo reminded me of the view of the Capitol Building from my grandmother house on Maryland Avenue (12 & F Streets, NE), and that’s where I was when Dr. King was killed, out front playing Dumb School on her steps as the noise and news rose up from H Street. All of my poems are noise and nuance. I got rid of the news. It wasn’t until I wrote “View of the Library of Congress from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School” that I realized that photo could serve, among other things, as a commentary of the tensions and distance between folk and political institutions, etc. Sadly, the photographer is unknown but the style has been passed on to me a bit, I believe, with my photography.
E916: What inspired you to take up photography?
TSE: Seeing things, blinking. Some desire to make a better memory than memory. “Shutters shut and shutters shut and so do queens.” That’s Gertrude Stein.
Both writing and photography seem incomplete to me without the other, no, it is me that seems incomplete without them.
The activity of them, in me, completes me.
E916:What kind of camera do you shoot with?
TSE: I use a Leica M7 and a Mamiya 7. I also have a Hasselblad 500 c/m.
E916:Do you prefer color or b&w?
TSE: I like both, but b/w prefers me. It’s always about Race.
E916:Digital, film or both? Do you have a preference?
TSE: I prefer film, the negative over the digital file, the image is textured differently to me.
But a good picture is a good picture. I am a manual man. All of the Go-Go Book is shot manually. I like focusing for myself. I like the mistakes.
E916:Did you mourn the death of Kodachrome this year? (Kodak discontinued the color film stock).
TSE: Suckas for real. They still haven’t invented a perfect film for black skin.
E916:You attended Paul Laurence Dunbar High School – not the “old Dunbar” as DC’s old timers say. Did you notice the difference? Did you think about the Duke Ellington School of the Arts or School Without Walls being that you were a creative?
TSE: I never thought about those schools. I was busy being percussive. I loved being in the Inner High, if not the public school system. There wasn’t an artist, in that way, in my life––and certainly not any middle class art or art-attitude. I knew the word aesthetics from Oscar Wilde and Soul from James Brown and that seemed a lot to me. “Bustin’ Loose” (Chuck Brown) had both and its own alphabet. “Roach ‘em on down.” As a matter of fact, I keep trying to write a poem called “Dear Don Cornelius” and I keep failing. I wrote poems at Dunbar too. I was a regular Lennon/McCartney, ha ha, but with a bass drum, some good ol’ bottom.
E916: I read your poem “View of the Library of Congress from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School” three times in the SE section of the book (The LOC is located in South East – Capitol Hill that is). For me it was a memory poem. I remember being introduced to Robert Hayden’s work in my teens during one of my summer job assignments (hat tip Marion Berry) at Howard University. I always felt he was one of those African American poets only English majors, Black Studies majors (maybe) and poets knew. That he got lost in the shuffle. Seems like Hayden was an epiphany? What makes Hayden special for you? If you were to select a Hayden poem or poems for classroom reading, what would it be?
TSE: I would select “American Journal,” some early Afrofuturism type throw down. Hayden, “an epiphany,” I don’t know. But I do know that I love his clock, the pacing of the thinking and feeling footsteps of his prosody, the way the writing is allowed breathing, his brand of care. He go slow and every syllable matters. I like that in the mind and in the mouth.
Young writers, like young drummers, think speed is King; nah Son. Pie are round, cornbread are square. Most spoken word artists rush the line and rush it with excess. Mouth, mouth, mouth. I’m just saying. Most academics drain the line, drain it with limitation. Mind, mind, mind. Perform-A-Forms don’t play that.
E916:As a poet, writer and photographer, you’re working in different genres and mediums. I’m also going to include musician since you were a percussionist. Do you find there’s a benefit in working in multiple disciplines, to not be boxed into just one thing? Perhaps it’s all relevant?
TSE: Wholeness is an advantage, a varied toolbox, but it is also very difficult to integrate styles and genres because you have to make them vanish into the object and you have to make new rules of behavior. A lot of DC artists do a lot of different things but they do not integrate them into a whole very well.
E916:What do you think of the arts scene or community in DC today compared to where it was in the mid to late 1970s and 1980s?
