Mosaic #27

TARA BETTS

NEW LESSON PLANS

JOHN MURILLO

OBAMA’S BLACK POWER

LITERARY MAGAZINE

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TIPHANIE YANIQUE

Recipient of the 2010 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” Award. The Boston Globe has identified St. Thomas-born Tiphanie Yanique as one of “16 up-and-comers who might make it big...”

Summer 2011 $6.00

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27 Interview Tiphanie Yanique by Kim Coleman Foote ................................................. 8 Tara Betts by Nicole Sealey ..................................................................... 16 John Murillo by Adisa Vera Beatty .......................................................... 30 Excerpt “The Saving Work” from How to Escape from a Leper Colony

by Tiphanie Yanique ................................................................................. 14 Poetry When He Proposed by Tara Betts............................................................ 18 Belinda “Azucar” Gonzalez by Tara Betts ................................................ 19 Ode to Incense by Tara Betts .................................................................. 21 Enter the Dragon/ Los Angeles, California, 1976 by John Murillo............ 33 1989 by John Murillo .............................................................................. 35 Mosaic Lesson Plans ..................................................................................... 22 Lesson plans for secondary-school educators Designed by Eisa Nefertari Ulen Reviews ....................................................................................................... 36 Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama

by Peniel E. Joseph Up Jump The Boogie by John Murillo Around Town by photographer Marcia E. Wilson ......................................... 40

Cover photograph: Moses Djeli

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Editor & Publisher Ron Kavanaugh ron@mosaicmagazine.org fb/Twttr: mosaicbooks Copy Editor Tawny Pruitt

Mosaic Literary Magazine (ISSN 1531-0388) is published four times per year by the Literary Freedom Project. Content copyright Š 2011.

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photo credit: WideVision Photography/Marcia E. Wilson

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Contributors

Adisa Vera Beatty received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Brown University and contributes to Centric TV’s blog, Culture List. Her poetry has appeared in Callaloo, Perfect 8, Spelman College’s L-I-N-K-E-D and is forthcoming in Kweli Journal.

Currently Adisa is serving in Liberia as an IFESH International Educator for Africa.

Moses Djeli is a Brooklyn based portrait and street photographer. He currently teaches photography and geometry at Thomas Jefferson High School in East New York. Djeli’s design company Emperor’s Clothes is committed to showcasing the artistic and stylistic culture of Black America. His clients include the Metro New York, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Que Films, and Glasstire. Djeli can be contacted at Mosesdjeli@gmail.com.

Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for 10 Tongues: Poems (Three Conditions Press, 2001), Reginald Harris is Poetry in the Branches Program Coordinator for Poets House in New York City.

Nicole Sealey, born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Central Florida, is a Cave Canem fellow whose poems have appeared in journals, such as Callaloo, The Drunken Boat, Sou’wester, and Torch.

She is a Hedgebrook alumna and the Readings/ Workshops (East) and Writers Exchange Program Manager at Poets & Writers, Inc. Eisa Nefertari Ulen is the author of Crystelle Mourning. She has contributed to numerous publications, including The Washington Post, Ms., Health, Heart & Soul, Vibe, Black Issues Book Review, Quarterly Black Review of Books, and CreativeNonfiction.org.

Ulen graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and earned a master’s degree from Columbia University.

A founding member of Ringshout: A Place for Black Literature, she teaches English at Hunter College in New York City. www.EisaUlen.com.

Born in London, England; Marcia Wilson’s photography has documented many writers of the African Diaspora. Her photos have appeared in Vibe, Publishers Weekly, Black Issues Book Review, LA Weekly, and QBR. She has exhibited at The National Black Writers Conference, Medgar Evers College, New Haven Public Library, New York Public Library (Flatbush branch), and Air Gallery. She currently resides in Brooklyn. Visit www.WideVisionPhotography.com for additional information.

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Redefining

Caribbean

by Kim Coleman Foote

photo credit: Moses Djeli

Boston Globe has identified St. Thomas-born Tiphanie Yanique as one of “16 up-andcomers who might make it big in 2010,” which comes as no surprise. Graywolf Press approached the 20-something Drew University professor with an offer to publish her first short story collection, How to Escape from a Leper Colony, released this March. Before the book’s publication, the stories had already grabbed high honors from the literary world: a Pushcart Prize, the Kore Press Award, and the Boston Review fiction prize. She is also the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize and fellowship writing residencies.

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I had the pleasure of seeing Tiphanie read from the collection at La MaMa in Manhattan a few weeks before following up with her in a park in Brooklyn.

Despite her roster of literary merits, I found her to be a humble, warm, and frank woman who insists that she just works hard at her craft, and whose love for human diversity and complexity drives her to imagine characters into existence. And memorable they are—an Indo-Trinidadian girl who escapes from a leper colony, a black Caribbean street hustler who falls in love with an African American, and an African priest who befriends a white Caribbean in a coffin shop, just to name a few.

The stories in How to Escape from a Leper Colony examine intersections between people of various backgrounds, while challenging readers to broaden their conception about race, especially as it relates to Caribbean identity. Even meeting Tiphanie, our different cultural backgrounds—the Caribbean and US, respectively—became apparent as soon as we opened our mouths. However, we discovered many commonalities, from attending a culturally diverse high school, to studying abroad in Ghana as undergrads, to being Fulbright Fellows, to owning the same sweater! I was particularly interested in where Tiphanie places herself in the literary tradition, considering the US Virgin Islands’ unique relationship to the US and other Caribbean nations.

to the Virgin Islands, but most of the stories move beyond these boundaries.

Kim Coleman Foote: You dedicated the collection

TY: In elementary school, we had a lot of Caribbean

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Tiphanie Yanique: The earliest part of “The Bridges Stories” comes from a story I read in high school, called The Bridge of San Luis Ray. I was fascinated by how the plot—the action of the bridge falling—was really about us getting to know these characters better. But the impulse to want to write the story came from a friend of mine in high school telling me, “We should build a bridge between the Caribbean islands; it would be much easier to get around.” And I was really angry about that. I felt like if we really want to build bridges, it’s going to be a lot harder than just putting concrete down into the water.

The Virgin Islands in particular are a bunch of different islands, and even amongst us, there’s separation. We also carry American passports. Some Caribbean people don’t even think we are legitimately Caribbean. So the collection is very pan-Caribbean, and it’s intentional. I want to make sure that the Virgin Islands is included in this narrative and want to make sure Virgin Islanders are more aware of other Caribbean narratives.

KCF: You mentioned in an interview that you weren’t exposed to Caribbean literature in high school.

stuff, and even a really great Virgin Islands history book called Clear the Road. But there was nothing like that once you got to middle and high school.

A lot of schools do have it now, but it’s an elective.

The years I taught in St. Thomas, my school was revising the whole curriculum, so I was able to request one Caribbean book for each year, but it was very controversial.

necting device. We did drop one story. It was the most recently written story. My voice as a writer and maybe my intention as a writer had changed. The collection had as its commonality, people who are searching for a place that’s not where they are, and are longing for people who are not the ones around them. The opening quote of the collection, I feel really blessed to have found that—I don’t know if you remember that…

KCF: Who is your literary family, so to speak?

KCF: Yeah, you opened your reading with it.

TY: I’m interested in these outsider people who write very much inside the Caribbean identity but who are also negotiating some type of exile. Which for me, being a Virgin Islander, is part of that. Like Jamaica Kincaid, who is often thought of as an outsider to Antigua, her home. I also really love Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea. I see García Márquez as a literary father. A lot of his stuff is set on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. I feel like I have tons of cousins and brothers and sisters who are writing now and who are coming up. I would like to think that someone like Edwidge Danticat could be a big auntie or big sister.

TY: I try to do it every time if I can remember, because I think that’s the thing that makes it all come together: “lead us towards those we are waiting for, towards those who are waiting for us.” Maybe this is my poet self thinking, but I wanted to find a line that would bring everything together, and I feel like that did. And the fact that it was a religious quote from a religious text was also important. Almost all the stories reference a lot of religion.

KCF: And it’s interesting that it’s from the patron saint of lovers and travelers.

KCF: Tell me how the collection came about.

TY: Perfect!

TY: I had a bunch of stories, but I wasn’t sure if they had uniformity. I was writing for the sake of each story. Which I think is good. It’s like when you make good music; no story is just there as a filler or a con-

KCF: You’ve been likened to a ventriloquist, and that’s obvious. As I read the stories, I kept forgetting that a “Tiphanie” existed. The voices felt so real and distinct, so it doesn’t surprise me when you say

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that you thought of them as individual creations.

What was your process, and were any challenging for you?

TY: I’m so glad that you did forget about this Tiphanie chick. Even in fiction where the author might say, “That’s my voice,” you really want to release from that, so it’s really gratifying that the stories were like that for you. Because I’m curious and really nosy, and really chatty, as you can see [laughs], I listen to the way people talk, the rhythm of language, and what people notice about a place.

