phati'tude Literary Magazine Vol. 2, No. 1 by The IAAS

Marie Arana WE ARE A NATION OF MANY VOICES

V O L. 2 || N O. 1 || S P R I N G 2 0 1 0 a publication of The Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc.(IAAS) a New York nonprofit organization

Gabrielle David Editor-in-Chief

Jennifer Bacon Associate Editor Jon Sands Editor Francis C. Macansantos Monica S. Macansantos Co-Editors

WRITING ACROSS GENERATIONS Featuring Lawson Fusao Inada & Tara Betts

Lorraine Miller Nuzzo Art Director Angela Sternreich Program Director Michelle Aragón Director, Marketing & Communications

A. Robert Lee is TALKING MULTICULTURE, TALKING MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE

Nikita Hunter Director of Curriculum & Instruction

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gabrielle David, Chair Angela Sternreich, Secretary Lynn Korsman, Treasurer Kenneth Campbell Joan Edmonds-Ashman Shirley Bradley LeFlore Stephanie Agosto Robert Coburn Tonya Foster Michelle Aragón Naydene Brickus Nikita Hunter

72 DAVID ZINSER n MARK CRANE n DAVID M. WULF

Andrew P. Jackson (Sekou Molefi Baako) Advisor for the IAAS Board phati’tude Literary Magazine is published quarterly (Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall), ISSN: 1091-1480; ISBN: 1453634266; EAN13: 9781453634264. Copyright © 2010 by The Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS). All rights reserved. Printed and bound in the U.S.A. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical without permission in writing from the Publisher. The views expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors of phati’tude Literary Magazine, the Board of Directors of the IAAS, donors or sponsors. Single issue: US$18; Annual subscriptions: US$65; Int’l-Canadian: US$75; Institutional US$110. We offer special discounts for classes and groups. The Publisher cannot guarantee delivery unless notification of change of address is received. Visit our website at www.phatitude.org. Manuscripts with SASE, letters to the editor and all other correspondence to phati’tude Literary Magazine, P.O. Box 4378, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163-4378; or email editor@phatitude.org. Cover Design: Michelle Aragón; Cover Art: Lorraine Miller Nuzzo (see p. 138).

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C O N T E N T S DEPARTMENTS 6 12

18 28 127 130 138

EDITOR’S NOTE THIS & THAT TERRY SANVILLE Cats LEE MINH SLOCA Being Neo-Conned ARAM SAROYAN The Moral Model of the Death & Resurrection BOOK REVEWS POETS WITH PHATI’TUDE THE FINAL WORD Richard Kostelanetz CONTRIBUTORS COVER ART Lorraine Nuzzo

INTERVIEWS 34 64

WRITING ACROSS GENERATIONS: Lawson Fusao Inada & Tara Betts TALKING MULTICULTURE, TALKING MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE: A. Robert Lee

ARTICLES ESSAYS 31 72

MARIE ARANA We Are a Nation of Many Voices IN SEARCH OF A NEW PERSPECTIVE DAVID ZINSER Multiculturalism: Commodifying Diversity through Institutionalized Lamp Blackness MARK CRANE A New Definition of Multicultural Literature DAVID WULF Multiculturalism: The Identity of Minority Groups in America

PROSE SHORT STORIES 92 V I S I T

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HEATHER LEA The Turkish Bath

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POETRY 100

SHERMAN ALEXIE When Asked What I Think About Indian Reservations, I Remember a Deer Story

111

AMMIEL ALCALAY The Time

AYA DE LEÓN Grito de Vieques

MEENA ALEXANDER Sonatina for Phillis Wheatley Traces

HEID ERDRICH The Theft Outright

126

KAREN ALKALAY-GUT spring

JAIME “SHAGGY” FLORES Letter of the Day The Matrix Senryu

MELIZA BAÑALES Do The Math

REESHA GEPPERT Evolving Backwards American Dream

OSCAR BERMEO Make Me a City

MARK GIBBONS The Foreign Policy of Oz

109

TARA BETTS Hurricane Kwame Offers His Two Cents

116

ZAHRA GORDON The Death of Cleopatra

LAWSON FUSAO INADA Healing Gila A World of Passengers

105

RICHARD JACKSON No Turn on Red

121

NOMY LAMM Book of Rules: A Girl’s Guide to Doing What You’re Told

118

SHIRLEY BRADLEY LEFLORE ILLUMINATION

110

SHANE BOOK Offering

104

CHRISTINE BOUSFIELD White Out

112

IAIN BRITTON Not for Burning

116

MEILANI CLAY hibiscus

KIMBERLY CURTIS Skid-Steer

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ANGELICA LE MINH legacy’s labour’s lost

108

TIMOTHY LIU Western Wars Mitigated by the Confucian Analects

MONICA S. MACANSANTOS Hand-me-down

SILAS PARRY Comic Book Characters

114

STEPHEN MEAD Heading Home

119

CRAIG SANTOS PEREZ from achiote

TONY MEDINA The Old Testament

117

JAMES G. PIATT Thoughts on a beach

123

JESÚS PAPOLETO MELÉNDEZ The Answer Bohemian, in Love She My Woman’s Left Me

RICHARD L. PROVENCHER Among Nations

MICHAEL LEE RATTIGAN Text poem Language minus zero

101

ALBERTO RÍOS Writing from Memory

103

RUTH L. SCHWARTZ AIDS Education, Seventh Grade

SUE SINCLAIR Metropolis

113

MARTHA VERTREACE-DOODY Night of the Moon

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A. D. WIEGERT The Hollow

CHANGMING YUAN Civilization

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NANCY MERCADO With Paquito De Rivera

OPAL MOORE There are no honest poems about dead women

JADA-GABRIELLE PAPE What You Are Not

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P H A T I’T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 0

E D I T O R ’ S N O T E G

“Someone recently asked what makes PLM unique. I believe it’s that we’re not a slave to any particular institution, genre, group of writers, or trend. Instead, our goal is to find poems that truly stir emotion and provoke a response.”

Gabrielle David, founder and editor of phati’tude Literary Magazine, is a writer and multimedia artist who has worked as a desktop publisher, photographer, visual artist, video editor and musician.

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t is m myy great pleasure tto reintroduce o reintr oduce phati’tude Literary Magazine (PLM). With a mission to provide a forum for diverse literary voices, we thought, “What better way to relaunch the magazine than with an exploration of current thinking on the subject?” Thus was born “Multiculturalism: In Search of a New Perspective.” The relaunch issue attracted writers of different ethnicities and religious backgrounds from all over the U.S. and around the world: Canada, England, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Israel, Japan, Guam and the Philippines. It features more than 50 writers who have an overwhelming desire to make this exploration, to innovate and experiment, to protest against tradition and convention, to present new ideas, and more importantly, to be widely read. Before we proceed on the journey ahead, I want to share information about the magazine, our plans for the future, and my take on this month’s theme. Founded in 1996 and published under the auspices of Chimeara Communications, Inc. (CCI), a

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for-profit company, PLM is now published by the Intercultural Alliance of Artists and Scholars, Inc. (IAAS), a New York-based nonprofit organization founded in 2000 that promotes multicultural literature and literacy. When PLM was initially published, it was not the typical literary journal. The name itself was taken from a slang dictionary, with “phat” meaning “emphatic” and “tude” short for “attitude.” The idea was to generate an “emphatic attitude” about contemporary literature by continuing the literary arts programs I had developed at the Langston Hughes Community Library & Cultural Center (Queens Library) in Corona, New York during the early 1990s. At the time of PLM’s inception, most journals were published in a 6×9 format, with little graphics, and spoke

directly to the literati made up primarily of professors who needed to beef up their CVs with writing credits in order to get tenured. PLM, on the other hand, was an 8-1/2×11 book, with a 4-color cover and graphics and artwork on every page. It was also the first to call itself a “magazine” instead of a journal. It actively published writers outside the “so-called” literary canon by aggressively pursuing an open submissions call, and it was marketed to the general reading public. We held literary programs in the New York/New Jersey area that involved many of the writers who participated in PLM, and who, in effect, created a “phati’tude” family of writers within the literary community. Today PLM is the same publication that premiered back in 1997, and it is better and smarter than ever. It

continues to offer a wide array of work, with emphasis on multicultural writing, consisting of poetry, prose, short stories, articles, interviews and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews and biographical profiles by established and emerging writers. We have expanded our reach by creating an interactive website, www.phatitude.org that also hosts a number of phati’tude-related programs. To eliminate some of the financial problems that caused us to take a hiatus, we’re taking advantage of new resources. The publication will use print-on-demand services and we’ll be publishing eBook versions on Amazon Kindle™, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and the new Apple iPad. For broader exposure, we’ll also include excerpts on our website, combining old and new media distribution models that finally allow us to do what we love. It is my hope to raise funding to cover expenses that not only includes paying contributors to the magazine, but also to host literary programs in communities throughout the country and who knows, throughout the world. Reviving PLM also meant a major overhaul of the magazine’s design, layout and logo, which now has a fresh and contemporary look. We also added two editorial features: THIS & THAT, which includes random thoughts writers want to share that are not necessarily “literary” in nature; and THE LAST WORD, that’s well . . . the “definitive last word” in PLM. We expect to add other features in subsequent issues. While PLM publishes a wide range of literary works, its core continues to be poetry. Aside from all the social and political changes that have taken place since PLM’s inception, it appears that the poetry scene has also changed significantly. Trying to define the current movement in poetry is no easy task since it seems that poetry itself is in a