TSE: I don’t think about it. I know communities develop and under-redevlop in ebbs and flows. Institution building is tough. Everyone disagrees about the role of the artist in art, even the artist. The idea of local artist is a trap for some and a crown for others. The poet must be poetic and such comparisons are non-poetic–like comparing lengths of light or boiling a watch to see what makes it tick.
Be whole and alive in your age and brave and the past will pour what you need into you eliminating such questions. Also, the idea of thinking about time in terms of tens, of decades, that package, is such a dull and played repetitive ceiling.
E916: How important is it for an artist to be part of and active in a community? Artistic community or otherwise.
TSE: I think it’s important as pork. Seriously. Community happens in many ways. Internal ad external. It really depends on the quality of your imagination, what you are made of. You can be born with a connection to community in you or you can acquire one, and then there are many levels of in between. Tradition can be a blessing or a trap. Community too. The vessel I am likes the interaction but I have also seen too much interaction cause an artist to waste time and miss the boat and flood the craft. Either way Art marches on and either way we need exchange, folk to progress us.
E916: I’ve heard people say in New York you don’t have to justify art. You can do “art for art’s sake” and people accept it and fund it. They’ve also said in DC it’s harder to justify art unless there’s some educational, health, or sociological benefit? Since you’ve lived in both worlds, do you find that comparison is fair and accurate or is there a twist?
TSE: Both worlds have guidelines and governors and attitudes and amnesia and I am just a drum and no one really likes a drum, the constant banging all up in their face. If there is a twist, it’s population and agenda. It’s harder to see the limitations in NYC because of the number of people, while in DC the ups and downs and ins and outs of art commerce (the tastes and awards and networks) are more manageable, visually. It’s hard to hide the favors and it’s impossible not to notice that the fake DC favors imported-talent.
If I were from DC I’d move away, establish a name, then come back and run sh*t. I’d also stay away from the steps of the Senate in March because some of my new friends are now the enemies of the city.
E916: How is the Go-Go book coming along?
TSE: Go-Go keeps going. The book is always coming. I am reaching the point in it where I can see the people and the city change.
Time is beginning to enact width, range, purpose, on it.
I am patient.
Percussive too.
E916:What kind of footprint do you want the book to leave?
TSE: Folk shoes. A thumpin’ foot and a sock. I groove more than I crank.
E916: What happened to the Petworth Band you played in?
TSE: Band breakup. I still see them. It’s a long story that I just wrote and published in the new edition of “The Beat: Go-Go Music from Washington, DC” by Charles Stephenson and Kip Lornell. We played everywhere: the Howard Theater opening for Rare Essence, The Maverick Room, block parties, SYEP’s (Summer Youth Employment Program) Showmobile, high schools, Wilmer’s Park, The Moonlite Inn, Northwest Gardens, etc. I could go on.
I left Petworth for school and many of the other members stayed on and continue to play today in other bands. I photographed them in front of the remaining structure of the old O Street market last Spring.
E916: As a poet, writer and photographer, you’re working in different genres and mediums. I’m also going to include musician since you were a percussionist. Do you find there’s a benefit in working in multiple disciplines, to not be boxed into just one thing? Perhaps it’s all relevant?
TSE: Wholeness is an advantage, a varied toolbox, but it is also very difficult to integrate styles and genres because you have to make them vanish into the object and you have to make new rules of behavior. A lot of DC artists do a lot of different things but they do not integrate them into a whole very well. The amputation is thick there but a lot of DC artists are not from DC.
E916: Howard University gave birth to the “New Negro,” via philosophy professor Alain Locke. That thesis evolved into a “Harlem Renaissance.” Do you think Washington, DC is on the verge of something – another kind of Renaissance perhaps after the election of a Black President? [E916 note: Development in Harlem Renaissance history here.]
TSE: No. Nope
Go-Go is the only Artistic Independence Movement in DC.
Go-Go don’t know it though.
I’ve come to tell it.
No one wants to party with poor people.
Everyone else is just expressing themselves, everyone else has accepted their level in the hierarchy.
Not the drum.
The drum is might; the pocket, alphabet.