Like, we’re sitting in this park, and we could have three different stories about this place.

It’s hard to know now which stories were more challenging, because it was so long ago, but I tried to be respectful of the voices, like Street Man. Males could tell me, “What the hell you know ’bout man? Especially ’bout rootsy man who grow up on the street selling drugs?” I felt I had to be careful to be realistic and truthful. Whether it’s word choice or how long the sentences would be—which I’m hoping is where my history as a poet is useful—and even things like where does the period or comma go. I was able to write some of the stories entirely in dialect and some in standard English with the dialogue in dialect. If you like human beings and want to write about human beings, then you have to honor the way they talk.

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I get people asking me if I feel comfortable writing in an Indian woman’s voice, because the first story is a little Indian girl—Indo-Trinidadian. I’ve always felt comfortable writing in any kind of Caribbean voice, whatever the racial makeup. And that might be because of the high school I went to, or it may be something about Caribbean identity, that culture is the common thing. Even within the same family, somebody has a Chinie auntie, somebody has a white uncle, so it’s so mixed up.

KCF: Do you think you get more criticism than white writers who do the same? I’m thinking more of the US context in particular.

TY: I think that’s really different. White people in America are writing black characters from a place of extraordinary power, about people who are extraordinarily powerless, and to do that without deep awareness is very messed up. In the Caribbean, we have people like Robert Antoni, who’s a white Trinidadian, who writes a story where he acknowledges whiteness as an identity and ethnicity in a particular Caribbean context. I hate when there’s an assumption of whiteness as normative: whenever that black dude walks into the room, he’s the “black dude.”

What’s everybody else in the room?

I taught an advanced Caribbean class this past semester using stories where people were writing from ethnic or gender spaces they should not seem

to have ownership over. Like Sam Selvon, an Indian-Caribbean writer, whose main character is black, and Patricia Powell, an Afro-Jamaican writer, whose main character is Chinese. Jean Rhys is a white woman who lived most of her life in England and wrote this one Caribbean book. Does she get to be a Caribbean writer? I’m very interested in having my students think about those types of questions.

KCF: Talk about your upbringing in Hospital Ground, in St. Thomas. Was it a very racially mixed area, and does Hospital Ground have any relation to the title story?

Which is a good way to think about my upbringing. When I was growing up, Round da Field was the roughest neighborhood in St. Thomas. But in my family, we weren’t deprived in any kind of serious way. We might eat sugar sandwiches because Continued on page 42

photo credit: Moses Djeli

TY: That’s interesting. I almost don’t want to spoil it by saying otherwise, because it’s a nice metaphor!

But actually, Hospital Ground is just where the hospital used to be in St. Thomas. Most people from there know it as “Round da Field.” In fact, when I didn’t put that on the back of the book, a lot of my Round da Field people were like, “Who you doin’ dat for? Who dat was for?” So it was interesting, the politics of it: who am I labeling my own self for, for outsiders or islanders?

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excerpt

“The Saving Work” How to Escape from a Leper Colony

by Tiphanie Yanique Graywolf Press A church is burning down. On a Caribbean island, in the countryside, up a road that might lead to a saving beach, but does not— a church is burning down. Everyone who is associated with this church will later think “my church has burned down.” But for now there are only two women there to look at the fire, and blame each other.

worry, about how the limousine would make its way. The road opened into the clearing where the church crackled in the center. Through the windshield Deirdre saw what she thought was just a smallish fire, more smoke than anything. Nothing to alert the people in the nearby houses, some two hundred yards beyond the bushes.

They are both white American women in the middle of their lives. They and their families are members of this church. They are each married to a local black man, both of whom are skinny and frail of body. These women want to be the strong ones.

They have always been the strong ones.

But now Deirdre knows what she’s seeing. She’s seeing the end.

Deirdre Thompson has brought the garlands for the church stairs. She has brought the pew pins and the flowers for the altar. She was the first to arrive and see the bright flames. She is already dressed in her gold silk suit. She saw the smoke from far away in her car, but she imagined some filthy native was burning garbage in his yard. The smoke seemed to disappear as Deirdre drew near the church. This was an illusion.

Her car had lumbered its way along the narrow cut into the land that is the church road. The men of the church laid the road, and, as a result, it dips erratically. The arms of thin trees scraped at the closed windows of Deirdre’s car. She wondered why no one had cut them back. She thought, with some

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Deirdre Thompson has always been a negative kind of woman. She has one child because her womb had been stingy. And perhaps also because she left her husband once when their son was two. They did not reunite until the boy was twelve.

Her son is called Thomas— after the island of his birth.

Deirdre’s husband is an insurance salesman. He owns the business and has other men do the work of selling by foot. He stays in his office downtown and lets his faithful customers come to him. He does well. And his small family does well. But what Mr. Thompson really wants is to be a preacher. He knows he could lead the common folk. He knows he could get better pews for the main room and better robes for the choir.

During the week Deirdre Thompson works as a

dental assistant. In the office and outside, as she walks on her lunch break, she wears a white coat and allows patients and passersby to call her Doctor.

On Sundays, when Deirdre teaches the high school religious classes, she does not tell her students that marriage is challenging and a thing to be careful with— like a baby. She tells them instead how much Mr. Thompson loves her and that love saves everything. She tells them that when she met Mr. Thompson she had blond hair down to her ankles and that is why he fell in love with her. She makes them turn the thin Bible pages to Sampson and study the strength that was in his hair. She makes them memorize passages from the Old Testament that demonstrate beauty as a woman’s greatest honor. The girl students are mostly of African descent and native to the island. They could never hope for blond hair to their ankles. They look at their teacher with envy or hate or pity— the last because they suspect Deirdre is lying.

Deirdre’s son does not attend his mother’s Sunday school classes. He was the crossing guard aide in middle school and the student government president in high school. He has always been a ruler of sorts. Thomas is besotted with a girl named Jasmine, the eldest daughter of Violet de Flaubert. He is a year older than the de Flaubert girl but she was skipped ahead, so she and Thomas Thompson had been in the same grade. The de Flaubert girl is bril-

liant and shy, and Thomas has been in love with her since he was twelve.

Deirdre stands a few safe yards in front of the burning church, watching it creak and break. She hears an engine sputter and knows it must be Violet de Flaubert’s car graveling up behind her. Deirdre does not turn to greet her. Now that Violet has arrived she wonders about her own inaction. Wonders about her own ability to simply watch the church crack, and crumble into ashes.

Violet de Flaubert sees the smoke and thinks it must be a campfire. This makes no sense. There are no campgrounds. Then she thinks maybe it’s a barbecue, but people don’t barbecue much on the island.

She thinks on anything but a burning church. She is fighting not to think of a burning church.

Violet has five daughters who are each named after flowers, and with all those girls she somehow still feels virginal. When she teaches middle school religious classes on Sunday, she tells them, truthfully, that she was a virgin when she met Mr. de Flaubert.

She makes them turn to passages on the mother of Jesus. She makes them act out the Christmas story.

The girl students look at her with respect and adoration, for they are at the age for such things. The boy students look away from her with shame, because they are wishing they were Mister de Flaubert. The Continued on page 44

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by Nicole Sealey Named one of Essence magazine’s 40 favorite poets, alongside Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, Suheir Hammad, Tracey K. Smith and others, it is simply impossible not to like poet Tara Betts.

Betts’ reading voice is as rich as her dossier—a lecturer in creative writing at Rutgers University and a Cave Canem fellow whose work has appeared in journals and anthologies including Callaloo, Columbia Poetry Review, Hanging Loose, Ninth Let-

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Since the book’s release in September 2009, Betts has been ripping and running from one lecture to the next, from one reading to the next, while at work on a memoir, a collection of seven-line poems inspired by Eugene B. Redmond as well as an anthology of Bop poems, Bop, Strut and Dance, with Afaa Michael Weaver. And, that’s not all—she is interested in writing children’s books too. I caught up with the charismatic Tara Betts between engagements to talk about her story, to talk Arc & Hue. Nicole Sealey: What should readers understand the book’s title, Arc & Hue (A&H), to mean?

Tara Betts: The title is taken from a poem of the same name that speaks to the kind of longing children—like the boy in the poem—are not yet aware of experiencing, a longing for the past that has yet to

Photo credit: WideVision Photography/Marcia E. Wilson

ter, Black Writing from Chicago, Fingernails Across a Chalkboard, Gathering Ground, Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism, and ROLE CALL, respectively. Now, add to that list of accomplishments Arc & Hue, Betts’ debut collection of poems and, with it, praise from some of the most celebrated writers. Martín Espada proclaims, “Tara Betts is a poet who pays exquisite attention to the world. It’s high time the world repaid the favor.” The world, I would argue, is doing just that.