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constant state of self-definition. It seems to me that in recent years, writing and performing poetry has become an easy means of satisfying the American itch for 15 minutes of fame. However, it is my belief that the tenets of good poetry remain constant: any “real” poet is like a proper mechanic trained in the tools of the craft who uses these in conjunction with an innate ability to communicate. Someone recently asked what makes PLM unique. I believe it’s that we’re not a slave to any particularly institution, genre, group of writers, or trend. Instead, our goal is to find poems that truly stir emotion and provoke a response. The submissions to this issue prove there are plenty of new and intriguing literary talents emerging – you just have to know where to look. Our hope is that PLM will become a springboard for the future Hughes, Eliots, Bishops, Brooks, Ginsbergs or Plaths. Aside from going through our open submissions, I also went over anthologies, book reviews, publishing lists, and poetry on the internet for fresh ideas. What I found is that there are some writers, such as Craig Santos Perez, who are working outside the boundaries of form and genre. I also discovered poets like Meliza Bañales, Shane Book, Kevin Coval, Aya De Leon, Martha Vertreace-Doody, Nomy Lamm, Richard Jackson and Jada-Gabrielle Pape. Silas Perry, an exciting new poet from Scotland, and Heather Lea, a short story writer from Canada, are two of several writers with promising literary careers on the horizon. Students from Tony Medina’s Howard University class submitted works as part of an assignment, and some of these works were accepted for publication. Then, of course, there is Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, Ammiel Alcalay, Meena Alexander, Karen Alkalay-Gut, Tony Medina, and Shirley Bradley LeFlore, who, due to their participation over the years in our other programs, are part of the phati’tude family. Since this issue’s theme is multiculturalism, we reprinted Marie Arana’s essay as its introduction and included an indepth interview of A. Robert Lee, a British professor teaching American Literature at Nihon University in Tokyo, who discusses the course that multicultural literature has taken over the years. This is rounded out by essays from David Zinser, Mark Crane and David Wulf, who share their thoughts on multiculturalism. Finally, we feature interviews of Lawson Fusao Inada and Tara Betts, two deeply imaginative writers with a special sensitivity to the world around them, who share parallel courses as poets, with Lawson representing an older generation that has paved the way for the newer generation in Tara. I am often asked how I became compelled to create a magazine for multicultural literature. I believe that when

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we read literature, we unconsciously relate the text to our own experiences. My ideas on multiculturalism are derived from a lifetime of challenging the existing literary canon. It began with my fourth grade teacher, Ms. McCarthy, who loved poetry so much she made it an integral part of our curriculum. She introduced the class to the works of Robert Frost, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Clement Clarke Moore. More importantly, we were required to memorize poems, write poetry, and share the poems we wrote with each other, activities which I loved. The experience instilled in me a lifelong love for literature. However great this experience was, I had one major problem with Ms. McCarthy’s list: there were no black poets.

“It seemed as if the planets had aligned and the time was right for the return of phati’tude Literary Magazine. And so here we are.” Now, you have to understand that back then I expected the achievements of black people to be given equal and fair recognition. The year was 1969, the Civil Rights Movement was coming to a head, and I was keenly aware of the ferment the nation was going through. I took note of the absence of black poets in Ms. McCarthy’s class and complained to my mother about it. She sent me off to the Langston Hughes Library, our brand new community library created by neighborhood activists, teachers, and parents. There I found To Be Young Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words. Hansberry’s book, published posthumously in 1965 by her ex-husband and executor of her estate, Robert Nemiroff, was a collection of Hansberry’s notes, letters, correspondence, and excerpts from some of her plays. It was this book that introduced me to Langston Hughes, who had passed away only two years earlier, in 1967. When I read To Be Young Gifted and Black, I discovered that the title of Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” came from Hughes’ poem “Harlem” (also known as “A Dream Deferred”). So when Ms. McCarthy assigned us to select and memorize a poem and recite it in front of the class, I chose “A Dream Deferred.” I really don’t remember Ms. McCarthy’s reaction, nor did I care. After learning about Hansberry and Hughes and reading their works, I discovered other great writers, like Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Mari Evans, Nikki Giovanni, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) and David Henderson. My interest in Frost, Poe

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and Longfellow was not diminished, but writers of color whose works I began reading were talking and writing about things I could readily relate to, in the here and now. When the concept of “multiculturalism” began to take hold in the 1980s, it was clear to me that it had its historical roots in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and the women’s rights movement that followed. James Banks, one of the pioneers of multicultural education, was among the first to use a multicultural approach to the examination of schools as social systems. Banks, who grounded his conceptualization of multicultural education on the idea of “educational equality,” questioned culturally oppressive teaching approaches, standardized tests, school funding discrepancies, classroom climate, discriminatory hiring practices, and other symptoms of an ailing and oppressive educational system. Teachers-turned-scholars such as Carl Grant, Christine Sleeter, Geneva Gay and Sonia Nieto took off from Banks’ work and developed even newer, more radical frameworks grounded on the ideal of equal educational opportunity, citing the necessary connection between school reform and social change. These experts frequently emphasized the importance of literature in developing cultural awareness, believing that the literature taught in schools should accurately portray the history, customs, values and language of various ethnic groups through carefully selected literary works. This had the effect of challenging the literary canon that consisted almost exclusively of “dead white men.” These ideas surfaced at a time when the cultural landscape of the United States was becoming less visibly white and Christian, and more culturally, racially, ethnically and religiously diverse. It was clear that the curricula in public schools had not caught up with the many curricular developments taking place in tertiary institutions across the country. Though I studied on my own Asian and Native American cultures and literatures, not many of my fellow students were. This was because I grew up in a household of voracious readers with parents that were politically and socially astute, and encouraged me to explore other cultures. I quickly understood the potency of developing a truly multicultural curriculum that would finally include works I accessed outside the classroom. Since I firmly believed that Banks’ theory should extend beyond the classroom into our communities, I eventually instituted multicultural literary programs at the Langston Hughes Library. As ideas about multiculturalism developed, naturally, a debate ensued. Critics such as Diane Ravich, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Dinesh D’Souza and Yehudi O. Webster argued that multiculturalism undermined national unity

and hindered social integration and cultural assimilation. These opponents of multiculturalism emphasized the importance of canonical knowledge in the preservation of a “traditional” western society, arguing that multiculturalism is a threat to the very fabric of western civilization. As it happened, they also sold a lot of books. This debate eventually spilled into discussions about literature. Take, for example, what I often refer to as the “Brothers Bloom” (philosopher Allan Bloom; and writer and literary critic Harold Bloom). In Closing of the American Mind (1987), Allan Bloom asserted that the inclusion of the works of ethnic writers and women in the canon would devalue the great books of Western thought as sources of wisdom. Harold Bloom’s opus, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Age (1994) not only contained an examination of the works of twenty-six authors that Bloom believed to be central to the canon, but also contained his own updated list of what the canon should be: a canon devoid of ethnic and women writers. It did not matter to the Brothers Bloom or to the critics and pundits that the works they cited seemed politically incorrect to modern sensibilities, or that these works contained strong elements of chauvinism, elitism or archaic social and political views. Instead, they argued that the desire to create a more multicultural and equitable approach to our curricula and, for that matter, to our daily lives, was based on political reasons. Therefore, when educators and scholars began to deconstruct the existing canon, they threatened to undermine the critics’ desire to maintain a system of institutionalized racism that kept the canon all white, male and exclusive. This is why the inclusion of multicultural literature in the classroom involves more than just the expansion of the reading list. Teachers must transform their attitudes, orientations, as well as their methods of exploring issues of culture, race, and diverse voices in literature. Also, they must learn how to effectively move such issues to the center of discussion and reflection. It also means devising a curriculum that does not pander to any particular group of people, but rather provides a true representation of the finest literature that can be read anywhere and everywhere here in the United States and beyond. The world has been through a lot since PLM last saw print in 2001. Here in the United States, we experienced a major ideological shift to the right, followed by terrorist acts, two wars, environmental catastrophes, an economic crisis, and the confluence of politics, capitalism and class polarization. The rise of racism, which has appeared under the guise of “immigration reform,” was a backlash not only against multiculturalism, but also against the

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achievements of the civil rights movement. It would seem the Conservative opponents of multiculturalism had won. However, while the critics and pundits were churning out their diatribes, the world was gradually changing. With the help of technological advances that aided the expansion of a global communication network, the world shrunk and we became part of a larger community. Ideas were flowing freely outside the main. At the same time, great strides were quietly being made in the development and expansion of ethnic studies; scholarly organizations, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA), were becoming more inclusive; smaller presses were publishing and promoting multicultural writers. Historians, like Ronald Takaki and Howard Zinn, who raised important questions that tested our long held assumptions about American history, were being widely read. Students were being exposed to a curriculum that included a stunningly diverse array of literary works, and a true multicultural perspective was emerging. Additionally, something quite remarkable happened: the American public elected as President, an African-American who was raised during the civil rights era, with a multicultural sensibility. It seemed as if the planets had aligned and the time was right for the return of phati’tude Literary Magazine. And so here we are. In this issue we continue our commitment to publish works with strong social, political and cultural awareness, which, at the same time, reflect personal experiences, ideas and thoughts. We seek writers whose extraordinary honesty, dignity and insight can displace the myths and stereotypes that pervade our culture. We celebrate the authentic voices of multicultural writers, because we recognize the need for writers to breathe on their own, without suffocating to death on the premise of multicultural literature. We cover the gamut of subjects and provide our readers with some new aspect of our own humanity. More importantly, we recognize that the need for an “emphatic attitude” is more relevant today than ever before, and no one does it better than phati’tude Literary Magazine. We invite you to join us in the exploration taken in this issue and in those to come.

Special thanks to Michelle Aragón, Lorraine Miller Nuzzo, Francis C. Macansantos, Jon Sands, Monica Macansantos, Jennifer Bacon, Holly Bacon and Raven Blackstone for their exceptional hard work on this issue. Special kudos to Polymathea Transcription & Virtual Assistance Services for transcribing our interview tapes (http://in.linkedin.com/in/ polymathea). Also, love to the “Godmothers,” Yvonne and Donna, my personal cheerleading squad.