E916:Did you discover or reinvent any memorable third spaces, during your summer in DC, i.e. did you hang out and where?
TSE: I tried sitting on my mama’s porch with her more but the mosquitoes just kept coming. The most important part of my camera are my legs and they are extremely against first, second and third spaces. I try not to see closings or dead-end rooms. I fall the walls.
E916:Where and what in the fall?
TSE: I slave and I free, teaching “creative writing” (code term for courage), at Sarah Lawrence College. I also hand over, Skin, Inc., a new book of poems, to Graywolf Press, which will be out in Fall 2010. There’s even a reparations eye chart (in the form of a concrete poem) in it. I am all exclamation about this. I guess I am still teaching myself to see.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” a film by John Hughes
It’s pretty amazing how many people don’t finish the game in their 5th inning if you call life a game. This may sound like promotion for Ethelbert Miller’s memoir, but I really think he’s onto something, something not adequately discussed or even acknowledged by the general public.
I mean who’d a thought Michael Jackson (50) and John Hughes (59), both artistic icons of “forever young,” would enter their 5th innings but never leave them. Forever not-so-young?
TV gadget salesman Billy Mays – 50
“Jurassic Park” author and “E.R.” creator, Michael Crichton – 56.
Author, E. Lynn Harris – 54.
For women, it’s the decade that introduces you to those “little procedures.” You savor the meal before an annual check-up, mammogram, pap, sonogram, biopsy, as life may never be the same again pending the results.
Though I’m not in my 5th Inning YET, I’ve always believed in working ahead. In July, I led a discussion of Miller’s 2nd memoir, The 5th Inning. I know nothing about baseball, but we did jump on why the metaphor is so appropriate to analyze that “bridge” decade between adult and old person. “Elder” is a title you earn pending on your stats.
How do you know you’re a winning pitcher in a 5 or 6 + inning game? Your team must be ahead. You cannot be replaced for 5 innings. If you are, and your team’s behind, you are a losing pitcher. If you get to a 7th inning game, the people in the stands break out in song — “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”
I have no idea how this game works. I’m just here for the hot dogs and beer. Of course, that can lead to a precarious 5th inning on the health end. Maybe I should learn more about stats. Seems like the digital, internet, Facebook world has given us too much access to stats, your’s, mine, and millions of others.
Below are the questions from our 5th Inning book discussion at Busboys and Poets (the publisher) in July. This is a good segue to announce that I’ll be managing Ethelbert’s E-Notes blog for a few days — “eethelbertmiller1.blogspot.com.” He’ll give a reading of his poems and a speech in Norway. Unlike E-bert, I won’t be Palin watching. I wonder if he’ll be able to see Russia from his hotel window in Norway.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS for THE 5TH INNING, a memoir by E. Ethelbert Miller
by Michon Boston
FAILURE If this is a memoir about a failure, what is/are the failure(s)? What do you think is the writer’s measure(s) of success? What is your measure of success?
For some, failure teaches valuable lessons or tests one’s strength of character. What lessons have you learned from personal failures? Does the writer offer any lessons to you from his perceived failure(s)?
The writer has a list of things he hasn’t done (maybe wants to) or can’t do (maybe he should). Do you have a list like this and what’s on it? What does this list represent? Failure, aspirations, goals, or priorities?
METAPHOR Why do you think the writer uses baseball as a metaphor vs. basketball which he appears to like as well? In the game someone wins and someone loses and the game is over. What does winning look like? What is losing? When do you know a game is over? What makes the 5th inning crucial and/or special?
Is there a metaphor for your life?
DEATH How is the writer affected by the losses in his life – family and friends?
When or what makes you aware that you are immortal?
How do you wish to be remembered after you die? What would your eulogy say? What would your epitaph say?
THIRD SPACES Are there places where you feel out of place because of your age? Does it matter to have people your age in the room and why? What 3rd spaces have grown with you; what new 3rd spaces do you feel at home?
LOVE, RELATIONSHIPS, MARRIAGE Love and marriage doesn’t resemble a sit com or romantic comedy in THE 5TH INNING. No pithy punch lines no make up kisses in the last act. Returning back to the metaphor how is marriage or coupled partnerships like a baseball game? What makes you think the writer will “finish out the season”? Do you think the baseball is the right metaphor to describe love, marriage?