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When He Proposed When he proposed, I understood why men fear commitment, the leash that breaks for a bargain that costs too much. He dangled that promise and snatched it away often enough to let dreams flicker children across the film of my days. Hints of black soap, cocoa butter and sweat on his anxious skin, when I walked away an unfinished puzzle. After piecing my sinews together from the slots and tabs of countless women sprawled on a table covered with his sheets, he offered me this pulseless bird.

The still wings molded into composition books flapping thin covers to flash pages overrun with black mites of words teeming within the margins.

As the notebooks fall between us, words disappear, They clatter to a pile transformed into typewriter with locked keys, aborted words again. The writing will die with him. So I turned to the door, saying yes to the exit, telling him I can’t.

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Belinda “Azucar” Gonzalez Sometimes Luis still makes me so angry, my tears feel like the hot heads of matchsticks Choking a headstone only chaps your hands when you realize dead men don’t listen much better than a living one does. They blame me for this death. Ask questions pointed like Luis’ needles. Why was the insulin in the drawer, instead of the counter? Why were you late, Linda?

Did you remind him? You know how he forgets.

I shoulder the mourning like a third daughter. Nod, listen like an obedient daughter-in-law because I loved him in spite of the bitters Luis stirred into the cup of my living. He promised to stay, be my tattoo. The only ink of him left is his name on my shoulder mixed with “azucar”, his slick whisper in a fading dream. We leave the cemetery. I grit my teeth behind the portals of black sunglasses.

I get home, go to the kitchen to make sandwiches for the girls. They ask for Kool Aid. I am fine until I reach for the 5-pound bag of sugar, staring at it like an enemy. I punch a hole into its half-full middle, screaming at Luis for all of this, all of it.

Tara Betts

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open behind them. The title embodies this feeling of nostalgia that never quite remembers how it was to be in a moment. The chalky colors and curves of our lives are smudged into unclear sketches that we used to know with a sharp sense of clarity.

NS: A&H seems to span years of your memory and imagination. What determined each poem’s entrance into or exit out of the collection?

TB: Each poem is tracking a passage of time. Only one poem made it into A&H from my chapbook Switch, and that was the title poem. “Switch” marked the transition where I knew I was going to cling more tightly to a forceful sense of sound and imagery to talk about issues I feel need to be articulated.

The opening poem, “Housekeeping,” serves as a preface for the book and can be tied to Lucille Clifton’s short poem, “Why some people be mad at me sometimes”: they keep asking me to remember but they want me to remember their memories and i keep remembering mine.

I wanted “Housekeeping” to be a poem of “remembering mine,” even in the face of some who validate poems that reinforce a limited number of

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narratives with awards that largely ignore work by writers of color and women writers. This idea permeates many of the poems in A&H. I close the book with “For Those Who Need a True Story” because it is a poetic rendering of a story that was told to me about a young boy’s experience living in a Chicago tenement. The onus of the poem, however, rests in its conclusion: “Healthy children” have advantages that permit them to write new stories more often.

The poem is a call to tell a full range of stories, an indictment of poverty—not an exploitation of the ghetto to garner sympathy.

NS: The full range of our stories includes those stories we may not know. Without alluding to a specific moment, “Erasure,” for example, notes the ways in which history is lost.

TB: Before writing “Erasure,” I thought a lot about Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters. It opens with a woman who, while walking through the southern heat, starts her period. She substitutes pamphlets for a pad, and struggles to continue when a Martin Luther King Jr-like leader arrives in an air-conditioned car, crisp and sweat-free in his suit. This moment, in particular, rings of inequity, even in a progressive struggle.

Women in the Civil Rights Movement are still far too under-recognized, but there are unrecognized Continued on page 45

Ode to Incense You shrinking limb turned ash with orange eye lidded in smoke You skin of oils & herbs rolled into resin, charcoal, wood flesh Your core of gums holding scent tight until heat arrives Sandalwood, Jasmine, Ylang-Ylang, Amber, Dragonsblood, Nag Champa, Rose, Cedarwood, Patchouli, Lavender You are a bulb of honeyed fog broken open to chase demons away and insects You clear the mind’s canvas, cleanse the corners to make room for thoughts Closed eyes, chant, & crossed legs all remain your consistent friends For your less spiritual devotees, you are Saturday morning ritual You rise like a welcome ghost as dusting begins & floors are mopped You arrive at houses when parties begin blend into transparent camouflage barely A twin or thin veil for marijuana mingling into your smoky joints when night laughs You regardless of purpose or pleasure bring all that lean dwindling can offer Incendiary, incensed until orange eye closes, Your single wavery arm lingers, disappears

Tara Betts

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Mosaic’s lesson plans give secondary-school educators a connective tool to explore educational subjects such as history and social studies while also serving to increase the importance of books and reading.

Designed by Eisa Nefertari Ulen Check it out! >>> 22

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Theme One: Black Power Narratives: Peniel Joseph’s Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama Attica Locke’s Black Water Rising Jabari Asim’s A Taste of Honey Topics for Discussion: 1. Dark Days, Bright Nights is a history book, Attica Locke’s Black Water Rising is a novel, and Jabari Asim’s A Taste of Honey is a collection of short stories. Did you enjoy the nonfiction book more or less than the two works of fiction? Do you think you learned more about the Black Power Movement from the nonfiction book or from the two works of fiction? Which book taught you more about how real people lived during the Black Power Movement?

2. Joseph’s Dark Days, Bright Nights examines Malcolm X’s and Stokely Carmichael’s work as community organizers. What skills did Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael develop while they were community organizers?

How important was community organizing in Barack Obama’s political development? What role did community organizing play in helping to shape Obama’s skills and helping him to prepare for the demands of the presidency?

3. In Asim’s story “Day Work,” Gabriel and PeeWee have a confrontation over the best way to respond to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Consider PeeWee’s desire to riot and Gabriel’s desire to marry the woman he loves. Which of these responses is best for the Gateway community? Why do you think Asim chose to name the character who gets married Gabriel? Why did Asim name the man who riots in the street PeeWee? What does each name mean? What is the author saying about manhood? Think about the question Gabriel asks PeeWee in the last lines of the story. Why does PeeWee stop saying “Brother” and start using the N-word instead? What do you think of the author’s decision to have PeeWee ignore Gabriel’s important question and slip “away as quickly as he had come” into the streets?

4. The protagonist in Black Water Rising, Jay Porter, is haunted by his past work as a student organizer. What main event or events during his years as a community organizer bother Jay Porter the most? (Consider the first several paragraphs in chapter 15, from pages 194 to 196.) Why do you think so many people expect Jay to become more involved in his community now that he is married and his wife is expecting a baby? What kind of work does Jay’s father-in-law do? Do you think it is a coincidence that Jay married a woman whose father does so much work in the community?

5. In all three books, the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s is described as a turbulent era in American history. How does each author describe the tone, or emotion, of the mid-20th century? What impact

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does this political and social feeling have on the characters in Locke’s novel and in Asim’s short stories? What effect does this political and social feeling have on real-life historical figures in Joseph’s book? What is the tone of the country right now? How do people feel about Obama’s presidency and what effect has the election of the first black president in American history had on people you know now, in the 21st century?

6. In his nonfiction book, Joseph tries to develop a more accurate rendering of Carmichael, Malcolm, and the legacy of Black Power activists. Do you think he is successful? What did you think about Black Power before you read Joseph’s work? What do you think about Black Power now?

7. Joseph’s book asserts that there would be no President Barack Obama today without Black Power activists like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael in the 1960s. Do you agree or disagree? Consider the characters in Locke’s literary thriller. In what ways did the Black Power Movement impact her characters’ lives? Did Black Power make it harder or easier for the striking workers who are advocating for their rights during the 1980s Texas oil boom in Locke’s book? Does Black Power improve characters’ everyday lives in Asim’s short stories?

Based on these books, is American life better because of the Black Power Movement?

8. In what ways have you been a beneficiary of Black Power activism?

Essay Idea: Choose a mid-20th century political and social movement for change. Select from: Civil Rights, Black Power, the Second Wave Feminist Movement, the Anti-Vietnam War / Peace Movement, the Gay Rights Movement, the Chicano Movement / El Movimiento, the Asian American Movement, or the work of the American Indian Movement / AIM. Research the work that was done by activists who organized and agitated for change within the movement you select. Who were the movement’s leaders? What organizations operated within this movement? In what regions of the country did the members who identified with this movement live? How did law-enforcement respond to the movement you select? What long-lasting impact did this movement have on American life? What things have been made better today because of the influence of your 20th century political and social movement for change? What were the movement’s failures? Bring pictures, music, recorded speeches, and/or any posters, buttons, or other objects you can find from that movement to school. Present your essay and share what you learn with the class.

Additional Activities: 1. Form a group with classmates interested in the same mid-20th century political and social movement that you wrote about. Share the work you’ve done researching the movement with each other. Based on your findings, write a scene about that movement. You might want to write about your movement’s leaders; or, you might want to write about everyday people who were involved in your movement. You might even want to include characters who are opposed to the work your movement does. When you write the scene, make sure you include a part that each person in your group can play. Using the music, pictures, and other items you can find that are related to your movement, set the scene and perform it in your class.