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T H I S & T H A T R A N D O M

T H O U G H T S

Cats

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e’ll star startt her on three units of ProZinc, twice a day,” the young vet told us. “Bring her back in a week and we’ll do another glucose curve.” She looked worried. I petted our skinny little cat and she purred immediately, grateful to escape the brutes that had been jabbing needles in her veins all day. My wife and I moved to the animal clinic’s front counter to pay our bill — a day’s worth of blood sugar tests, a vial of insulin, syringes. “Holy mother of . . .” As I gazed at the computer-printed bill, the receptionist flashed a weak smile and said wryly, “It is what it is . . .” Yikes! Over the next few days, friends asked me about our 13-year-old feline’s condition. When I complained about the costs, one mentioned the animal’s age and said maybe it was time to “let her go.” Euthanizing a furry friend is heartbreaking. But the notion got my mind spinning: Is the high cost of veterinary care a good reason to end her life? If my cat had a richer owner, would she have a greater right to live?

(cont’d pg. 14)

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B e in g N eo-C o nn ed ing nned

nce upon a bedtime, Jack had three cows . . . What? You already know all of the talking points? Alright, here goes: Once upon a morality, Jack had two cows. He sold one and bought a bull. His fortune multiplied as Baskin-Robbins stock soared. He lobbied them for magical beans and retired high on capital hill. What? It’s still the same tale? Alright, here goes: Once upon a GOP, Jack had a cow so he could milk it for the Lord, but fearing that the government would take the cow away while forcing him to pay tax on it and drink only non-fat soybean latte . . . What? It’s sacrilegious? Alright, here goes: (cont’d pg. 14)

T he M oral M od el o e Mo Mod ode off th the D ea th & R e surr ecti o n eath Re surrecti

n To the Finland S tation Station tation,, his history of the idea of communism from its germination in the writings of the renaissance historians Vico and Michelet to Lenin’s arrival at the Finland Station in Moscow, Edmund Wilson speaks of “the moral model of the death and resurrection.” In a work about the evolution of a political system conceived as a balm for the suffering masses, he invokes the Christian paradigm at its most mysterious. As an Armenian Jew, or a Jewish Armenian, I’ve had a peculiar relationship to the Judeo-Christian tradition, and Wilson’s words stuck in my mind. If one speaks of the death and resurrection as “a (cont’d pg. 15)

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B O O K R E V I E W S E X P L O R I N G

L I T E R A T U R E

Our mission is to increase interest in reading by providing cool, book recommendations in poetry, fiction and nonfiction. This month’s book reviews are from the poets and writers featured in this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine.

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My Old Man Was Always on the Lam by Tony Medina Nightshade Press; 2010 $12.00; 96 pp; ISBN: 1879205890

ver since W alt Whitman Walt Whitman, our great father of American poetry, in, “Song of Myself,” wrote the opening line, “I celebrate myself,/ And what I assume you shall assume,/ For every atom belonging to me as good

belongs to you,” the focus on self has often been consciously proposed and promoted by poets. While poets are often keen about writing how and what they feel, it is fair to say that overtly autobiographical poetry — the kind where readers learn the details of a poet’s life the way they would the background of a character in a novel — is on the decline. My Old Man Was Always on the Lam, Tony Medina’s latest collection, is just that, a deeply (cont’d pg.22)

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Face by Sherman Alexie Hanging Loose Press, 2009 (hangingloosepress.com) $18; 160 pp.; ISBN: 1931236704

hen he ffir st came on the scene irst scene, Sherman Alexie ir was an overnight sensation. He appeared as an angry Indian that challenged the status quo, providing readers with the harsh realities of reservation life, draped in themes of despair, poverty, alcoholism and racial anger. Although his work has been universally characterized as revolutionary, bold and realistically reflective, Alexie’s critics have termed his realism as harsh and have even gone as far as accusing him of being a racist against white people. Face is Alexie’s first full poetry collection in nine years. A mixture of narratives and lyricism, much of (cont’d pg. 23)

Arc & Hue by Tara Betts Edited by Randall Horton, with a Foreword by Afaa M. Weaver Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2009 (willowbookspoetry.com) $16.95; 94 pp.; ISBN: 098192087X

ara Be tts e xplodes ont o the literary scene through Betts explodes onto her poetry collection, Arc & Hue. She enters at the intersection of America’s past and present as jazz merges into hip hop by means of poetic blues. Her own legacy is of her historical writings and her contemporary voice that connects to the rhythm and voices of our youth. Betts’ work is laced with wit and rawness doused in scholarship and sophistication. Her poetry emerges from the culture and breath of hip hop. Through this synergy, Betts’ world becomes one of intergenerational connec(cont’d pg. 23)

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From Unincorporated Territory [Hacha] by Craig Santos Perez Tinfish Press, 2008 (tinfishpress.com) $15; 98 pp.; ISBN: 0978992962

om U from Unincor nincorporat porated erritor oryy [Hac [Hacha] ha], Craig n fr nincor porat ed TTerrit errit or ha] Santos Perez chronicles the colonization of Guam and the far-reaching effects it had on the native peoples and their culture. Born in Guam and having indigenous roots, he has deftly given a voice, often in native tongue — or Chamorro (Chamoru), to a people, land and culture subjugated by the Spanish, occupied by the Japanese, and finally claimed and named “unincorporated, organized territory” by the United States, hence the title of the book. The preface aptly explains background info for those unfamiliar with this Pacific island. He explains that Guam (cont’d pg. 24)

National Monuments by Heid E. Erdrich Michigan State Univ. Press, 2008 (msupress.msu.edu) $16.95; 106 pp; ISBN: 0870138480

ne of the great things about Heid Erdrich is that she is easy going and unpretentious. Early in her

career, when she began honing her craft and building her reputation as a poet and writer, Erdrich managed to do it outside the shadows of her famous sister, Louise Erdrich. The result of her tenacity and hard work has culminated into her third poetry collection, National Monuments, which resonates with a distinct voice that stands completely on its own. Erdrich’s poetry is literary in the best sense of the word, infused with an awareness of the poetic canon. (cont’d pg. 25)

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M U L T I C U L T U R A L I S M: IN SEARCH OF A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Modern American Counter Writing: Beats, Outriders, Ethnics by A. Robert Lee Routledge, 2010 (routledge.com) $95.00; 308 pp.; ISBN: 0415998115

LITERARY CRITICISM & CULTURAL THEORY

ere w e are, at the beginning of the twenty-first we century, where we can no longer identify literature as solely one thing or one idea. Instead, we are becoming increasingly aware of the ways in which local and national narratives share human histories across cultural boundaries. Since literature is not created in a vacuum, or isolated from the consciousness of its past, contemporary American literature is no exception. In recent months, a number of books have cropped up that are investigating modern American literature through a different lens, invariably making connections (cont’d pg. 25)

Poetics of Dislocation by Meena Alexander University of Michigan Press, 2009 (press.umich.edu/) $24.95; 216 pp.; ISBN: 0472050761

eena Ale xander mak es deep connections as she Alexander makes explores the self and place. Much of her work is concerned with migration and its impact on the writer’s subjectivity. Having published poetry, novels and criticism, Alexander’s literary memoirs have become her specialty. In Poetics of Dislocation, Alexander brings the experience of the world to her struggles to find her place in America, and explore the cultural impact of diverse poets practicing their craft. Alexander opens up American poetry through the pulsating rhythm of language, geography and crossing through and over “borderlands.” She introduces the (cont’d pg. 26)

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“ . . . all over America during the 1960s and 1970s, people were getting together meeting, creating and organizing. In a way we were all trying to rediscover or discover our own histories and our own cultures . . .” — Lawson Fusao Inada (Photo Credit: Richard Green)

featuring interviews of

Lawson Fusao Inada & Tara Betts

Since antiquity, poets have existed. Nearly all languages have produced works that vary greatly through different cultures and time periods, resulting in a history of poets as diverse as the literature they have produced. The notion of sustaining a history beyond one’s personal experience is important for understanding how certain poetry has developed to confront social and political issues in public spaces since the 1960s. Poetry, because it inhabits a blurry space that is at once private but also communicative, resists easy assumptions about its use as public documentation. Many take pride in the fact that poetry “does nothing.” Others use it more explicitly to make arguments about social change.

Without trying to define what poetry is and what it does or does not do, let’s just assume that it contributes to how we see the world we live in, helping to build our capacities to understand the diverse phenomena around us. (cont’d pg. 36)

“I feel that because of who I am and all of my e xperiences growing up, it's experiences going to show up in my work. I mean, you're going to create work that's of you; it's going to come out no matter what. Even if you try hard to repress it, you'll just end up paralyzed trying to fit into this mold. — Tara Betts (Photo Credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths)

(cont’d from pg. 35)

Too often, an activist or political artist with no sense of grace produces only polemics – rhetorical outrage, scripted and self-serving. And then there are poets like Lawson Fusao Inada and Tara Betts: works that reflect an expanding interest in poetic form and social engagement. Our understanding of poetry broadens when writers like them engage in the unglamorous activity of not only building communities, but creating great works. Lawson Fusao Inada, a Japanese American writer, has been impacting the poetry community since the 1960s, not only through his published work, but also through teaching, mentoring, and advocacy of transformation through literature. He has taken great pains to present an Asian American literature and more specifically, a Japanese American culture. Tara Betts, who began making her mark in the late 1990s, writes within a landscape that reveals a poetic imagination informed by an African American experience consisting of family, spirituality, and social issues from a woman’s perspective. Betts also teaches and mentors, using literature as a means to educate beyond the classroom. Both poets use art, poetry and music to foster unity, celebrate diversity, and generate discussion around the social, political and personal issues that touch the lives of people everywhere. Inada, the poet who helped transform the literary canon to recognize multicultural voices, has in a sense, paved the way for younger poets like Betts, who continues in that tradition. Through their poetry, they insist on the political necessity of articulating and sustaining a critical cultural memory willed with fresh insight and new ideas, making remarkable contributions in modern American poetry and in particular, in multicultural literature. What follows is two separate interviews of each poet discussing their life and the role poetry has in it; similar paths from two different generations.