Where do you look for love at this point in your life? What kind of love (any kind of relationship) do you believe is available or unattainable to you now?
RELIGION What role does religion or spirituality play in the writer’s life?
ADULTHOOD At what point are you a real grown up? What’s the difference between a grown up and an elder if any?
I see the moment we are witnessing as a civil rights movement rather than a push to topple the regime. If Rosa Parks was the American “mother of the civil rights movement,” the young woman who was killed point blank in the course of a demonstration, Neda Agha-Soltan, might very well emerge as its Iranian granddaughter.
Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University, is the author of, among other books, “Iran: A People Interrupted.” Source: NY Times.
All I can do is watch, listen, and maybe learn something. But it’s no surprise the results of the Iranian election would be deemed certifiable. This week the Guardian Council made it official that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the winner of the Presidential elections.
For now the crackdown on demonstrations, press, and opposition in Iran appears to have successfully imposed a new order, but still leaves open questions or wounds about the future of the Islamic Republic. It’s still a story without an ending. But who’s story is it? How will the story of the last several weeks be told, and in what form or medium? I’m always interested in the artistic responses in these matters.
The National Iranian American Council’s “Insight blog” (a good source for up-to-date information) noted this graphic of the Ayatollah Khomeini on Mousavi’s Facebook page. Translated – “The measure of a nation is its vote.” Here is an artistic interpretation on the theme of “Remember where you came from.” In this case the 1979 revolution that created the Islamic Republic.
Persianesque.com, a “modern on-line Iranian magazine,” is posting cultural and artistic responses to recent events in Iran.
Earlier posts include a photo montage edited to the song “The Owner of this Land” by Hamed Nikpay. Nikpay was born in Iran and lives in southern California. He incorporates traditional Persian music into his work. On the musician’s URL page for “The Owner of this Land” is the video and this dedication:
“With pride and humility, I dedicate this song to the memory of those who lost their lives, and to the courageous men and women of Iran who have put their lives in the harms way to continue the struggle for democracy with unbreakable resolve and unshakable determination.” – Hamed
I’m going to pass on Wyclef Jean and his YouTube video singing a song he composed for the Iranian people that transitions to Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry.” Bon Jovi has stepped up to the plate with a little of the same but invites a popular Iranian artist, Andy Madadian, to join him in singing “Stand By Me” in Persian with Richie Sambora.
And Joan Baez loaded her own video singing the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” recorded in what appears to be her home kitchen. Baez’s voice always has a melodic ring of clarity. She also sings the chorus in Persian/Farsi. Baez’s video is a reminder that the U.S. civil rights movement was not about overthrowing the government, but to bring the government and the country closer to living up to the promise and principles on which the democratic nation was founded.
One band may break out from just a one-video wonder at least on this side of the ocean. The Freedom Glory Project featuring Raam, the lead singer from the Tehran underground band Hypernova.
[Hypernova will perform in Washington, DC July 18 at Rock N Roll Hotel, 1353 H Street, NE.]
At this point it’s unclear if a “We Are the World” campaign will get the reform movement to the mountain top especially if the message is coming from outsiders. Iranian citizens have already willingly put their own bodies on the line for reform.
But if this movement will be televised on YouTube, what does it mean for communities outside Tehran and other major cities that remain unplugged? And the use of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube shouldn’t be misinterpreted as an open invitation to the U.S. to meddle. (Is this the first time I’ve heard the word “meddling” used in official policy terms?)
There’s a sour history between the U.S.A. and Iran going back to 1953 when the U.S. instrumented a coup on their democratically elected president installing the Shah. That led to the 1979 Revolution resulting in the hostage situation at the U.S. Embassy and the creation of the Islamic Republic. Hopefully, recent events have pushed the mute button on “bomb, bomb Iran” Obviously, not so for former UN Ambassador John Bolton clearly humming the melody and signaling Israel to sing the chorus. (See the Op-Ed in today’s Washington Post.) A “Don’t take the bombing personally. It’s your regime we don’t like” sentiment.
