Book of the Week: Muse and Druge

I am interested in Black authors of the diaspora who push the realms of tradition. The good aspects must be preserved and transformed to meet the needs of modernity and to scratch the back of futurism.

As such I am going to make sure that I highlight a work of poetry that gets the thumbs up from me.

A lot of poets building off the the Harlem Renaissance and later Black Arts movement sought to generate a black poetical tradition that was firmly rooted in the history of Black American music expression. Thus you can see many experimenting with ways to transpose the modalities of jazz and blues to the written word.

One poet whom I think has done an excellent job is Harryette Mullen through her work Muse and Druge. Not only does she have an epic poem that lyrically resonates blues she has also successful transposed the subject matter of blues in her writing. The whole long poem is about that 'invisible woman' who is so because of the social circles she stepped into. Make some time and check it out.

Is there a polar shift?

Traditionally my greatest times for creative writing has been late at night. Recently that has shifted to early morning (is there a polar shift going on here). I think that I am storing more nervous energy (from various factors) in my physical and I don't fully let it out. I start my morning with various activities that actually release and accept in energy. While this may be okay to some it isn't to me because it means that if I ain't unwinding fully before I go to sleep then I am not getting the full benefits of sleep. Hmmmm...going to have to think on this one.

Support my peeps!

Asiatic Light Publishing
(lulupress.com/asiaticlight)
Presents Eboni Joy Asiatic

From 85 to Civilized: An Earth's Journey in Poetry
by Eboni Joy Asiatic




Coming November 19th!


“The travel from darkness to light updated for our times”
Charles Jong, author of the poetry book Don't Shirk Your Duty

“Now poetry like this I can dig. Tell me again why stuff like this isn't in school?”
Charonda, SCSU student

“I like it. I like it alot”
Carol Anne, mother of three, neighborhood matriarch.

Science and Poetry?

Do you like sci-fi? Do you like poetry? How about having your cake and eat it to. Check out Star Line online science fiction poetry magazine. Also if you just like science and poetry check out Astropoetica. Finally if you want to check out some next level in poetical forms check out Mathematical Poetry. According to that blog "Mathematical poetry is an artistic expression created by performing mathematical operations on words or images as if they were numbers. One may find this baffling because it seems we are confused about knowing the difference between the states of quality versus quantity. But it is through the fusion of this dichotomy that mathematical metaphor is spawned. Mathematics has always been used for denotation. However, our interest is to use math as a language for connotation.". It a great merger of visual art with poetry like Amiri Baraka's Low Coup (calm down we'll get to them).

Yeah Yeah

Yes I have still been working on those two poems that I mentioned a few blog post back. My overall time though has been devoted to getting out Original Thought magazine.

Both of the poems have a free verse quality to them which is interesting since currently I have been attracted to classical forms such as the ghazal (we'll Build on it soon) and pantoun (yeah, we'll Build on that one also). It may be that I will squeeze out some pulp of free verse and distil it back in a form poem. We'll see.

The subject matter of both poems does signal a return of my use of poetry as a tool of addressing social injustices. I never leave that far behind though I do delve deep into periods of Asiatic Romanticism.

As an aside there is a fresh 'chained' Hay(na)ku project going on for a collection that is looking for submissions so y'all should check it out.

www.thejainakuproject.blogspot.com

Original Thought: The Time is Now

Peace,
Yeah. You've been wondering what it is. Well today is the day of revelation. Take yourself over to www.originalthoughtmag.com and check us out. Tell us what you think. If you are interested in writing for Original Thought in any capacity leave me a line at alife@originalthoughtmag.com.

Peace

Whimsical

XII
big mack chunks
see sea gulls slurping
beef fat

© 2007 C'BS ALife