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2. Create a timeline of your movement with your group. Trace your movement’s history through the 20th century, making sure you include every major event that takes place within your group’s movement. When you are finished, compare your timeline with the others done by other groups in your class. Hang all the timelines on a board so everyone can see them clearly. Are there dates that seem to have significance for more than one movement? Is there a pattern of high activity / low activity among different movements? How do these different timelines come together to form one important timeline of 20th century America?

3. Both Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X are deceased, but imagine what they might have felt on the day Barack Obama was elected president. Write a short story, one-act play, poem, or essay that imagines a conversation between these three very important historical figures. What would Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and President Obama say if they could talk to each other today?

4. Black Water Rising is set in Houston, A Taste of Honey is set in a fictional Midwestern town, and much of what happens in Dark Days, Bright Nights takes place in the South and Northeast. Consider where you live and go to school. What, if any, political and social movements for change were active in your local community during the mid-20th century? What, if any, impact have these movements had on your community that are still noticeable today? Are any of your neighbors people who participated in the activist work of the 1960s and 1970s? What was your community like during that period? Create a visual and audio presentation that documents the work of that era. Present your work to the class and, if you can, display it in an area where other students at your school can see and hear what you researched.

5. Focus on civil rights and Black Power. How are these two movements related to each other? What distinguishes each? Create a visual representation of these movements by juxtaposing images from each on a large posterboard. Did civil rights workers wear dresses and suits? Did Black Power activists wear jeans--or did some Black Power activists also wear more conservative attire? Think about Joseph’s book as you work. Make sure you accurately represent each movement and avoid easy stereotypes when you make decisions about the images you find.

6. Create a timeline of African-American activism. Start with the Abolitionist Movement and include black participation in Suffrage, the Anti-Lynching Campaign, the Back to Africa Movement, Uplift, the Niagara Movement, Workers’ Rights and Union Organizing, Civil Rights, Black Power, 2nd Wave Feminism, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, the anti-Apartheid Movement, and the LGBT Movement. What were / are the major organizations advocating for rights within the black community? What coalitions have African-American organizations formed with other groups?

Supplemental Reading: The N-Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why, Jabari Asim Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching, ed. Menkart, Murray, and View Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak, Saleemah Abdul Ghafur (a new civil rights issue)

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Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak, Fawzia Afzal-Khan (a new civil rights issue) Growing Up X, Ilyasah Shabazz (autobiography of the activist’s daughter) In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, Alice Walker (a collection of womanist essays) Assata, Assata Shakur (former Black Panther and political exile’s autobiography) A Taste of Power, Elaine Brown (former Black Panther’s autobiography) The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley Black Power, Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama Women, Race, and Class, Angela Y. Davis

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Theme Two: Reading History in Poetry and Prose Narratives and Poems: Attica Locke’s Black Water Rising Maryse Conde’s Victoire Jabari Asim’s A Taste of Honey Tara Betts’ “Jena, Louisiana,” “Sestina for the Sin,” and “On the Digging up of Emmett Till” Topics for Discussion: 1. Conde’s novel, Victoire, uses specific dates, holidays, organizations, places, newspapers, books, and music.

How important are all these references in retracing the story of the author’s family? Does this level of specificity help lend her novel an air of truth? How much of any family story can be regarded as truth?

2. You might remember the Jena 6 case of 2006. What do you remember about the incident? How did the story of the Jena 6 make you feel? Read one newspaper article about the case and think about how the article makes you feel. Reread Betts’ “Jena, Louisiana.” Does the poem conjure a response that is different from what you felt when you read the newspaper article? What role does the journalist play in our society? What is the role of the poet?

3. What is a lynching? Why was a noose such a powerful symbol for the students of Jena High School--and for so many Americans as media coverage of the Jena 6 case grew? Consider “Jena, Louisiana,” “Sestina for the Sin,” and “On the Digging up of Emmett Till.” How are these three poems connected? What does the speaker of each poem feel about mob violence in America?

4. How important was the short story “Ashes to Ashes” in Asim’s collection? What information did it provide?

Did that story help you understand the relationship between Rev. Miles Washington and Ananias Goode? What kind of American experience followed these two men as they escaped the South and made their way to Gateway during the Great Migration? Now consider “Day Work.” Does the information in “Ashes to Ashes” help you understand Ed’s decision to walk “as casually as he could” through the white section of Gateway? How does history impact characters in A Taste of Honey?

5. What might the bayou in Locke’s novel symbolize? Why, as the title indicates, is the water black and rising?

Does Jay Porter’s immersion in the water the night he rides with his pregnant wife suggest a cleansing or does it suggest defilement? Consider the idea that water might be tied to memory and history in this book. If the

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water is somehow connected to memory and history, what might Jay’s reluctant leap into the bayou to rescue a mysterious white woman symbolize?

6. How much research do you think each author had to do in order to produce their work? Consider all the details each piece contains. Think about your own essay and creative writing. How much time and energy do you generally devote to research when you write?

Essay Idea: Write a personal narrative about your family that traces as far back as you can go through the generations. For some, this may be just one or two generations, while others may be able to write about several generations of family. In either case, make sure you provide specific details about the world in which your family lives and/ or lived. Where is your family from and where do most members live now? What event(s), if any, caused your family to move from one place to another? Try to name songs and books your family members enjoyed, newspapers they read, and holidays they celebrated. What did your grandmother likely eat at dinner? What kind of food did your great-grandfather eat? For each generation, consider birth dates and include some historical event that members of your family might have responded to in some way. Provide both historical and cultural details as you write to provide context and help the reader understand your family.

Additional Activities: 1. Go online to learn more about the personal biography of each writer. Think about the way(s) a personal life story might have impacted the work each writer produces. Is Jabari Asim from the Midwest? Is he married?

Does he have children? Who gave the author of Black Water Rising her very provocative name? In what ways is Locke’s fictional Jay Porter like the author’s real life father? What historical movements did each author witness and/or participate in over the course of her/his lifetime? Consider similar questions as you read more about the writers on the reading list. Think about the ways the answers to these questions might provide greater contextual understanding of the work they produced. Then choose one or two authors to write about in your essay.

Using the information you gather, develop a contextual analysis of the literature.

2. Research the case of the Jena 6. What has been the outcome of the case for the young men involved? Can you find any articles that report on the state of race relations in Jena, Louisiana today? What happened to all the media attention that was focused on the Jena 6? Why do you think the story has slipped off the national radar?

Write your own article, poem, or short story about the Jena 6 and life in that small town today. Base your work on the facts you gather when you conduct your research.

3. What is a lynching? Once you develop a definition of the term, locate images of lynchings that took place in this country. Research the Anti-Lynching Campaign and the work of Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Look for information about and images of Emmett Till. Consider the decision of Emmett Till’s mother to have an open casket at his funeral. Then, research the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd cases. How are these contemporary lynchings like the lynchings of the past? How are they different? Research the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd,

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Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Create a class presentation that compares and contrasts three eras: the AntiLynching Campaign of the turn of the 20th century, the furor around the Emmett Till case in the mid-20th century, and the Shepard-Byrd Campaign at the turn of the 21st century.

4. Choose a significant historical event and research it. Once you thoroughly understand the historical event, imagine a family living just before, during, and just after the event takes place. Write three different descriptions of this family: one before, one during, and one after the event takes place. Try to focus on the way the family relationships change because of the event. If you want, develop your three descriptions even further to craft a short story, poem, or a work of creative nonfiction.

5. Locke’s novel takes place during the 1980s Houston, Texas oil boom. Consider her descriptions of both the excesses and the poverty of that era. Think about what was happening in the Gulf Region in the 1980s and connect that time period with the BP Gulf oil spill of 2010. According to Locke, what was the effect of Big Oil on American society and everyday, working Americans living in Houston in the 1980s? What do you think is the impact of Big Oil on America, and especially on Americans living in the Gulf Region today? Create a project that explores the topic “Oil in America from 1980 to the Present.” Use Locke’s novel and other information you gather to do research.

6. Watch TV! Look for episodes of Dynasty and Dallas, two television programs that were popular during the 1980s, and contrast them with HBO’s Treme, a show set in New Orleans just after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Write two scripts or teleplays, one that imagines the characters of one of the 1980s shows after the BP oil spill, and the other that imagines the characters of Treme after the BP oil spill. As you write, think about the politicians, blue collar workers, and oil executives in Locke’s novel. Which characters in your teleplays would lose the most from the BP oil disaster in the Gulf? Which, if any, of the characters in your scripts would profit from this current event?