Poetry has a long an beautiful history in Iranian and Persian culture. John Lundberg who blogs on Huffington Post highlights poetry emerging from the “Revolution” (those are his words). Among the scribes is candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi’s wife Zahra.
Let the wolves know that in our tribe
If the father dies, his gun will remain
Even if all the men of the tribe are killed
A baby son will remain in the wooden cradle.
Another is Sholeh Wolpe, an Iranian American residing in California wrote a poem for Neda Agha Soltan, the 26-year-old Iranian student whose shooting death during a demonstraton was captured on citizen video and posted on YouTube.
I Am Neda Leave the Basiji bullet in my heart,
fall to prayer in my blood,
and hush, father
–I am not dead.
More light than mass,
I rise through you,
breathe with your eyes,
stand in your shoes, on the rooftops,
in the streets, march with you
in the cities and villages of our country
shouting through you, with you.
I am Neda–thunder on your tongue.
Ahmadinejad has also taken creative control over Neda’s story vowing to find her “real killer,” according to reports. So far the doctor who came to help her aid is now being recast as an “enemy of the state.” This is like someone buying the movie rights to your life story and changing the characters for dramatic effect. In the first rewrite the script casts doubt on what people actually saw. Where did the bullet enter? Where was the shooter? What was the make of the gun? How did her body move upon impact? Back and to the left. Back and to the left. Now watch the video again. It would make Oliver Stone’s head spin. The final draft or shooting script for Neda’s story will most likely remove any and all traces of martyrdom.
Contradiction becomes its own art form in this story.
If there’s an American poem that might resonate with it’s “If We Must Die,” written in 1919 by the Jamaican-born Harlem Renassance poet Claude McKay (1889 – 1948). McKay composed the poem in response to the race riots in the U.S. where white assailants terrorized black neighborhoods.
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Could be the voices crying “Allah-o Akbar!” from the rooftops into the night air, has returned as the spoken word of this generation’smoment.
For additional news and information on Iran and Persian-related events, visit
Update: Also, check out Persian Arts Festival News for upcoming events, performances and exhibits on-line and off.
HEALTH CARE WATCH by the Numbers with Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com As I lamented yesterday, health care is one of those areas where both popular opinion and sound public policy seem to take a backseat to protecting those stakeholders who benefit from the status quo.
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, the numbers cruncher whose stats predicted the crispy outcome of the election, is looking at the impact of special interest money from health care lobbyists on the outcome for health care reform on the Hill. In other words, it doesn’t look good for the majority of Americans who want a public option. Fortunately, Nate gives some pointers for a game upset (in the peoples favor).
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24TH – A BIG DAY! From 4 – 8 pm there will be an Interfaith Service of Witness and Prayer for health care reform at Freedom Plaza (Washington, DC Pennsylvania Avenue between 13th & 14th Streets). Faithful Reform is the name of the organization recently formed to help faith-based advocates become aware of the issues and to make health care reform a reality.
The Smithsonian Folklife Festival opens Wednesday, June 24 on the national mall. Tents have been up for days. This year’s exhibits: Giving Voice: The Power of Words in African American Culture
Las Americas: Music In Latino Culture
Wales
Poet Kenny Carroll sent an email around inviting people to join him Toni Blackman, Thomas Sayers Ellis and Sonia Sanchez for the opening ceremonies at the Giving Voice pavilion. Performance artist Holly Bass will be there too. Today’s her birthday! I might check out the food pavilion in the Wales exhibit. I have roots there too. Folklife Festival calendar is available on-line.
Not wishing to overstate the case, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the pretentious, nonsensical, sexist, jingoistic, militaristic, CGI-dependent, product-placement-packed, hectically edited, punishingly loud, wearyingly long, eye-wateringly expensive, and, I predict, phenomenally profitable exemplar of everything that is most repulsive about Hollywood today.