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In this issue, phati’tude Literary Magazine is on the search for a new perspective in multiculturalism; a perspective that provides a way of understanding ourselves, and encouraging us to look at how our own values affect our view of the world. In order to deal with this new perspective, it requires acknowledging the existence of a dominant culture, characterized by what we will call white, middle-class assumptions and behaviors, and encouraging awareness of how different groups of people are affected by that culture’s assumptions. Below are three thoughtful essays by David Zinser, Mark Crane and David Wulf, who explore these new perspectives with suggestions on how we should view the world through a multicultural lens.

M u l t i c u l t u r a l i s m : Commodifying Diversity through Institutionalized Lamp Blackness

HE INTENTION OF THIS INTERROGATION into whiteness as it infects the academic institution is not to suggest the dismantling of multicultural doctrine to empower disenfranchised non-white students. Rather, the purpose is to facilitate much needed, on-campus discussion regarding the seemingly overlooked issue of multiculturalism as it pertains to whiteness and academia. On-campus debate concerning multiculturalism often takes two lines of argument: (1) Multiculturalism is beneficial for the academic institution because (cont’d pg. 74)

Artwork: L. Miller Nuzzo

A New Definition of Multicultural L i t e r a t u r e

HE KEY TO MOTIVATING CHILDREN to read literature is to discover a relevant connection between the child and the book. Educational psychology has long ago established that such relevance spurs interest in reading. In this anally-retentive, racist culture, the favored policy by educators has been to offer “multicultural literature” as a means by which racial and ethnic identity can establish that elusive, relevant connection. When educators with a “No-Child-Left-Behind” fire under them are searching desperately for some way to improve performance, (cont’d pg. 75)

M u l t i c u l t u r a l i s m : The Identity of Minority Groups in America Sherman Alexie and Jamaica Kincaid

HE EXCLUSION OF IMMIGRANT CULTURES from mainstream America is the consequence of the refusal by the dominantly Western American culture to accept other cultural infusions as of equal validity. The rapid development of a national infrastructure early in America’s history can be attributed to England’s own personal hand purse, the abundance of natural resources found in America, as well as free slave labor. The influence of England’s aristocracy helped to (cont’d pg. 77)

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THEFINALWORD I T’ S N O T W H O Y O U K N O W B U T W H A T Y O U K N O W

Advice To A Young Poet Being a good man, he has character enough to make enemies. So has Frank Harris. So have I. — George Bernard Shaw, Advice to a Young Critic: Letters 1894-1928

F Richard Kostelanetz is a writer-artist who has published extensively since 1961, contributing poems, stories, articles, reviews, and experimental prose to hundreds of magazines both here and abroad.

ir st of all, m oung per son, you must take an MFA irst myy dear yyoung person, degree in poetry writing. Know that a BA won’t be enough in poetry’s increasingly competitive world; you must have “professional credentials” as well, just as lawyers must, especially if you want to get a job teaching poetry, even to children. Try to get into the Iowa Writing Program, because it is the oldest and still among the largest, with enough alumni respecting their “old school tie” to give you the practical equivalent of the Harvard MBA requisite for working in international finance. Given roughly equal applicants for any job, any former Iowa MFAs involved in making the hiring decision will nearly always favor a supplicant advertising an Iowa degree. Should you be less fortunate and matriculate into another, less powerful MFA program, be sure to take classes with the most prominent poet on the staff. Should this star be “on leave” for a year, as such stars are wont to be, wait for his or her return; be warned in advance that the name of any unknown instructor on your resumé simply won’t be (cont’d pg. 128)

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THE FINAL WORD cont’d from pg. 127) noticed. Once you receive your degree, you can answer “poet” whenever asked what it is you do in life. Don’t forget that poetry is far more competitive than business or law, superficial platitudes about the “community of poets” notwithstanding. Should you have a law degree, the odds that you may live off your receipts as a lawyer ten years from now are better than 50 per cent. Likewise if you have an MBA, even from a school less prominent than Harvard. Anyone with an M.D. will be employed forever in medicine. When you have an MFA in writing, the likelihood that you might in ten years earn your living from poetry or even the teaching of poetry is less than one per cent. The economic truth, obvious to everyone wise, is that any situation so competitive is necessarily more cutthroat. Dress like a poet. Advertise through your clothing and hairstyle, just as models (or streetwalkers) do, or else other poets will think you an apparatchik with pretensions. Have a veteran literary photographer take a picture of yourself looking earnest. No matter how much orthodontia you’ve had, don’t smile at the camera. However, don’t deceive yourself into thinking only these self-presentational moves would be enough to establish your career. Be sure to flatter famous poets whenever possible — send them appreciative letters, remind them that you’ve read not just their books but poems other than those titling their books (remembering that John F. Kennedy impressed Norman Mailer by citing not his most famous novel but Barbary Shore). Attend their poetry readings whenever possible, introduce yourself especially if you look sexually desirable, dedicate individual poems to them, and review favorably their latest books anywhere you can (because even the most prominent poets pay more attention to reviews than sales). You can quickly and surely distinguish those prominent poets who are susceptible to fulsome butt-kissing from those who, alas, are not. Attend a summertime “writers’ conference,” even after you’ve begun to publish, not only to meet aspiring colleagues whose friendship may later be useful but also to impress the faculty. Separated from their homes and families for a week or two, these senior poets become more personally accessible than they would normally be. To facilitate faculty-student contact, the conference organizers often sponsor social hours during which alcohol flows freely and everyone with a drink in his or her hand can be approached. Never forget that a poet drunk has fewer resistances than a poet sober.

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Give as many public readings as possible of your own poetry; teach “poetry workshops.” However, don’t advance the careers of any of your students and particularly don’t help them publish, because your superiors in the poetry biz will think less of you if you do. Never forget that poetry as an industry is not only highly competitive but very hierarchical — those positioned below you must be treated differently from those above. Your failure to observe this last rule can ruin your career. Develop a professional tag based upon something exotic in your background as, say, a black Icelander, a one-sixteenth American Indian, a Sudanese lesbian, a veteran of Soviet jails, a deaf fashion model who was sexually abused. Write poems about your exotic experience, if not purportedly representative of other people like yourself, few though they might be. If you can get publishers and publicists to acknowledge your exotic tag, you’ll be forever known as the umpty-ump poet, rather than a mere writer. Try to persuade the publisher of a literary magazine to let you select the poetry for its pages and, once you get such power, be sure to publish the work of other poets who double as poetry editors. They will then feel obliged to accept your own poems in return. Organize a series of poetry readings at your university or a nearby venue, such as a café or a literary bookstore that thinks it needs more customers than it would otherwise get. The poets invited to participate in your series will not only be impressed by your good taste, but they might later invite you to perform in their own reading series. Move to New York, San Francisco, or at worst Buffalo, where you can make personal contact with “the main roosters and roosteresses,” as my colleague Bob Grumman calls them. Join poetry societies and clubs that bestow prestige, while avoiding those that don’t — the easiest way to measure the former is the presence of people you feel are positioned above you. Make yourself conspicuous at poetry festivals and gatherings devoted to poetry; consider yourself successful when you’re invited to work the other side of the dais. In writing your own poetry, don’t do anything too conspicuously alternative either in content or form; your poetry will be judged “acceptable” only to the degree that it resembles what other people are doing. Don’t express any sentiments that might be unacceptable to most poetry readers. Piously oppose war, rape, parental abuse, homelessness, etc. — be politically correct without shame, not only in your poems but in whatever prose remarks you write to introduce your poems or yourself. Especially on the last count of political correctness, don’t make Ezra

M U L T I C U L T U R A L I S M: IN SEARCH OF A NEW PERSPECTIVE

Pound’s mistake — your poems will disappear from public view unless they are strong enough to overcome the obstacle you have needlessly placed in their path. Avoid formal departures that would make anyone stop and wonder about what you might be doing technically. Poetry must look correct before it is read, especially by people in power, who may be too busy to decipher anything formally unfamiliar, whose eyes instinctively turn away from anything that, as they say, “looks funny on the page.” Do not confuse the values of poetry with visual art or even concert music, where ambitious aspirants know they won’t get anyone’s attention unless they do something uniquely different from their predecessors. Writing poetry with character or a stylistic signature, as the great early moderns did, is definitely old-fashioned; it’s strictly for “wild men” nowadays. Avoid activities that your colleagues might consider infra dig, such as working in advertising or finance, exhibiting your visual art, performing your music, or producing books about anything other than poetry. (Or should you need to do any of these ancillary things to make money, consider a pseudonym and don’t let your poetry colleagues know.) Even when you have enough good poems to make a book, do not self-publish. Sooner spend your money entering book contests, no matter if hundreds are applying for a single prize, for even if you don’t succeed, older poets especially will think better of you for trying, especially if they are paid to judge such competitions. Don’t forget that the worse thing your superiors can say about you is that you’re “no poet,” which means not that you fail to publish poems but that you don’t play your career by the familiar rules. Though measuring a poetic career is problematic, consider yourself somewhat successful when you’re asked to write blurbs for other poets’ books (and expect favors in return), when you are asked by poetry editors to review new collections for their literary magazines, and when you are asked to judge contests whose entrants pay a fee (some of which money will be channeled to you). Consider yourself more successful when you receive a prize or grant for poetry writing. The truth you can’t forget is this: Because there is no money to be made from publishing poetry per se, you must strive for power more than for the admiration of your colleagues or even a large readership. Only when you gain a position incorporating professional power will you ever earn a bourgeois salary as a “poet” and enough respect and leverage to get additional monetary rewards. Do what I tell you, dear aspirant and you might even get a university position in poetry, even though you’re

never published a poem that anyone especially likes or remembers. * * * The most popular magazine claiming to advise poets and writers in America accepted this essay for publication, even paying for it, before returning it, because, I learned, the publisher thought it a satire, which it isn’t and can’t be, because it tells the truth.