Supplemental Reading: Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case, Chris Crowe Once Two Heroes, Calvin Baker (fictionalized account of a lynching) Southern Horrors and The Red Record, Ida B. Wells Barnett Middle Passage, Charles Johnson I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, Maryse Conde Praisesong for the Widow, Paule Marshall (meticulous attention to history and culture) Leaving Atlanta, Tayari Jones (fictionalized account of Atlanta child murders) Voodoo Dreams, Jewell Parker Rhodes (fictionalized account of Marie Laveau of New Orleans) Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe Never Again, Flora Nwapa (journal of Biafran War in Nigeria) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs (slave narrative) Continued on page 47

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by Adisa Vera Beatty

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Afro-Chicano poet and playwright John Murillo has generated a great deal of excitement and praise from the likes of Junot Diaz and Yusef Komunyakaa for his premiere collection of poems, Up Jump The Boogie (Cypher Press, 2010). Currently he is the Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and his choreo-play, Trigger, will debut in 2011 at Edgeworks Dance Theater. I sat down with this quiet storm to discuss his book and particular brand of poetry for the people.

When I read your book I definitely heard music, but also the influence of someone who was an emcee. Do you rhyme?

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I did. I started out as an emcee 27 years ago and did that until I got to college. I kept writing rhymes and still do occasionally. Then I met up with some poets who also became my teachers and discovered how much went into crafting poems; I got hooked and turned all my attention in this direction. I think all those years of writing and listening to rap definitely affected my writing. The rappers who I’ve looked to most over the years were, above all else, witnesses. They wrote about their surroundings and the people in them. And they were poets. So yes, hip hop definitely influenced my poetry. It gave me ears and eyes.

How was it growing up in LA? Can you talk a little about that experience?

I’m 38 so I grew up in the ’70s, early ’80s. It was a gangsta culture you know, so there were few options. You’re in a neighborhood but not in a gang, you still gotta rep that neighborhood so you’re not gonna wear red in a Crip neighborhood and you’re not gonna wear blue in a Blood neighborhood. You read the walls, you know who wrote what and you know how to function in that. As far as the way it shaped my view on manhood, what is considered masculinity is also what I was saying—it’s a warrior culture. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately; if you go anywhere in the world today people have their warrior culture. The Maoris in New Zealand, the Aztec, the Vikings…I don’t think we lose that.

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Particularly, here in America we have these kids who don’t have these rites of passages set up so they create their own, and it manifests as gang activity.

So it was rough.

Did you know these poems were this collection when you were writing them? And is there a common thread or conveyance you sought to create?

Yes and no. I knew what I wanted my first collection to be, but the poems weren’t there yet. As far as the writing, I wanted to write poems of witness. A lot of people have shared their lives with me, and I know a lot of people who maybe left too early, and I wanted to pay homage as well as I could with this first book. So writing the book has allowed me to bring them back into my life in a certain kinda way.

I knew it [the book] was going to speak to the socalled underclass. A lot of the writing that comes out by contemporary black poets for the most part is middle class black America. It’s “Huxtable” poetry and there are not enough “Good Times” poets.

I wanted to write something that represented the other side of the black and Latino experience, so I knew I wanted to write that book. When you’re writing from a working-class perspective, and much more than Phil Levine or Larry Levis, for black and Latino people it manifests differently. There’s a class experience, but it’s also racialized in a way that it’s not for a lot of other groups. There’s this void where

Enter the Dragon —Los Angeles, California, 1976

For me, the movie starts with a black man Leaping into an orbit of badges, tiny moons Catching the sheen of his perfect black afro.

Arc kicks, karate chops, and thirty cops On their backs. It starts with the swagger, The cool lean into the leather front seat Of the black and white he takes off in.

Deep hallelujahs of moviegoers drown Out the wah wah guitar. Salt & butter High-fives, Right on, brother! and Daddy Glowing so bright he can light the screen All by himself. This is how it goes down.

Friday night and my father drives us Home from the late show, two heroes Cadillacking across King Boulevard.

In the car’s dark cab, we jab and clutch, Jim Kelly and Bruce Lee with popcorn Breath, and almost miss the lights flashing In the cracked side mirror. I know what’s Under the seat, but when the uniforms Approach from the rear quarter panel, When the fat one leans so far into my father’s Window I can smell his long day’s work, When my father—this John Henry of a man— Hides his hammer, doesn’t buck, tucks away His baritone, license and registration shaking as if Showing a bathroom pass to a grade school Principal, I learn the difference between cinema And city, between the moviehouse cheers Of old men and the silence that gets us home.

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not enough voices are being heard from the black working class, or Latino working class. And that’s something I hope to do through my work…I don’t think anyone can fill that void, but at least I’ll be a drop in that bucket.

I do think that void can be filled. It’s not AIDS; it’s not cancer. It’s just about something that people are going to be committed to wanting, to support and bring to fruition. It’s like how many years ago—seven, nine years ago—there wasn’t any Cave Canem.

And maybe that has always been a need, but it’s filling a void now. It just takes that one person being like, “I can do it and I know three people that can help me.”

And that’s one thing I admire about Willie [Perdomo] and what he’s doing with Cypher Books. It’s just what you’re saying. The poets he’s choosing for his imprint, each of them is different. There’s not this aesthetic line that they’re all following. But it’s also renegade poets in a sense. Their main audience lies outside of that norm, that mainstream.

And I think he’s doing important work of setting up and giving people the chance to get their voices out there.

I agree with a lot of what you’re saying but I always feel sensitive when conversations about class in terms of “academic” poets, “street” poets or the “Huxtable” and “Good Times” poets comes up. A

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lot of times this battle of who is real or legitimate is something that we get caught up in, especially with all the appropriations of our culture.

You’ve got these dichotomies, these lines drawn between academic vs street poets. And that’s problematic because now what happens with someone like me who started off as an emcee, gets his MFA, and is now doing a fellowship teaching at a university?

So am I an academic poet now? How do you draw the line? So I find that problematic limiting. I’m not trying to draw a line between MFAs and non-MFAs, for the most part those who are able to choose that route are coming from an experience, class wise, before they get their MFA. But now things are opening up, so I don’t make a distinction between academic and non-academic, spoken word and poetry proper. What I am saying is there are just recently some poets from this working-class experience, this black working-class experience who are now having their voices heard, but that wasn’t always the case.

It’s clear from your collection that music has always been in your life. Can you talk a bit about the role music had in growing you and your craft?

It helped teach me about life. Before I knew what a heartbreak was I could listen to some of my pop’s records, it gave me an emotional vocabulary, so when I went through my own trials and tribulations Continued on page 46

1989 There are no windows here, and the walls Are lined with egg cartons. So if we listen Past the sampled piano, drum kick And speakerbox rumble, we’d still not hear The robins celebrating daybreak.

The engineer worries the mixboard, Something about a hiss lurking between notes.

Dollar Bill curses the engineer, time We don’t have. Says it’s just a demo And doesn’t need perfecting. “Niggas Always want to make like Quincy Jones When you’re paying by the hour.”

Deejay Eddie Scizzorhandz—because he cuts So nice—taps ashes into an empty pizza box, Head nodding to his latest masterpiece: Beethoven spliced with Mingus, Mixed with Frankie Beverly, all laid On Billy Squire’s “Big Beat.”

I’m in a corner, crossing out and rewriting Lines I’ll want to forget years later, Looking up every now and then, To watch Sheik Spear, Pomona’s finest emcee, In the vocal booth, spitting rhymes He never bothers putting to paper, Nearly hypnotized by the gold-plated cross Swinging from his neck as he, too, Will swing, days from now, before They cut him from the rafters of a jail cell.

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reviews

Dark Days, Bright Nights From Black Power to Barack Obama

by Peniel E. Joseph Basic Books Review by Reginald Harris

The subtitle of this new book by Tufts University history professor Peniel Joseph at first seems counter intuitive, intentionally provocative—or just plain wrong: From Black Power to Barack Obama? Isn’t our first African-American President proof of the fulfillment of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream and a refutation Malcolm X’s vision of America as a racial nightmare? Noted for his cool, calm demeanor, President Obama seems the philosophical and temperamental opposite of the incendiary Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Turé) with his raised fist and 1966 declaration, “What we gonna start sayin' now is Black Power!” As civil-rights veteran John Lewis famously said, “Barack Obama is what comes at the end of that bridge in Selma,” not what emerges from the fires and uprisings of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Joseph refutes such an antagonistic vision of the civil rights and Black Power movements in Dark Days, Bright Nights, enriching and complicating our understanding of both. He uses politico-biographical chapters on the lives of Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael to illustrate how elements of Black Power

grew parallel with, and as a counter force to, the civil rights movement from the 1950s through the 1970s, and how both prepared the United States for a figure such as Barack Obama.

Civil rights and Black Power grew out of postwar freedom surges. In the South, civil rights activists responded to racial segregation by advocating for voting rights and the end to Jim Crow. Black Power activists embraced militant anti-racist protests that included combative demonstrations. In spite of the differences between the two movements, many activists found themselves drawn to, and participating in, both. Both movements sought to re-imaging the very shape and tenor of American democracy.