Nicholas Barber, The Independent TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen opens. I always say, these movies are a preview of the next generation of military hardware. The film was made with support by the U.S. Department of Defense. “Stars and Stripes” describes how Transformers beat out G.I. Joe for the privilege. But what about General Motors? Will the Transformers be able to win the battle under a bankrupt GM hood? Apparently, director Michael Bay had some concern. Bumblebee was originally a VW Beetle in the cartoon series on which the movies are based. I guess there’s no place for Love Bugs on the field of battle.
THE MARKET IS UP Eastern Market re-opens Friday! The historic market was nearly destroyed by fire in 2007. The restored market’s interior includes the original drab pink color from back-in-the-day and upgraded restrooms.
THE 5TH INNING – Book discussion with author E. Ethelbert Miller
Sunday, July 12, 4 PM @ Busboys and Poets (downtown – 1025 K Street, NW)Join me for a book discussion of THE 5TH INNING, a memoir by E. Ethelbert Miller. At the request of the author, I will be leading a discussion of his 2nd memoir (not quite the sequel to Fathering Words). THE 5TH INNING is published by PMPress/Busboys and Poets. You can pick up a copy at their 14th & V Street bookstore or order it on-line.
CATCHING UP
Last week I caught up with Clayton LeBeouf who sent me home with a DVD copy of “The Doll,” a short film based on the short story published in 1912 by Charles W. Chesnutt . The film was a project of Duke University’s course “Adapting Literature to Film” taught by Emmy Award winning filmmaker Dante James (director and executive producer of the film). Clayton is the co-producer and lead actor in “The Doll.” The film is hitting the festival circuit and won the “Best Film” award at the National Black Film Festival in Los Angeles. It’s a powerful story about racism, revenge, and choices. The main character, played by Clayton, is the owner of a barber shop and the single parent of a young daughter. What does this barber do when the man who killed his father asks for a close shave? While hanging out in Silver Spring, a few people recognized Clayton from the HBO series “The Wire.” Another guy thought he was an African liberation figure. Never a dull day with Clayton LeBeouf.
THE ECLECTIQUE PRESIDENT – After All these Months, Still in Love with the Word
According to this Politico column by Abby Phillip, President Barack Obama is a fan of Urdu poetry. The real source of the story is Pakistan’s English language news outlet “Dawn.” “Dawn” had an exclusive interview with the President last Friday in the White House – the first one-on-one Pakistani media interview with a U.S. President ever.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview
Any plan to visit Pakistan in the near future?’
‘I would love to visit. As you know, I had Pakistani roommates in college who were very close friends of mine. I went to visit them when I was still in college; was in Karachi and went to Hyderabad. Their mothers taught me to cook,’ said Mr Obama.
AI: ‘What can you cook?’
‘Oh, keema … daal … You name it, I can cook it. And so I have a great affinity for Pakistani culture and the great Urdu poets.’
‘You read Urdu poetry?’
‘Absolutely. So my hope is that I’m going to have an opportunity at some point to visit Pakistan,’ said Mr Obama.
Okay, what is Urdu poetry? Urdu is a language spoken in India, Pakistan and some neighboring South Asian countries. It is the national language of Pakistan. In the “Novice Nook” of Urdupoetry.com the description includes “Urdu poetry expresses human feelings, passion of love and the beauty of nature in a very melodious and elegant manner. Urdu has its own script which is similar to Persian.” Urdu poetry is performed in public in Mushairas or recitals.
There’s no definitive starting point for Urdu poetry, but its literary figures have been around since 1200 AD. Here’s a 20th century Urdu by Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911 – 1984) translated by Naomi Lazard
Before You Came
Before you came things were just what they were:
the road precisely a road, the horizon fixed,
the limit of what could be seen,
a glass of wine was no more than a glass of wine.
With you the world took on the spectrum
radiating from my heart: your eyes gold
as they open to me, slate the color
that falls each time I lost all hope.
With your advent roses burst into flame:
you were the artist of dried-up leaves, sorceress
who flicked her wrist to change dust into soot.
You lacquered the night black.
As for the sky, the road, the cup of wine:
one was my tear-drenched shirt,
the other an aching nerve,
the third a mirror that never reflected the same thing.
Now you are here again—stay with me.
This time things will fall into place;
the road can be the road,
the sky nothing but sky;
the glass of wine, as it should be, the glass of wine.