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CONTRIBUTORS M E E T W H O

T H E P O E T S M A K E I T

& W R I T E R S H A P P E N!

Sherman Alexie is a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian who grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, WA. He has published the award winning poetry collections, The Business of Fancydancing and I Would Steal Horses; short stories collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (Atlantic Monthly Pr., 1993); and the novels, Reservation Blues (Atlantic Monthly Pr., 1995); and Indian Killer (Atlantic Monthly Pr., 1996). He collaborated with Chris Eyre, a Cheyenne/Arapaho Indian, on the award-winning 1999 film, Smoke Signals, which was based on Alexie’s short story, “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona.” In 2002 Alexie made his directorial debut with the film, The Business of Fancydancing, based loosely on his first poetry collection, which won numerous film festival awards. His most recent honors include the 2009 Swedish Peter Pan Award; and a 2009 Mason Award, 2009 Odyssey Award for The Absolutely True Diary audio book. Alexie’s recent work is the collection of stories and poems, War Dances (Grove Pr., 2009) and the poetry collection, Face (Hanging Loose Pr., 2009), which is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine. www.shermanalexie.com. Ammiel Alcalay is poet, translator, critic, scholar and activist. He teaches in the Department of Classical, Middle Eastern & Asian Languages & Cultures at Queens College (CUNY) and is a member of the faculties of American Studies, Comparative Literature, English, and Medieval Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center where he is also Deputy Chair of the Ph.D Program in English. Alcalay has published numerous poetry and essay collections. His latest books are the novel, Islanders (City Lights, 2010); the poetry collection, Scrapmetal: work in progress (Factory School, 2007); and Memories of Our Future: Selected Essays, 1982-1999 (City Lights, 1999). Alcalay recently cotranslated the Hebrew novel (with Oz Shelach), Outcast, by Shimon Ballas (City Lights, 2007). He has been a regular contributor to the Village Voice and his poetry, prose, reviews, critical articles and translations have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, and various other publications in the U.S. and abroad. A Little History, a book of essays on politics and poetics is forthcoming from Beyond Baroque. Meena Alexander was born in India, raised there and in the Sudan, and at eighteen years old went to England for further studies before immigrating to the U.S. A Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College and the Graduate Center CUNY, Alexander has published six volumes of poetry including Illiterate Heart, which won the PEN Open Book Award, Raw Silk and Quickly Changing River. Her autobiography, Fault Lines, chosen as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books, was revised in 2003 to incorporate new material. She is also the author of The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience. The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, a book of essays on Alexander, Passage to Manhattan: Critical Essays on Meena Alexander (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK), edited by Lopamudra Basu and Cynthia Leenerts, published in 2009. Alexander recently published her latest book, Poetics of Dislocation (Univ. of Michigan Pr., 2009), which is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine. www.meenaalexander.com Karen Alkalay-Gut is a poet, writer and professor who was born in London, grew up in Rochester, New York and since 1972, has been living in Israel, raising a family and teaching poetry at Tel Aviv University. She is the Chair of the Israel Association of Writers in English, serves as Vice Chair of the Federation of Writers Unions in Israel, and is a board member of the Yiddish Writers Association. Alkalay-Gut is also the coordinating editor of the newly revived Jerusalem Review and a trustee for the Alsop Review. She has published numerous academic papers, and her poetry has been widely anthologized and published in numerous literary publications. www.karenalkalay-gut.com.

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M U L T I C U L T U R A L I S M: IN SEARCH OF A NEW PERSPECTIVE Marie Arana was born in Peru and moved to the U.S. at the age of nine. She received her BA in Russian at Northwestern University, her MA in linguistics at Hong Kong University, and a certificate of scholarship at Yale University in China. She began her career in book publishing as vice president and senior editor at Harcourt Brace and Simon & Schuster. For more than a decade she was the editor-in-chief of the book review section of The Washington Post and is currently “Writer at Large.” A Kluge Scholar at the Library of Congress through 2010, Arana’s commentary has published in USA Today, Civilization, Smithsonian magazine, The National Geographic, and numerous other literary publications throughout the Americas. She is the author of the award-winning memoir, American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood; editor of a collection of Washington Post essays about the writer’s craft, The Writing Life (2002); and the author of the satirical novel, Cellophane (The Dial Pr., 2007) a finalist for the John Sargent Prize. Arana’s most recent novel, Lima Nights, was published in 2009 by The Dial Press. Holly Bacon, a contributor to phati’tude Literary Magazine, has a degree Literature and Writing and has volunteered with the Literacy Volunteers of America, teaching adult literacy skills. Jennifer Bacon is Associate Editor of phati’tude Literary Magazine. The founder of Black Women Writing, she received her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Maryland. Bacon is a recipient of the 2010 Book In A Day writing fellowship in Florence, Italy, the 2009 recipient of Poetry Alive and the 2008 recipient of the Pursue the Dream: Chris Mazza Award for Poetry Therapy. Bacon is the author of Culturally Responsive Poetry: The Lived Experience of African American Adolescent Girl Poets soon to be published. Bacon has presented at several conferences including the American Educational Research Association. Her writing and research interests include social justice, poetry, culturally responsive pedagogy, global education, African American culture, gender studies and adolescent identity and development. Moreover, she has worked on educational projects in the United States and Africa. Bacon is a published poet with works in literary magazines such as phati’tude and Returning Woman. She has been featured on Dialogue, Poet's Corner and the Cedric Muhammad Black Coffee radio program. Meliza Bañales is a San Francisco based slam poet who gained recognition for being the first Latina on the West Coast to win a poetry slam championship in 2002 (Oakland, CA). Her film, Do the Math, which she produced with award-winning director Mary Guzman, was the 2006 winner of a Frameline Completion Grant and screened at Outfest 2007. Bañales’ work has been anthologized in Revolutionary Voices, Without A Net: The Female Experience of Growing-Up Working-Class, The First Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Change, Baby Remember My Name: New Queer Girl Writing, and Word Warriors. She is the author of Say It With Your Whole Mouth (Monkey Book Pr., 2003) and the forthcoming 51 Poems About Nothing At All. Oscar Bermeo, born in Ecuador and raised in the Bronx, is the author of the poetry chapbooks Anywhere Avenue, Palimpsest and Heaven Below. His poems have appeared in Achiote Seeds, BorderSenses, CrossBRONX, In the Grove, and Small Press Distribution’s New Lit Generation, and the anthologies From Page to Stage and Back Again (Wordsmith Pr., 2004), I Just Hope It’s Lethal: Poems of Sadness, Madness, and Joy (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), Points Not Found: Writings on the Meaning of Place (Kearny Street Workshop Pr., 2006), 12 Ways: An Anthology of the 2007 Intergenerational Writers Lab (Kearny Street Workshop Pr., 2007), among others. He has facilitated poetry workshops at Rikers Island Penitentiary, UNC-Chapel Hill, Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center, the Bronx Academy of Letters, Teatro LATEA, Dias y Flores Community Garden, and Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, and has led poetry discussions and seminars in schools throughout New York City and Oakland, where he currently resides. www.oscarbermeo.com Tara Betts is a poet, writer, activist and professor. Her work has appeared in publications such as Essence, literary magazines such as Obsidian III, Callaloo, Columbia Poetry Review, Ninth Letter, Hanging Loose, and Drunken Boat; and has been widely anthologized. Betts has also been a freelance writer for publications such as XXL, The Source, BIBR, Mosaic Magazine and Black Radio Exclusive. Betts, a Cave Canem fellow, is a lecturer in creative writing at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. She has performed her work in Cuba, London, New York, the West Coast and throughout the Midwest and has appeared on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam.” Betts recently published her debut poetry collection, Arc & Hue (Willow Books, 2009), which is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine. www.tarabetts.net Shane Book is a poet, producer, director and professor. He has taught literature and creative writing at Stanford, and is currently studying film, and producing and directing documentaries. His poetry appears in journals in the US, UK, and Canada and in many anthologies, most recently Gathering Ground (Univ. of Michigan Pr., 2006). He was educated at the University of Western Ontario, the University of Victoria and New York University. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. The recipient of scholarships to Cave Canem, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and Breadloaf, Book’s awards include a New York Times Fellowship in Poetry, the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, an Academy of American Poets Prize,