Ultimately both helped to transform contemporary American race relations. But the failure to acknowledge Black Power’s immediate roots in the postwar freedom struggle... perpetuates the mythology that the movement represents nothing more than the civil rights era’s destructive, violent, and ineffectual sibling...”

Contradicting the standard image of the movement as only interested in violence, Joseph shows how Black Power was as much about politics and influence at the ballot box. He declares such Black Power-related institutions as the development of black studies programs in the academy, and the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, as important elements of the groundwork for Barack Obama’s

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arrival on the political scene. Indeed, some right-ofcenter criticism of President Obama can be seen as a recognition of, and reaction against, him as part of this Black Power continuum. How much of the use of “Community Organizer” as an epithet against Obama during the 2008 campaign, for example, was an echo of the reaction against the grassroots work done by Malcolm X, Carmichael, and the Black Panthers in Oakland, California during the 1960s and ’70s?

Although Joseph points out correctly that, “while Obama invoked the civil rights era throughout his campaign, he largely ignored Black Power,” Dark Days, Bright Nights does not focus deeply on why this silence might be considered ‘smart politics’ when attempting to attract white voters, or the continuing racism that continues to plague ‘post-racial America.’ Indeed, as Joseph himself writes, “Obama has enjoyed the benefits of both the civil rights and Black Power movements while maintaining a safe distance from both.” As Joseph points out, however, “Obama’s election has successfully fused powerful aspects of both civil rights and Black Power movements . . . his speeches, books, and interviews discuss democracy and the potential for civic renewal in the broad, sweeping language preferred by King…{his} campaign and confident personal demeanor mimic the swagger and audacity of Black Power-era militants. His long, lanky frame suggests (aesthetically at least) the lean, upright silhouette of both Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael.”

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Some early sections of Dark Days, Bright Nights suffer from occasional passages of repetition, and much of the ground the Malcolm and Stokely chapters cover will be familiar to readers of Joseph’s previous book, the excellent Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. However, in connecting and contrasting President Obama to these two men, Dark Days, Bright Nights ultimately succeeds in showing the endurance and surprising success of many Black Power initiatives, and how much the President is a validation of the legacy of them both. One only wonders, however, if it was Barack Obama that Jesse Jackson was imagining when he declared, “It’s Nation Time!” at the National Black Political Convention in Gary in 1972.

Up Jump The Boogie

by John Murillo Cypher Press Review by Adisa Vera Beatty Poet John Murillo’s first collection, Up Jump The Boogie is bold and lyrical. The poems are elegies of liberation celebrating how we got by instead of lamenting death, hard times, or street life. With steady hands Murillo alternately testifies, pays homage, and immortalizes lives we know and don’t know. From his opening poem, “Ode To The Crossfader,” a tender spellbinding incantation and eulogy to a father,

memory, and the bloodline, Murillo promises to rock the reader. These poems always remain intimate; tight shots that pull us in like “Trouble Man” where the poet overhears Marvin Gaye while driving. Much like a scent that stirs memory, that song triggers the restless and weighty presence of a deceased father and a son who is now also a man.

You were the boy who became That man, without meaning To, and know now: A man’s Life is never measured In beats, but beat-downs, Not line breaks, just breaks.

You hear Marvin fade down The avenue and it caresses you Like a brick: Your father, Marvin, and men like the, Have already moaned every Book you will ever write.

This you know, baby. This You know.

George Clinton once said, “funk not only moves it can remove” if that is true then poetry must heal, and John Murillo’s poetry heals. Again and again Murillo bears witness in poems like “1989,” “Enter the Dragon,” “Dream Fragment With a Shot Clock” and “Whistles In It,” and in doing so sets free and gives grace to a community that lives so vividly inside him.

But if there is one poem that can break hearts, cast

spells, and ‘fly away home’ it is “Renegades of Funk.”

Pulling on ancestral memory, dance and graffiti as praise, Murillo offers resistance and libation for the living and the dead.

The walls are sprayed in gospel: This is for The ones who never made the magazines.

Between breakbeats and bad breaks, broken homes And flat broke, caught but never crushed. The stars We knew we were, who recognized the shine Despite the shade. We renegade in rhyme, In dance, on trains and walls. We renegade In lecture halls, the yes, yes y’alls in suits, Construction boots, and aprons. Out of work Or nine to five, still renegade. Those laid To rest, forgotten renegades, in dirt Too soon with Kuriaki, Pun, and Pac--I sing your names in praise, remember why When we were twelve, we taught ourselves to fly.

With an insistent thread of music, street lore and strength, Murillo’s poems evoke a sensuous nostalgia and necessary history. It is clear from John Murillo’s first collection that his voice is one we need and will certainly here from again. Up Jump The Boogie is a hypnotic, moving and passionate collection dusted with some bittersweetness but still triumphant. H

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Freelance photographer Marcia E. Wilson gallivants around NYC looking for literary events to spotlight on the "Around Town" page. She may be at a reading near you.

For more visit MosaicMagazine.org.

February 8, 2011 - Manning Marable was at Hueman Bookstore in Harlem to sign copies of Barack Obama and African American Empowerment: The Rise of Black America’s New Leadership. On April 1, three days before the release of the seminal Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, Mr. Marable died from complications of pneumonia.

May 16, 2011 -- Nigerian writer Helon Habila read from his latest book Oil On Water. After, he was joined by Michael Orthofer, managing editor of the Complete Review, for a lively dialogue on Nigerian politics and the press. The event took place at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn.

Pictured: Helon Habila and Teju Cole (Open City).

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March 31, 2011 - Cave Canem hosted a reading with Nikky Finney at the New School in NYC. Ms. Finney read from her new book of poetry, Head Off & Split, and engaged in a lively conversation with poet Aracelis Girmay. Ms. Finney is the author of five books, including The World Is Round, winner of the 2004 Benjamin Franklin Award for Poetry and Rice, a collection of stories, poems, and photographs.

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April 14, 2011 – Kweli Journal in partnership with The New York Times and African Heritage Network presented an evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Edward P. Jones.

Mr. Jones was joined in conversation

by Wyatt Mason, art critic for Harpers magazine. The evening benefited Kweli Journal, kwelijournal.com

Editorial Summer is such a slow time for literary events. Readings are nil, and book buyers are on their annual migration to warm beaches to enjoy a guilty-pleasure paperback. So, during these sultry days dare we keep occupied with a quick glimpse at music?

Seems natural, lyrical short stories by Biggie, Bob Marley, Aretha Franklin filled with drama, love, blues, soul in syncopated rhythms tell the best tales. Music and literature are a natural fit. Plus, all things being equal summer concerts stump mudholes in staid book signings.

Now, I love my comfort zone like I love cooked food. I have a role and try hard to stay on course ––dedicated lit-mag publisher who’s taken a vow of poverty. And in this role I need to find ways to keep literature relevant while also keeping the attention of Wii heads and Lady Gaga fans. So on occasion we’ll insinuate a lyrical beat or performance onto the pages in the form of a photo essay, artist interview, or suggested reading.

Our first foray found Mosaic’s “Around Town” photog Marcia Wilson and I headed to check Steel Pulse in Prospect Park. Marcia, a yardie (via London), wanted to hear her favorite song, “Not King James Version,” which confronts the omission of Black people in the bible. Of course they played every song but NKJV. But it did send me on quest to find reading material that could give the song some literary pylons.

Start Reading Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey

by Marcus Garvey, Bob Blaisdell (Editor) Dover Publications Canaan Land: A Religious History of African Americans

by Albert J. Raboteau Oxford University Press The Kebra Negast: The Lost Bible of Rastafarian Wisdom and Faith from Ethiopia and Jamaica Gerald Hausman (Editor) St. Martin’s Press Holy Bible, 1611 King James Version: 400th Anniversary Edition Zondervan Bibles Visit “Around Town” on MosaicMagazine.org for additional photo essays.

-Ron Kavanaugh, Editor

MosaicMagazine.org David Hines, Steel Pulse Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park, July 2011 WideVision Photography/Marcia E. Wilson

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there was no cheese or bologna, but you’re gonna eat it on a clean plate, with your mouth closed while you’re chewing. I was one of the few kids in my neighborhood that went to private school.

My neighborhood was very black and Latino, but I went to an incredibly diverse high school. It looks like 25 Benetton commercials! We had white and black kids who were born in the States; Frenchies, who I reference in the book (we won’t say “white” because they get vexed!) who had come from the Virgin Islands; Caribbean kids. Come now! Arabs, Latinos… So I grew up oscillating between these two worlds and felt entirely comfortable in both.

KCF: Many of the stories deal with romantic and platonic relationships between people of different racial, religious, and class backgrounds. There was often an awkwardness and tension that felt realistic. How do you think the setting of the Caribbean provides a unique lens for examining these relationships?

TY: I like the question a lot. It’s something that a literary scholar could answer much better than I could.

KCF: And maybe since you talk about how your high school was so diverse…

TY: Yeah, I’m not sure if I could say much more.