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and a National Magazine Award. He recently directed a film based on his first poetry collection, Ceiling of Sticks, winner of the 2009 Prairie Schooner Book Prize, is forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press. Christine Bousfield is a Bradford-born poet (U.K.), who spent 27 years researching and teaching, first in Further Education, and (from 1989) in Higher Education, where she taught Literature, Comparative Arts, and Psychoanalysis. She developed creative writing on her MA Courses, working on both poetry performance and poetry as therapy, and has run many workshops and performances. Bousfield’s poetry is widely published in national and international magazines, and anthologies. She has also recorded the CDs Thinking On (Soundpie, 2000), Keep Hold of the Line (Soundpie, 2004); and her pamphlets, Tense Formations and Between Stones were shortlisted by Cinnamon Press for their Poetry Collection Award. Interested in connecting poetry and music, Bousfield regularly performs her poetry with her jazz quartet “Nightdiver.” She recently published the pamphlet, Cutting a Rhythm Out of Nowhere. www.christine-bousfield.com, www.nightdiver.org Iain Britton was born and educated in Palmerston North, New Zealand. He spent many years living in London and in Bournemouth teaching English as a Foreign Language. During the 1980s, Britton taught in small rural areas such as Manutuke and Taupo in the North Island of New Zealand, and now teaches at a large independent school for boys in Auckland. His work has published in New Zealand, the UK, U.S. and Australia in literary journals such as Agenda, Stand, The Warwick Review, Blackbox Manifold, The Reader, Horizon Review, Wasafiri (UK), Harvard Review, Drunken Boat, Tinfish, Free Verse, Slope, Stirring, Rattapallax, Fulcrum, BlazeVOX, Zoland Poetry, The Tower Journal, Scythe (US), Jacket, and the International Exchange for Poetic Invention. His first poetry collection, Hauled Head First Into a Leviathan (Cinnamon Pr./UK, 2008), was nominated for the Forward Prize in 2008. Britton recently published the collections, Liquefaction (Interactive Pub./UK, 2009) and Cravings (Oystercatcher Pr./UK, 2009). www.iainbritton.co.nz Meilani Clay is a poet and spoken word artist from Oakland, CA. She was a champion of the 2006 Brave New Voices International Teen Poetry Slam Festival, and appeared on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam” in 2007. Clay currently resides in Washington, D.C. Mark Crane is a writer, artist and activist. A Pennsylvania native and long-time New York City resident, he has served as a city school teacher, probation officer and court clerk. He currently attends Lehman College’s masters program for Education, having earned his BA at New York University. He is the author of Fool for a Lawyer, a memoir, and blogs at www.motormanmark.com. Kimberly Curtis is a Jamaican student at Howard University, majoring in Psychology. She currently serves as one of the editors of Amistad, Howard University’s literary and art journal. Gabrielle David, editor of phati’tude Literary Magazine, is a multimedia artist that has worked as a desktop publisher, photographer, artist, video editor and musician. David has published several essays on multicultural literature and published the poetry collections: this is me, a collection of poems & things (CCI Books, 1994); and spring has returned & i am renewed (CCI Books, 1995). Her work has published in Paterson Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, AIM Magazine, and phati’tude Literary Magazine. She is the Executive Director of the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS), a NY-based nonprofit organization that promotes multicultural literature and literacy. Aya de León is a hip hop theater artist, poetic activist, and community healer. A co-author of the 2004 book, How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office, de León has shared the stage with a wide range of performers, including hip hop and spoken word artists. In 2005, she co-hosted a kickoff rally with Mos Def for “Current TV,” Al Gore’s new cable network. In 2004, she appeared on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam.” She has taught spoken word and poetry at Stanford University, and has been a guest artist in residence at New York Theatre Workshop. A graduate of Harvard College, she studied fiction in the MFA program at Bennington College, and is a Cave Canem poetry fellow. A slam poetry champion, she is working on her first novel and a collection of essays. de León serves as director of June Jordan’s “Poetry for the People,” and teaches at UC Berkeley. www.ayadeleon.com. Heid E. Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibway, has authored three poetry collections including National Monuments (Michigan State Univ. Pr., 2009), which is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine, and the soon to be re-issued Fishing for Myth from New Rivers Press. She also authored The Mother’s Tongue, Salt Publishing’s Earthworks series, and co-edited Sister Nations: Native American Women on Community, Minnesota Historical Society Press. Erdrich is the recipient of two Minnesota State Arts Board fellowships, awards from The Loft Literary Center, the Archibald Bush Foundation, and was nominated four times for the Minnesota Book Award, which she won in 2009. She earned degrees from Dartmouth College and The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars, and recently taught at the University of St. Thomas, Department of English. She and her sister Louise Erdrich recently co-founded a non-profit clearinghouse for indigenous language-centered literature called Birchbark House. www.heiderdrich.com

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M U L T I C U L T U R A L I S M: IN SEARCH OF A NEW PERSPECTIVE Jaime “Shaggy” Flores is a new generation Nuyorican, Massarican Poet/Writer/Cultural Revolutionary using literature as a means to uplift and educate people. A graduate and scholar from the University of Massachusetts with a degree on the African Diaspora and a Masters in History from Virginia State University, he has published in numerous anthologies and journals, including Labor Heritage — George Meany Labor College Journal; Centro Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College; Bum Rush the Page A Def Poetry Jam Anthology; Role Call An African-American Intergenerational Literary Anthology; The Bandana Republic; Puerto Rican Students in US School; Anniversary DiVerseCity: An Anthology Celebrating Ten Years of the Austin International Poetry Festival; 2003 National Poetry Slam Anthology; and Hostos Review: New Rican Voices. He is one of the founders of the annual Voices for the Voiceless Poetry Concert which occurs in the five-college Umass-Amherst area. Flores published his first collection of poetry, Sancocho — A Book of Nuyorican Poetry, dealt with issues of stereotypes, cultural preservation, racism, and personal growth. His second book of poetry, Obatala’s Bugalu: A Nuyorican Book of Sights and Sounds, is forthcoming. Flores can also be heard on the spoken word CDs, Nuyorican Dreams, and Yemaya Y Ochun. www.shaggyflores.com Reesha Geppert was born, raised and currently lives in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. She is a technical writer by day and a poet by night. Her other interests include arts and crafts, reading, and daydreaming about other planets. Mark Gibbons earned a BA in English and a BA in Psychology, along with an MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana. His poems have appeared in numerous journals around the U.S. His first chapbook of poems, Something Inside Us, was self published in 1995; and his collection Circling Home won the Scattered Cairns Press chapbook competition in 1999. He has also published Connemara Moonshine (Camphorweed, 2002); blue horizon (Two Dogs Pr., 2007); and War, Madness, & Love (R & R Publishing, 2008), a collaborative collection of poems with Appalachian poet Michael Revere. Gibbons teaches poetry and resides in Missoula, MT. Zahra Gordon is a Trinidadian poet based in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area. Her works have been featured in the anthology, Life, and the CD, Sessions of the Scribe, both produced in the youth program Arts on the Block in Silver Spring, MA. She has also published in Stanford University’s Mantis literary journal, and is currently a student of English at Howard University. Lawson Fusao Inada is an emeritus professor of writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland and Poet Laureate of Oregon. He is the author of five books: Legends from Camp, Drawing the Line, In This Great Land of Freedom, Just Into/Nations and Before the War; and editor of three important volumes, including the acclaimed Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese-American Internment Experience. The recipient of numerous awards, Inada won a Creative Arts Grant from the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund (1997); Governor’s Arts Award (1997); the Oregon Book Award (for Drawing the Line, 1997); the Pushcart Prize for poetry (1996); and Poetry Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1972, 1985). He currently serves as the Steinbeck chair for the National Steinbeck Center, a forum established to promote a community-wide celebration of literature in the tradition of John Steinbeck. Richard Jackson is UC Foundation Professor of English at UT-Chattanooga and the author of four poetry collections, Resonance (Ashland Poetry Pr., 2010), Half Lives: Petrarchan Poems (Autumn House Pr., 2004), Unauthorized Autobiography: New and Selected Poems (Ashland U Pr., 2003), Heartwall (UMass, Juniper Prize Winner, 2000); two books of criticism, Dismantling Time in Contemporary Poetry (Alabama Agee Prize Winner, 1989), and two anthologies, Double Vision: Four Slovene Poets (1994) and The Fire Under the Moon (1999). Jackson’s chapbooks of translations include The Woman in the Land: Cesare Pavese’s Last Poems (2000), Love’s Veils: Imitations from Italian Poets (1999), and The Half Life of Dreams (1998), all from Black Dirt Press, Elgin, IL. He is a winner of Fulbright, NEA and NEH fellowships, and has also received several teaching awards at both UTC and Vermont College where he teaches in their MFA program and directs the Meacham Writer’s Workshop and East European Exchange. He also edits Poetry Miscellany, mala revija and PM’s eastern European Chapbook series. Richard Kostelanetz is a writer-artist who has published extensively since 1961, contributing poems, stories, articles, reviews, and experimental prose to hundreds of magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has written more than fifty books of criticism, cultural history, and creative work, in addition to editing over three dozen anthologies of art and exposition. Among his recent books are, SoHo: The Rise and Fall of an Artist’s Colony (Routledge), 3 Canadian Geniuses (Colombo), More Wordworks (Talisman), and second editions of A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes (Schirmer/Routledge) and Conversing with Cage (Routledge). New books edited by him include AnOther E. E. Cummings (Liveright), The Gertrude Stein Reader (Cooper Square) and Virgil Thomson: A Reader (Routledge). The recipient of numerous scholarships and grants, he has been a Visiting Professor of American Studies and English at the University of Texas and a Visiting Professor of graduate theater at Hunter College, CUNY. www.richardkostelanetz.com