I grew up thinking that Ananse was Caribbean. It wasn’t until I went to Ghana that I realized that Ananse came from West Africa. I grew up thinking curry and roti was Caribbean. So there’s not a whole lot of purity, which I like. What the hell is pure, anyway? Of course there are often problems, when people don’t always see eye to eye. But a lot of problems are cultural, like in the story in which there’s an African American and a Jamaican—

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“Where Tourists Don’t Go.” From the outside, especially in the States, the perception is, well they’re both black; they should be cool. But they’re having problems that we think interracial couples would have. My husband is African American, so when he read that story, he was like, “What’re you trying to say?” I had to admit that I wrote that story before I even knew who he was! But these are things he and I struggle with, too. He’s a photographer, and it turns out that the way we think about the world—as artists—was the most important bonding thing that we had.

I think that if we’re learning with love and realize that we’re all human and all full of bigotry and trying to overcome it, we’ll be fine. The problem with Mason and his girlfriend Robin in the story is that neither one was trying, and that’s why it wasn’t working. [laughs] At least that’s what I’m hoping, because I’m trying to stay married forever!

KCF: Okay, let’s hope Mason and Robin wasn’t a prediction! You mentioned somewhere that you wrote the stories for many audiences, who are reflected in your characters. What has been the reaction of folks from the Virgin Islands?

TY: I had told my wonderful press, Graywolf, that I wanted to have my major book party in the Virgin Islands. But I had some trepidation going back home, because I thought, well, I have this “Street Man” story, I have cusswords, sex. I thought people would say, “She’s talking about me!” But people were very welcoming. Graywolf donated books to my old high school, so all the seniors had read the book. It’s funny: they didn’t seem to think that my writing about the Virgin Islands had been so radical, although I thought it was!

KCF: Are there other storytellers in the family?

TY: I was raised by my grandmother, this very strong, confident black woman who had a masters degree in library science. She was the children’s librarian at the one public library on the island. She would tell us Ananse stories, and fiction stories she would make up. I have a lot of journalers in my family. A lot say, “I have this book I’m working on, and when you get the chance, Tiph, would you look at it?” It’s pretty exciting.

KCF: When did you decide to become a writer?

TY: As long as I’ve known, I’ve been writing. I don’t think I’ve told this story before—maybe in second grade, I left my notebook at school, so I couldn’t do my homework over the weekend. I remember my grandmother being insistent that I had left it. And Kim, I convinced myself that I had not! I was crying, but I had a strange feeling of power. In fact, I reference that feeling with the character Cooper, who ends up in jail for his lying and thievery. I think fiction writers are kind of liars. It could have taken me towards lying and stealing, but it took me towards writing. So maybe I’ve turned my evil power into good!

I feel like I know myself when I’m writing. I am myself when I’m writing. In grad school, I could have gone either the route of a literature professor or a creative writer. I get to be both now at Drew.

KCF: How do you balance your writing with teaching, and with maintaining residencies in both the mainland US and Virgin Islands?

TY: I probably don’t balance it very well! I really care about teaching, and it takes precedence. But,

I’m also very good at writing in unusual places. I can write in my office or on the train on my way to work, or on planes.

KCF: Do you think it helps your writing, having this dual residency?

TY: On a craft level, it’s an incredible benefit, to be able to leave the place that you’re writing about, to get some distance and better perspective. But it makes marketing and reception difficult. Am I qualified for the Caribbean prizes? Can I compete for the Commonwealth Prize? No. Am I qualified for the African-American prizes? Which section do you put me in in the bookstore? And which one do I want to be in?

KCF: In your essay, “My Superhero Secret,” you indicated that some might assume you’ve won so many awards because of your ethnicity. Do you think others will still want you to prove something extra, even if more awards come?

TY: I think it’s particularly sad that in the intellectual and creative field that you and I are in, it’s still a problem. It’s not just black and white; it’s based on people’s pure insecurities—if they didn’t get the award, there must be a reason. I’m like, go work harder! Toni Morrison, who’s won a Nobel and a Pulitzer, was asked recently on NPR, “Did you mean to do x, y, and z in this book?” And Toni Morrison said, “How many prizes do I have to win before you recognize that I mean to do everything that I do?

I’m not stumbling upon this brilliance.” I’m working my ass off at it! The truth is, a lot of people of color aren’t winning a lot of prizes, so people think, oh, we need a black person to win a National Book Award now. Well, yeah we do! If that’s what it takes for you to finally look at this brilliant black writer,

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that’s fine with me. I don’t have a problem with affirmative action!

KCF: Ditto. So what next?

TY: I’m working on two novels and a collection of poetry. I’m not sure which one will pop next. Having a first book come out has given me a lot of calm.

It’s been reviewed well so far, and that gives me an incredible amount of confidence. It makes me feel like I can do this again. H

Excerpt “The Saving Work” How to Escape from a Leper Colony

by Tiphanie Yanique Students don’t think Violet is white from America.

They assume she is Frenchy and native to the islands because she talks with native inflections and because she’s been on the island since before they were born.

Mr. de Flaubert works for the government in the tax system. He is a cog, but he tells his daughters and his wife that he is an accountant. He makes decent money, but with all those girls the money does not last. He, too, wishes he were a preacher. He knows he could give good sermons. He longs to reach out and put his hands on people and speak in tongues and see flames of Jesus spark on their heads.

Violet de Flaubert is a teacher in the school where her daughters and Deidre’s son are enrolled. She teaches high school because her daughters are in

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high school. Before that she taught middle school.

And before that she was a teacher’s aide in the elementary school. She is a teacher because she is a mother. To her they are the same thing.

Two of her daughters are students in her Sunday school class. All five of her girls are strangely beautiful and brilliant. And they all have a saving flaw.

One is overly shy, another is overly bookish, another cares only for her violin and practices incessantly, one is prone to fits, and the last is a bit of a tart. But even this last one reads science fiction and is friends with the oily-faced girls.

Jasmine is the eldest. She is the shy one. She has a debilitating crush on a boy named Moby. Moby is the shortstop of the baseball team and during football season he is the quarterback and during basketball he is the tall center. Many girls are fond of Moby, and quiet Jasmine does not stand a chance.

Though Moby has every now and then complimented her on her outfit during free clothes day or asked her about calculus, Jasmine hasn’t said more than a few sentences to him during their entire middle and high school years together.

Jasmine is unaware of Thomas Thompson’s adoration for her. She thinks of him as the brother she never had, and in high school she went to watch his soccer games. But this island is American and soccer isn’t yet popular. No one thinks that the soccer players are valiant. Jasmine doesn’t understand the game at all and thinks the players look like overgrown squirrels fighting for a nut.

Despite the friendship of their children, Deirdre Thompson and Violet de Flaubert hate each other.

They act, of course, as though they are very good friends. H

I often find myself thinking beyond the people on stamps, T-shirts, and posters to the not-so-iconic figures.

In Chuck D’s “Fight the Power,” he says, “Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamp.” But, many of the people he alludes to have been “stamped” and made safe by ignorance and the distance of time. This poem hints that the people we study aren’t the only ones worth knowing. We have to keep digging up their, the Rustin-like figures, histories and remember them.

NS: One could easily replace Venus, the spectacle from “Venus Hottentot’s Onlookers,” with another such spectacle, and tweak lines to form another other, another instance of othering. In “digging up” Venus’ history, was your initial connection to this poem birthed out of being othered yourself?

TB: I heard a vicious voice in my head that sounded

like it was looking at the often cited image used to portray hip hop—the gyrating exposed behind of a black woman. I asked myself, “What would Saartjie Baartman think?” The poem, however, poured out into the brutal, terse voice of a spectator who would look on at Baartman and her descendants without distinction. The spectator’s voice categorizes and distances itself from Baartman in order to feel superior.

I am not sure about my own othering being the wellspring for this poem. I simply saw myself doing a different take on Elizabeth Alexander’s spare contemplative lines that shape the significant book of poems, The Venus Hottentot. I certainly didn’t see myself writing a novel like Barbara Chase-Riboud’s Hottentot Venus or Suzan-Lori Parks’ play, Venus.

NS: If A&H were a play, what would its plot elements be? Its visual components?

TB: There are different tones and scenes in each section.

There is the development of a young woman from a foundation, literal and literary. The first section is about birth and burgeoning sexuality. The following sections would be imbued with jazz and hip hop, city scenes and international streets. All of the different voices would inform a central narrator who debunks all the limitations that

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Photo credit: WideVision Photography/Marcia E. Wilson

heroes for any political movement. Or, the circumstances of the time push people out of textbooks.

Had he lived, we would have a different understanding of Che Guevara. Or, if homosexuality and interracial relationships were viewed differently, we might celebrate Bayard Rustin more openly. People latch on to the most arresting characters, not always those who were the most instrumental.