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Nomy Lamm is a political activist, freelancer writer, performance artist, poet, and an outspoken “Riot Grrl.” Lamm, who often gives political lectures as a guest on college campuses, was named one of Ms. Magazine’s “Women of the Year” in 1997. Her debut album, Anthem, was released by the independent Talent Scout label in 1999, followed by her sophomore album, Effigy, released by Yo-Yo Records in 2003. www.nomylamm.com Heather Lea lives in Revelstoke, B.C. Canada. She has written for various magazines and in 2005, she founded a lifestyles magazine called Reved Quarterly. In the spring of 2008, she attended Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C. and studied travel writing and narration. She is a member of the Federation of British Columbia Writers. www.reved.net A. Robert Lee, a Britisher, is Professor of American Literature at Nihon University, Tokyo. He formerly taught at the University of Kent at Canterbury and has held visiting appointments at Princeton, the University of Virginia, Bryn Mawr College, Northwestern University, the University of Colorado and Berkeley. He has written numerous influential articles, essays and publications, and recently published Modern American Counter Writing: Beats, Outriders, Ethnics (2010) (which is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine); Re-Viewing American Multicultural Literature (2009); and Gothic to Multicultural: Idioms of Imagining in American Literary Fiction (2009). His essay-collections include China Fictions/English Language: Literary Essays in Diaspora, Memory, Story (2008); The Beat Generation Writers (1996); and Other British, Other Britain: Contemporary Multicultural Fiction (1995). Shirley Bradley LeFlore is a published and oral poet/performing artist. She holds a BA in Language Arts and Behavioral Science from Webster University in St. Louis, MO, and an MA in Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Having taught at various colleges and universities throughout the country, she is currently an adjunct professor at Lindenwood University. LeFlore has read and performed her work on stage, television and radio; has published in numerous anthologies and magazines; and is featured prominently on “J.D. Parran and Spirit Stage” and “Hamiet Bluiet’s BBQ Band” recordings. She was a National Institute in Minority Mental Health Fellow (NIMH), and is the recipient of Missouri Arts Council and CDCA grants. Her poetry is featured in the Random House/ Broadway Books novel, Wildflowers: A Novel, and she has two literary works in progress: Brassbones and Rainbows and Rituals. Angelica Le Minh reads, blogs, visits libraries, and contemplates hip hop at www.metrotextual.wordpress.com. She has written for print, web, scripts, non-profit organizations, journals, and performs her poetry in Toronto and beyond. Le Minh recently served on the board of directors for the forthcoming book, The Anthology of Rap (Yale Univ. Pr., 2010). Timothy Liu was born in San Jose, California to parents from the Chinese mainland. He studied at Brigham Young University, the University of Houston, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is the author of For Dust Thou Art (Southern Ill. Univ. Pr., 2005); Of Thee I Sing (2004), selected by Publishers Weekly as a 2004 Book-of-the-Year; Hard Evidence (2001); Say Goodnight (1998); Burnt Offerings (1995); and Vox Angelica (1992), which won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. He also edited Word of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American Poetry (Talisman House, 2000). His poems have been included in many anthologies and have appeared in such magazines and journals as American Letters & Commentary, Bomb, Grand Street, Kenyon Review, The Nation, New American Writing, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry and Virginia Quarterly Review. Liu is currently an Associate Professor at William Paterson University and on the Core Faculty at Bennington College’s Writing Seminars. Francis C. Macansantos, co-editor of this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine, has a BA (English) degree from the Ateneo de Zamboanga, and a Master of Arts (Creative Writing) degree from Silliman University in the Philippines. He has taught at the University of the Philippines, and a number of colleges in the Philippines. He has won awards and honors for his poetry in English in literary competitions in his country. He has published two books of poetry, The Words and Other Poems (Univ. of the Philippines Pr., 1997), and Womb of Water, Breasts of Earth (National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2007). Monica S. Macansantos, co-editor of this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine, was born in the Philippines, and spent her early childhood in the east coast of the United States. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing, magna cum laude, from the University of the Philippines in 2007, and taught literature and writing at the University of the Philippines in Los Banos. Her poetry has appeared in the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Sunday Inquirer Magazine, Philippine Panorama, Home Life, and The Evening Paper, while her fiction has appeared in the Philippines Free Press. Macansantos will be taking her MFA in Writing at the University of Texas-Michener Center for Writers beginning in the fall of 2010. Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer and maker of short collage-films living in NY. His latest Amazon.com release is Our Book of Common Faith, an exploration of world cultures and religions in hopes of finding what binds humanity as opposed to what divides it.

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M U L T I C U L T U R A L I S M: IN SEARCH OF A NEW PERSPECTIVE Tony Medina was born and raised in the South Bronx, and currently lives in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. He is the author of 14 books for adults and children, the most recent the poetry collection, My Old Man Was Always on the Lam (Nightshade Pr., 2010), which is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine; and the children’s book, I and I: Bob Marley, with illustrator Jesse Joshua Watson (Lee & Low Books, 2009). Medina was recently featured in Poets Against the Killing Fields (Trilingual Pr., 2007) and is an advisory editor for Nikki Giovanni’s anthology, Hip Hop Speaks to Children (Sourcebooks, 2008). His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in over eighty publications (including anthologies and literary journals) and two CD compilations. Medina earned his MA and PhD in Poetry and American and African American Literature from Binghamton University, SUNY, and is currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, a proud Puerto Rican, is one of the original founders of the Nuyorican poets’ movement. He is a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry (2001); an Artist for Community Enrichment (ACE) Award from the Bronx Council on the Arts, New York (1995); and a COMBO (Combined Arts of San Diego)-NEA Fellowship in Literature (1988). Meléndez has spent the past 30 years working as a poetry-facilitator working in the public schools, during which time he has coordinated many successful poetry/creative writing workshops, impacting the lives of tens of thousands of young people. The author of the poetry collections, Casting Long Shadows (NY, 1970), Have You Seen Liberation (NY, 1971), Street Poetry & Other Poems (Barlenmir House, NY 1972), and Concertos On Market Street in 1993, he is currently working on his latest collection, Borracho (Very Drunk) — The Autobiography of a Hopeless Romantic — Love Poems & Other Acts of Madness! Nancy Mercado, a poet, playwright, professor and activist, received her Ph.D from Binghamton University (SUNY). Her work has been widely anthologized and has appeared in literary magazines such as Columbia University’s City Magazine; El Boletin del Centro from Hunter College-CUNY; GARE MARITIME (France), Brownstone Magazine and The Gallatin Review, A Gathering of the Tribes; Drum Voices; The Paterson Literary Review; and Rattapallax. She was a Contributing Editor and Writer for Letras Femeninas volumen XXXI, Número 1: The Journal of the Asociación de Literatura Femenina Hispánica of Arizona State University; and editor of if the world were mine, a children’s anthology published by the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC). She also served as an editor of Long Shot (1993-2004) and as the publication’s editor-in-chief for one of those years. Mercado is the author of It Concerns the Madness (Long Shot Productions) and the forthcoming Rooms for the Living: New York Poems, featuring an introduction by Ishmael Reed. Opal Moore teaches creative writing and African American literature at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Her poems and stories have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Callaloo, The Notre Dame Review, Arts & Letters and Honey, Hush! An Anthology of African American Women’s Humor. Moore’s suite of poems, “Children of Middle Passage,” is part of a performance collaboration with painter, Arturo Lindsay, and has been performed for audiences in the U.S. and Germany. Her poetry collection, Lot’s Daughters, is available from Third World Press, Chicago, IL. Lorraine Miller Nuzzo has been Curator, Art Director of phati’tude Literary Magazine and phati’tude-related projects since 1997. While pursuing her professional career, Nuzzo studied painting with Mary Nagin and Carole Jay in New York; and with Tim Holden in Italy. She has held exhibitions at MIB and BJ Spoke Gallery; and is also a former partner of “hotshots unlimited photography,” which held an exhibit at the Langston Hughes Library. She holds a Master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Hofstra University and a Bachelors Degree in Psychology with a minor in Art from SUNY, Empire State. Her artwork is featured on the cover of this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine. www.rainynuzzo.com Jada-Gabrielle Pape is Coast Salish from the Saanich and Snuneymuxw Nations. She is a poet and artist who often mixes her paintings with poetry. She graduated from UBC’s Creative Writing Program with a BA and an honors thesis, and went on to receive her Master of Education at UBC’s Faculty of Education. Pape teaches and designs curriculum at Chee Mamuk, a Provincial Aboriginal HIV prevention program based out of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. www.jadagabrielle.com Silas Parry is a poet and writer from Scotland. He received a BA Honours in Politics and Anthropology from Glasgow University, before moving to Manchester to work on several writing projects. He regularly performs at Glasgow’s “Toad-in-Mud” poetry readings, and art literature events around the country. Parry’s prose and poetry have been published in the first three editions of Type, a new quarterly poetry review. Craig Santos Perez, a native Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guahan (Guam), has lived in California since 1995. He received his MFA in Poetry from the University of San Francisco and is currently a PhD candidate in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. His poetry, essays, reviews, and translations have appeared in New

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American Writing, The Colorado Review, Pleiades, The Denver Quarterly, Jacket, Sentence, and Rain Taxi, among others. He is the co-founder of Achiote Press (www.achiotepress.com) and the author of several chapbooks, including all with ocean views (Overhere Pr., 2007) and preterrain (Corollary Pr., 2008). His collections include, from unincorporated territory [saina] (Omnidawn Pub. 2010) and from unincorporated territory [hacha] (Tinfish Pr., 2008), which is reviewed in this issue of phati’tude Literary Magazine. He blogs at www.craigsantosperez.wordpress.com. James G. Piatt earned his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University and a doctorate from Brigham Young University. He taught philosophy, psychology, and engineering mathematics at Allan Hancock College and was professor of education at California State Polytechnic University, and Chapman University. He is now retired and spends his time reading and penning poetry. Piatt was a featured poet in 2009 in Word Catalyst Magazine and will be a featured poet in Contemporary American Voices in 2010. His poetry, short stories and non-fiction essays have appeared in Apollo’s Lyre, Caper Journal, Vox Poetica, Shadow Poetry Anthology, The Penwood Review, Wilderness House Review, Front Porch Review, Caper Journal, Word Catalyst Magazine, Everyday Weirdness Magazine, and the Cynic Magazine. Richard L. Provencher was born and raised in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, and currently resides in Truro, Nova Scotia. His poems and short stories have appeared in various online and print journals such as Sky Forest, Hudson View, Short Story Library, Ottawa Arts Review, Dublin Quarterly, The Danforth Review, Other Voices International, Rubicon Publishing, Writer’s Block, The Foliate Oak, Parenting Express, Skyline Magazine, PusanWeb, Verse Libre Quarterly, The Pittsburg Quarterly, Poems Niederngasse and The Danforth Review. Provencher is the author of the poetry chapbook, In the Light of Day, and has co-authored several ebooks with his wife, Esther Provencher. Michael Lee Rattigan was born in Croydon, England of Irish and Anglo-Indian parentage. He took a literature degree at The University of Kent and went on to complete postgraduate studies at Trinity College Dublin where he published his first poems and later at the University of London. Between years of study Rattigan lived and taught in Cancun, Mexico, and Palma de Mallorca, Spain, where he began translating the poems of Fernando Pessoa’s heteronym, Alberto Caeiro. Having published on the internet and in magazines (most recently in Blinking Cursor and OtherPoetry); he has published a chapbook of poems titled Nature Notes and the first complete collection of Alberto Caeiro into English, both published by Rufus Books of Canada. Alberto Ríos received a BA from the University of Arizona in 1974 and a MFA in Creative Writing from the same institution in 1979. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Dangerous Shirt (Copper Canyon Pr., 2009); The Theater of Night (2007); The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body (2002), which was nominated for the National Book Award; Teodora Luna’s Two Kisses (1990); The Lime Orchard Woman (1988); Five Indiscretions (1985); and Whispering to Fool the Wind (1982), which won the 1981 Walt Whitman Award, selected by Donald Justice. His work is regularly taught and translated, and has been adapted to dance to both classical and popular music. Ríos holds numerous awards, including six Pushcart Prizes in both poetry and fiction, the Arizona Governor’s Arts Award and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Since 1994 he has been Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, where he has taught since 1982. Jon Sands, editor of phati’tude Literary Magazine, has been a full-time teaching and performing artist since 2007. He is a recipient of the 2009 New York City-LouderARTS fellowship grant, and has represented New York City multiple times at the National Poetry Slam, subsequently becoming an NPS finalist. He is currently the Director of Poetry and Arts Education Programming at the Positive Health Project, a syringe exchange center located in Midtown Manhattan, as well as a Youth Mentor with Urban Word-NYC. Sands’ poems have appeared in decomP, Suss, The Literary Bohemian, Spindle Magazine, The November 3rd Club, and others. He is also one-fourth of the nationally acclaimed electricity-fest, “The SpillJoy Ensemble.” Terry Sanville is a retired urban planner and an accomplished jazz and blues guitarist who once played with a symphony orchestra that backed up jazz legend George Shearing. He writes full time, producing short stories, essays, poems, an occasional play, and novels. Since 2005, his short stories have been accepted by more than 120 literary and commercial journals, magazines, and anthologies including the Fifth Wednesday Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal and Boston Literary Magazine. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his story “The Sweeper.” Terry currently resides in San Luis Obispo, CA. Aram Saroyan is an internationally known poet, novelist, biographer, memoirist and playwright. His poetry has been widely anthologized and appears in many textbooks. Among the collections of his poetry are Aram Saroyan and Pages (both Random House); and Day And Night: Bolinas Poems (Black Sparrow Pr., 1999). Saroyan’s prose books include Genesis Angels: The Saga Of Lew Welch and the Beat Generation; Last Rites, a book about the death of his father, the playwright and short story writer William Saroyan; Trio: Portrait Of An Intimate Friendship; The Romantic,

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M U L T I C U L T U R A L I S M: IN SEARCH OF A NEW PERSPECTIVE a novel that was a Los Angeles Times Book Review Critics’ Choice selection; a memoir, Friends In The World: The Education Of A Writer; and the true crime Literary Guild selection Rancho Mirage: An American Tragedy Of Manners, Madness And Murder. Selected essays, Starting Out In The Sixties, appeared in 2001, and Artists In Trouble: New Stories in early 2002. The recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts poetry awards, Saroyan is a past president of PEN USA West and a current faculty member of the Masters of Professional Writing Program at USC. www.aramsaroyan.com Ruth L. Schwartz received a BA in Women’s Studies and Writing from Wesleyan University, an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology from the University of Integrative Learning. For many years, Schwartz made her living as a public health educator, trainer and consultant specializing in AIDS and cancer. She has taught Creative Writing at Cleveland State University, Goddard College, California College of the Arts, and elsewhere. She is the author of four award-winning books of poetry and a memoir: Dear Good Naked Morning (Autumn House, 2004); Edgewater (HarperCollins, 2002); Singular Bodies (Anhinga Pr., 2001); Accordion Breathing and Dancing (Univ. of Pittsburgh Pr., 1996); and Death in Reverse: A Love Story (Michigan State Univ. Pr., 2004). Her poems have been widely anthologized and she has won over a dozen national literary prizes, including two Nimrod/Pablo Neruda Awards and two Chelsea Magazine Editor’s Awards. Schwartz is a core faculty member of the low-residency MFA Program at Ashland University and serves as a writing mentor through the Split Rock Arts Writing Mentorship Program. www.heartmindintegration.com, www.ruthschwartz.com Sue Sinclair was raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, and studied at the University of New Brunswick. Her first collection of poetry, Secrets of Weather and Hope (2001), was a finalist for the 2002 Gerald Lampert Award. Mortal Arguments (2003) was a finalist for the Atlantic Poetry Prize. Sinclair currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. Lee Minh Sloca was born in Vietnam, from which he escaped two weeks prior to its collapse. After college, he worked for fourteen years with special needs children in various mental health and educational facilities, and recently shifted his focus to poetry and painting. His work has published in The Wanderlust Review, Kartika Review, and Beyond Baroque Magazine; Mad Swirl, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and Rio Grande Review. Lee currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Martha Vertreace-Doody is Distinguished Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence at Kennedy-King College, Chicago, IL. She received her MFA at Vermont College. Her poetry collections include Glacier Fire (Word Press, 2004), Dragon Lady: Tsukimi (Riverstone Pr., 1999) and Smokeless Flame (Frith Pr., 1998). The collections Light Caught Rending (Diehard Pr., 1996) and Second Mourning (Diehard Pr., 1998) are winners of the Scottish Arts Council Grants. Her poems have appeared in the anthologies Illinois Voices: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry (Univ. of Ill. Pr., 2001) and Poets of the New Century (David R. Godine Pub., 2001). Named the Glendora Review Poet, Lagos, Nigeria, she was twice a Fellow of the Hawthornden International Writers’ Retreat in Scotland. A.D. Wiegert graduated from Iowa State University where he studied English and Creative Writing. His work has been published in Message in a Bottle, P&W (Poetry & Writing), Paper Darts, and will appear in the 2010 issue of The Broken Plate. He currently resides in Minneapolis, MN. Nicholas Williams, after studying at the University of London, taught at the University of West Indies, Trinidad, and Madrid, before moving to Japan. He is currently a Professor at the Saitama Institute of Technology, in Japan. David M. Wulf is currently enrolled at The Evergreen State College. His main areas of study include Engineering, Social Politics, Mathematics, and Disability Studies, majoring in a BA in liberal arts. His main focus comes from “Wazzu,” with a strong emphasis in Literary Studies, Sustainable Building, as well Digital Media Resources. Changming Yuan grew up in central rural China. He received degrees at Shanghai Jiaotong University and Tianjin Teachers University. Before moving to Canada in 1989, Yuan worked as a college lecturer and published several books and a dozen essays on translation and the English language. Since he received his Ph.D from the University of Saskatchewan in 1996, he has been teaching English in Vancouver. Yuan’s poetry has appeared in Barrow Street, Canadian Literature, Exquisite Corpse, Literary Review of Canada, London Magazine, Mad Swirl, Queen’s Quarterly, Istanbul Literary Review, London Magazine, Salzburg Review, Southern Ocean Review, Orbis and nearly 250 other literary publications worldwide. A twice Pushcart nominee, Yuan published his first poetry collection, Chansons of a Chinaman (Leaf Garden Pr., 2009); and Politics and Poetics: A Comparative Study of John Keats and Li He (Lambert Academic Pub., 2010). David Zinser is a small business owner and cultural critic living in Atlanta, GA. He received his BA in Environmental Studies from Pitzer College, and an MA in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University. Zinser's piece, "Multiculturalism: Commodifying Diversity through Institutionalized Lamp Blackness" first appeared in Pitzer College's student run publication, The Other Side, in 2001.

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C O V E R A R T Lorraine N uzzo, Art Director for Nuzzo, phati’tude Literary Magazine, is a Long Island based artist and photographer currently specializing in TtV (Through the Viewfinder) photography. “TtV allows me to combine my love of representational and abstract art with photography. TtV is the process of using a vintage TLR camera such as the Kodak Dualfex, Anscoflex, or Argus 75 with a modern digital camera to produce square images with distortions, imperfections, and a retro vibe.” Lorraine uses a Nikon D40 with a Kodak Duaflex. “The TtV style of photography appeals to my overall aesthetic as a visual artist. For the last few years I’ve been inspired by the Japanese mindset of Wabi Sabi. Wabi Sabi is centered on the acceptance of transience and the beauty of things imperfect. Throughout my life as an artist I’ve always had an affinity towards the ‘gritty pretty’ in the world, for example, a weathered door with layers of peeling paint revealing another color; or a dusty, broken window with jagged glass edges that reflect sprays of sunshine. TtV allows me to capture modern images through a lens that already has seen a lifetime of its own.” Her work can be seen on her website, www.rainynuzzo.com. While pursuing her professional career, Nuzzo studied painting with Mary Nagin and Carole Jay in New York and with Tim Holden in Italy. She has held exhibitions at MIB and BJ Spoke Gallery; and as a former partner of “hotshots unlimited photography,” held an exhibit at the Langston Hughes Library. She has been Art Director of phati’tude Literary Magazine since its inception in 1997. Currently, Lorraine is the owner and editor of www.StyleEnvy.com one of the internet’s first fashion blogs founded in 2003. Lorraine has a Master’s degree in Organizational Psychology and a Minor in Art and has spent several years as a leadership development consultant for fortune 500 corporations in New York City.

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