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others have tried to force upon her and the voices her scenes inhabit. There would be children, hip hop, colored chalk, Tina Turner, young people running, a cracked ceiling, the sound of rats and, hopefully, the opening of a new day.

NS: In the book’s foreword, Afaa Michael Weaver writes, “This is a voice that has apprenticed itself to poets who write for the world and not to it, and in writing for the world she reveals her own world…”

Describe the world(s) for which you write.

TB: When Afaa said this, I think he meant that some poets write for an exclusive circle that understands each other’s references and back-patting. The worlds I envision writing for are many but, I think, A&H speaks to people from some of the same circumstances that birthed me: poor and working class people, black people, and women. This might be too simplistic though, as we are human beings who experience longing, nostalgia, and a will to envision possibilities despite difficult circumstances.

When I think of worlds, I think of Naomi Shihab Nye talking about how children memorize poems, as if they’re carrying around their favorite polished marble in their pockets. I also consider Pablo Neruda’s “Great Happiness” from Canto General, and how the miner knows Neruda’s poems. Poets must embrace what makes them part of the global community, but they must also understand the everyday life of those who never leave the block. H

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as a young man, you know I had a repertoire. My father would play his records all the time. Saturday mornings he’d wake us up at the crack of dawn playing The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Commodores, Al Green. Sometimes he’d take out some of his albums and show us pictures from ’Nam, sometimes he’d be sitting there smoking. It was a way for him to access the silence I think we all need at some point.

I was re-reading the manuscript the other day and was struck by how much music there is in it. Even when I don’t think it’s there, it’s there playing somewhere in the background. I think this is true of most black poets. Music for most of us, I think, is the art with which we’re most consistently in contact.

Few of us visit museums with any regularity, not everyone reads for pleasure. But everyone listens to music, some kind of music whether in your headphones or while driving to work. It teaches us how to feel deeply, how to be human. I learned how to touch a woman from listening to Prince, Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes taught me how to walk through life.

I’m always interested in what we name/call things.

What does Up Jump The Boogie mean to you?

There’s a passage in that song, “Aquaboogie,” by Parliament-Funkadelic, that I love. It says, “With the rhythm it takes to dance through what we got to live through, you can dance underwater and not get wet.” They’re speaking of the grace, the impossible grace that allows us to get through the struggle that life is. What we had to go through as a people takes such grace. In my poems--in this book, in particular-I want to speak to both the grace and the struggle.

A lot of time what sustains us is that rhythm, that music. The title, Up Jump the Boogie, for me at

least, is evocative of both.

Theme Three: Family and Community in Literature

How has NY informed you as an artist? You’ve lived more than half your life someplace else?

Narratives and Poems: Attica Locke’s Black Water Rising Maryse Conde’s Victoire Jabari Asim’s A Taste of Honey Tara Betts’ “Branching” and “For Those Who Need a True Story”

One, the writers here are so good you really have to step your game up, and I have to say the same thing about D.C.—it has many talented writers, but the stage here is much larger. And I was fortunate enough to find community here in New York of youngish writers who are serious about their craft. So it’s good to have those people around. But you asked me about New York and how it informed my art.

That whole Nuyorican Movement, I guess, from its origins, a lot of that also informed my aesthetic even before I got here by way of Willie Perdomo, Miguel Pinero, Pedro Pietri. Plain English you understand, but when you do it in another language…metaphor, sound, all these things that we expect from good poetry. But it’s also very clear that it’s meant for people.

It’s not meant to be difficult, it’s communication. It has a certain swagger to it that I can relate to. It’s of the people and for the people. At least that’s what I want poetry to be. I’d rather write to people and that’s what I think they did in the Nuyorican Movement and I’m attracted to that. H

Topics for Discussion: 1. How much do family members know about each other? How much does Jay’s wife know about his daily encounters in Locke’s novel? Why is Conde compelled to trace her family line and learn about her matrilineal heritage in Victoire? In Asim’s collection, who knows Rose better, her husband or Gabriel? What role do family secrets play in the lives of characters in all three books?

2. In “Branching,” the speaker of the poem remembers “my uncle / who resides where all trees go.”

Where do trees “go,” and where do you think this uncle resides? Do you think it is significant that the speaker of the poem is with her nephew when she thinks about the uncle? What impact does family seem to have on the speaker of this poem?

3. What is your emotional response to “For Those Who Need a True Story,” and what aspects of the poem make you feel this way? What seems to be the relationship between Raymond and his mother?

What do you think the act of poisoning and collecting the rats for payment does to their relationship?

Can you smell the scent of poverty by paying attention to the details in this poem? Is this the smell of Raymond’s childhood? Is it fair to say that Raymond’s childhood has been poisoned by this experience; and, if so, who is responsible for poisoning Raymond’s innocence?

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4. Consider the titles of both of Betts’ poems. What do you think each title means?

5. Conde chooses to name her novel after the grandmother she seeks to discover through the writing process. Do you think this title is significant?

Why has Victoire the person been silenced through the generations? Does naming the book after her grandmother help reinforce Conde’s important act of naming and claiming an authentic identity for her grandmother?

6. Consider the communities rendered in Locke’s novel and in Asim’s collection of short stories. How does community impact family in each book? Think about the list of nicknames in Asim’s first story, “I’d Rather Go Blind.” What do all these names tell the careful reader about the Gateway community and the families that live there?

7. Is Jay connected to his community in Locke’s novel? What role does his father-in-law play in keeping the family connected to a larger and important local Houston community?

Essay Idea: Write about the way(s) families are impacted by political, social, and economic pressures in the literature. When a community experiences social unrest or political manipulation in these books, what happens to the families within that community? Do characters need to rely on functional families when society works against them? What happens to individual characters when families become dysfunctional as a result of socio-political pressures? What happens to individual characters when families experience financial distress? In what ways do communities become like family and assist characters?

Think about characters’ participation in progressive

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movements for change within each narrative. What role do political, social, and economic realities play in family life in these books?

Additional Activities: 1. Form a group and create a ‘community tree’ for one of the narratives. Make your community tree the same way you would a family tree, but include neighbors, friends, and even antagonistic characters that live in the neighborhood depicted by the author you choose. As you make the tree, think about the role(s) certain characters play in the fiction. For example, maybe Jay Porter’s father-in-law should be positioned on the trunk of a Black Water Rising community tree because he offers a strong base of support for so many other characters in the novel.

Perhaps you want to position Jay and his pregnant wife together on one branch of the tree because together they form an important family in the Houston community where they live. Should the white dock workers and the black dock workers be placed on different branches or on the same branch? Think about their relationship and decide. If you do a community tree for A Taste of Honey, decide if Rose should be positioned with her husband, with Gabriel, both of them, or neither. Should Rose’s husband’s name be placed on a leaf because he eventually falls away or disappears? Your community tree will express both the relationships within families and the relationships families have with each other.

2. Write a poem about family. You may wish to write about your own family, the family you’d like to form one day in the future, or a family you know but are not related to. You might even want to write a poem about one of the families in the narratives. Once you decide, think about Betts’ poetry and the way she renders family relationships through her use of the tree in “Branching.” Like Betts, make sure your

poem contains one important symbol to express an important idea about the family you write about.

The tree in “Branching” is an important symbol for loss, life, pain, and renewal. What would symbolize the family you select? Would it be an element of the natural world, like water, a stone, earth, or the stars?

Would a man-made item, like a grandfather clock or comfy couch, work best?

3. Think about the Gateway community in Asim’s short story collection. What are the positive aspects of community life in Gateway? What are the negative aspects of community life? Form groups and think about the community where your school is located. What are the best people, places, and things in your school community? What things need some improvement? Do an assessment of your community’s overall health. After you draft a thorough assessment, write a prescription for community improvement. What things could young people, adults, and community organizations do to make your community even better? Develop an action plan that has one to three clear goals for community improvement, specific steps to achieve each goal, and a reasonable timeline to make permanent improvements in community life. Consider way(s) to implement your action plan. Which individuals and organizations would be helpful in helping to improve community life? What would be the best way to organize your community and successfully complete your action plan?

that would benefit from an afternoon cleanup? Do you have an empty lot that could be turned into a garden? Plan a community service project that you could do as a group or as a class to help serve your community.

Supplemental Reading (narratives about family in community): Brown Girl, Brownstones, Paule Marshall Anna In-Between, Elizabeth Nunez All Aunt Hagar’s Children, Edward P. Jones Blond Faith, Walter Mosley Another Good Loving Blues, Arthur Flowers The Good Negress, AJ Verdelle Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison Philadelphia Fire, John Edgar Wideman

4. While you are in groups, come up with one community service project you could easily do together.

Identify the people in your community that are most in need. Does your community include elderly residents who live alone or people with special needs? What places in your community are most in need? Do you have a working ball field or courts

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nada, zip, zilch (What most kids know about preparing for college.)

Without the help of an adult, it may be confusing for students to find their way to college. If you know a student with dreams of a higher education, do your part and help lead the way. Learn how at...

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